They’re killing people in Juarez.
On Monday they hung a banner off a bridge. The full text of the banner was pixilated out in news photos, but La Polaka reported that the gist of it was Death to Meth Dealers.
The Juarez city government has also initiated a campaign to get the citizens to eschew meth. Just Say No. We all know how good those campaigns work.
The domestic drug market in Juarez is (very) conservatively measured at $200 million a year. Some informed estimates put it at closer to $500 million.
The word on the street is that one of the competing cartels has a near monopoly on crystal meth, and crystal meth is becoming the drug of choice for street level drug abusers.
From an article by Lauren Villagran in the Albuquerque Journal:
One addict says it’s 100 times better than heroin or cocaine. He’s talking about the methamphetamine that Mexican cartels provide to U.S. users in huge quantities but have tried to ban in Juárez. Dealers were even warned recently that anyone trafficking in meth locally would be killed in a “cleansing.” Even so, meth use has surged in Juárez, wreaking the same destruction on users there that it does in the U.S.
I guess the cartel that didn’t sell meth decided that if you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.
For Americans going to Juarez, I recommend not hanging out with meth dealers.