Mexico

• The cartels have people on the border to make sure any one trying to cross border pays them a tax. The cartels are doing a better job of policing the U. S. Mexico border than either country.
• Governess, police chiefs and U. S. diplomats are being shot in broad daylight.
• Kidnapping is an industry. It is only a matter of time before this sort of thing starts happening on U. S. streets.
• The cartels set up check points and look like military. Wen the cartels are looking for someone or something, they go door to door and do not stop until they are satisfied.
• The press is scared to report anything bad going on. The cartels have their own press secretaries. In some cases, stories are run past the cartels and the press has come right out and said they will comply if the cartels just tell them what they can and cannot pursue.
• No one wants to go to the police because they are either another branch of the cartels or worse, on their own with no backup.
• The cartels make blockades where they car-jack people and use the vehicles to block roads to protest arrests.
• There are heavy weapon shootouts in the middle of the day, downtown in many cases.

Some say that the drug wars going on in the northern part of Mexico are a revolution in disguise. The locals in some cases prefer the courts that have been set up by the cartels over the current government because the verdicts are more fare and more likely to be enforced. 105 tons of marijuana were recently seized on the way to California.

Soon it may be legal to grow you own pot in some states. Most people in Mexico blame the demand for drugs in the United States for the money that pours in and corrupts capitalism in their country. I have a hard time arguing with this. We have outsourced our illegal drug production with frightening results. This has not worked out for anyone. I'm still not convinced making some currently illegal drugs legal will fix anything. It would be nice to have the tax revenue.