After exploring the recent death of Mexico's antinarcotics chief, I decided to explore where much of the funding for Mexican drug cartels comes from. The latest killing of Edgar Millan Gomez (see my previous blog post) has now been linked to a Sinaloan drug cartel (see: NY Times article) and occurred shortly after several of its members were arrested by Millan Gomez.
I found two intriguing maps in the University of Texas at Austin's Perry-CastaÑeda Library Map Collection. Both are from a 2001 Drug Enforcement Agency report detailing the cultivation of illegal drugs in Mexico. The map on the top shows the cultivation of cannabis; the map on the bottom shows poppy growth.
The states with the highest cultivation rates, Sinaloa (upper-left), Guerrero (bottom left), and Michoacan (bottom left, next to Guerrero) are also the homes of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels, such as Los Negros from Sinaloa. Michoacan is also the home of Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, and the sight of recent drug battles.
Thus, Mexican drug cartels produce significant quantities of marijuana and heroin, which are then shipped to the world's largest consumer of illegal drugs , the United States. Notably, most of the cocaine in the U.S. is produced in South America (Colombia, Bolivia, Peru) and then funneled through Mexico in conjunction with local cartels.