Mexican Drug War

Experts say Mexico's President FelipeCalderon needs to get entrenched problems in the penal and judicial system under control if he is to have any chance of winning a war that has claimed more than 28,000 lives since late 2006 and sparked fears that drug trafficking organizations could turn Mexico into a lawless narco state.

President Felipe Calderón summoned legislators to participate later this week in his continuing discussions with all of Mexico’s political establishment about how to win the war against the drug trafficking organizations. Is legalization on the table?

Yet another Mexican politican falls prey to drug prohibition violence. Security forces have found the handcuffed and blindfolded body of kidnapped mayor Edelmiro Cavazos of the northern Mexican city of Santiago. Cavazos was taken from his home by armed men on Sunday night.

After 28,000 have died in its latest push to fight drug trafficking organizations, and with other tragic consequences of drug prohibition now so evident, Mexico opens the debate on legalizing drugs.

Perhaps targeted for his efforts to clean up Santiago's corrupt police force, Mayor Edelmiro Cavazo was abducted by suspected drug hitmen in the latest surge in drug prohibition violence threatening to undermine industry and scare off investors in Mexico. The abduction follows a spike in violence over the weekend in northern Mexico, where rival gangs are battling for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes into the United States.

Intelligence received from the Alliance for Combating Transnational Threats has led city police radio dispatchers to alert officers about potential violence in El Paso stemming from Mexican drug trafficking organization rivalries.

Mexico's largest television broadcaster and the largest producer of Spanish language content in the world, Televisa, has come under attack by drug trafficking organizations in the northern city of Monterrey. Investigators say it was a warning for journalists to stay away from reporting on drug prohibition violence.