Prohibition-caused threats and violence by drug trafficking organizations are preventing some government oil workers from reaching installations in northern Mexico and costing state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos about $350,000 every day in lost production. That amounts to about $10.5 million per month, or about 2.3 percent of Mexico's $450 million per month average in monthly natural gas revenues.

The University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College is planning an emergency text messaging system as part of its strategy to alert students and faculty to dangers amid the drug prohibition war raging across the Rio Grande. One recent intelligence alert had campus police knocking on dorm doors in the middle of the night to warn students to stay indoors.

With killings and disappearances to assert their authority, Mexico's prohibition-created drug trafficking organizations are beginning to interfere with everyday government activities in pockets of the country, keeping workers off their turf and interrupting some of the most basic services. Not only do they maintain checkpoints and kill police or mayors to control territory, they now try to keep everyone from mid-level officials to delivery truck drivers and meter readers out of rural areas they use to transport drugs, stash weapons and kidnap victims, and hide from authorities. In the process, they are blocking deliveries of gasoline, pension checks, farm aid and other services to Mexicans.

Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, also known as 'Tony Tormenta,' the highest-profile leader of a powerful drug trafficking organization, was gunned down by Mexican government forces this weekend, but signs that the death will lead to more violence and turf battles have terrified residents.