Drug Wars And Covert Netherworlds

Drug Wars and Covert Netherworlds describes the history of Mexican narco cartels and their regional and organizational trajectories and differences. Covering more than five decades, sociologist James H. Creechan unravels a web of government dependence, legitimate enterprises, and covert connections.

The violence that surrounds drug dealing and drug trafficking has decimated whole communities, and, in some cases, reshaped daily life in entire countries. This volume takes a closer look at the people affected by the drug trade and the efforts being made to combat it. The book includes firsthand stories, critical thinking questions, and a summative activity, all with the aim of showing the human toll of the drug economy.

Having followed Mexico's cartels for years, border security expert Sylvia Longmire takes us deep into the heart of their world to witness a dangerous underground that will do whatever it takes to deliver drugs to a willing audience of American consumers. The cartels have grown increasingly bold in recent years, building submarines to move up the coast of Central America and digging elaborate tunnels that both move drugs north and carry cash and U.S. high-powered assault weapons back to fuel the drug war. Channeling her long experience working on border issues, Longmire brings to life the very real threat of Mexican cartels operating not just along the southwest border, but deep inside every corner of the United States. She also offers real solutions to the critical problems facing Mexico and the United States, including programs to deter youth in Mexico from joining the cartels and changing drug laws on both sides of the border.

State crackdowns on drug cartels often backfire, producing entrenched 'cartel-state conflict'; deterrence approaches have curbed violence but proven fragile. This book explains why.

With the suppression of the Colombian cartels, the Mexican crime syndicates took over the Latin American drug trade, controlling ninety per cent of the cocaine entering the US. This is their story.

The powerful truth behind the war on drugs and the consequences of allowing Mexico to be overtaken by the cartels.

This is a cutting-edge true crime history detailing the inexorable rise of the ruthless Mexican drug cartels who have taken violence to new levels and plunged large parts of their home country into chaos as part of their strategy to seize control of the world's most lucrative drug market. The book takes you from the story of the Gulf Cartel, founded in the 1930s to smuggle alcohol into the US during Prohibition, to the frightening private army Los Zetas, who are the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and dangerous gang operating out of Mexico.

The domestic phase of Washington's war on drugs has received considerable criticism over the years from a variety of individuals. Until recently, however, most critics have not stressed the damage that the international phase of the drug war has done to our Latin American neighbors. That lack of attention has begun to change and Ted Carpenter chronicles our disenchantment with the hemispheric drug war. Some prominent Latin American political leaders have finally dared to criticize Washington while at the same time, the U.S. government seems determined to perpetuate, if not intensify, the antidrug crusade. Spending on federal antidrug measures also continues to increase, and the tactics employed by drug war bureaucracy, both here and abroad, bring the inflammatory "drug war" metaphor closer to reality. Ending the prohibitionist system would produce numerous benefits for both Latin American societies and the United States. In a book deriving from his work at the CATO Institute, Ted Carpenter paints a picture of this ongoing fiasco.