Benjamin Smith

In his decade in the drug business, Cruz demonstrated a singular lack of ambition. As his brothers moved up the hierarchy from transporters to gunmen to local chiefs, they often mocked their shy, diminutive sibling. But Cruz didn’t mind. He liked being a lookout. The job allowed him to wander the stunning, rolling landscape above his ranch. It allowed him to look after his ageing mother.

In his decade in the drug business, Cruz demonstrated a singular lack of ambition. As his brothers moved up the hierarchy from transporters to gunmen to local chiefs, they often mocked their shy, diminutive sibling. But Cruz didn’t mind. He liked being a lookout. The job allowed him to wander the stunning, rolling landscape above his ranch. It allowed him to look after his ageing mother.

It was here, as he awaited deportation, that I first spoke to him. His lawyer had asked me to work pro bono as an expert witness in his case.

Such myths serve a purpose. They demonize the drug traffickers and cement the narrative of the drug war as a struggle between good and evil. They legitimize official violence. Drug cops carry guns because they must fight well-armed traffickers; they shoot but only when shot at; they torture but only because pulling some farmer’s fingernails prevents some conveniently vague future death.

This combination of high demand and low wages has generated enormous incentives to produce and traffic drugs.

For over a century, observers deemed this system corruption. (“Corrupt officials are in league with the traffickers,” reported the same 1932 El Paso newspaper.) Yet corruption is an imprecise and unhelpful term. Such a blanket expression obscures what has always been a subtle and shifting set of arrangements.

Just as in Mexico, the enormous profits from the drug trade have been tough to resist. And they have persuaded many agents from local law enforcement, Customs, the DEA, and the CIA to either look the other way or overtly protect the trade. However, unlike in Mexico, American observers have been resistant to investigate these claims or declare any systemic fault.

Occasionally, new state authorities attempted to overturn the old protection rackets and institute their own. To do so, they frequently tracked down powerful traffickers and arrested or killed them. They then placed their own compliant traffickers in their place. New state authorities could claim to the U.S. and Mexican federal authorities that they were taking serious action on counternarcotics while also capturing the protection racket for themselves. Yet the strategy was high-risk. If the new authorities failed to control or eliminate the powerful traffickers, the attempted takeover could develop into a bloody conflict.

What is described as a conflict over the drug trade is often a conflict over the control of the protection racket.

Furthermore, over the past fifteen years, many gangs have attempted to extend these protection rackets from narcotics to other commercial enterprises. It is these attempts that have spread violence beyond the areas where drugs are traditionally grown and smuggled.