Violence erupted across Mexico in the immediate aftermath of the February 22 killing of the drug lord known as “El Mencho,” Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes. He died of gunshot wounds after a Mexican military operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, that was assisted by United States intelligence.
At least 73 people were killed in the initial raid and retaliatory attacks around the country, as vehicles and businesses were set on fire, roads were barricaded, and residents and tourists in several regions were told to shelter in place.
Though that initial violence has now calmed, all signs point to the operation leading to longer-term strife—due to a power vacuum within El Mencho’s organization, known as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and the prospect of other groups looking to seize CJNG turf.
Oseguera Cervantes’ son is in prison in the US, and he reportedly has no clear successor. So we can expect both an internal struggle for control of CGNJ and other groups seeking to take advantage, as everyone fights (or bribes) police and the military. Such battles within and among Mexico’s major drug trafficking organizations are characterized by extreme brutality. Whoever comes out on top and takes El Mencho’s spot will hardly be a humanitarian.
As the Institute for Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) describes, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has been heavily militarized and territorially aggressive in cornering a large chunk of the market to export fentanyl and methamphetamine to the US.
“The breakdown of an alliance between the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel in 2017 marked the beginning of a steep rise in cartel conflict deaths nationwide,” the IEP states. “Between 2015 and 2019, the national homicide rate climbed from 15.1 to 28.2 deaths per 100,000 people. This period overlapped directly with the CJNG’s expansion across Mexico.”
“This kind of action doesn’t serve its stated purpose of eradicating drugs from society and instead creates infighting within and between violent groups jockeying for market control.”
By the early 2020s, however, the IEP notes that CJNG and the Sinaloa group had largely consolidated their respective areas of control, leading to more stability in some regions as murders began falling.
“Where criminal hegemony is firmly established, open confrontation may decline, even if criminal governance deepens,” the report observes. “Jalisco and Sinaloa —strongholds of the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel—have at times seen comparatively infrequent incidents of political violence, suggesting that entrenched control can reduce overt conflict.”
Decades of violent drug-war enforcement in Mexico and the US have unquestionably failed to stem the flow of drugs. What’s equally clear is that “decapitating” trafficking organizations invites turf wars.
“This kind of action, just like the war on drugs more broadly, doesn’t serve its stated purpose of eradicating drugs from society and instead creates infighting within and between violent groups jockeying for market control,” Catherine Cook, acting executive director of Harm Reduction International, told Filter.
One fear is that a vicious circle will see more enforcement in response to more violence, sidelining any prospects of Mexico adopting a different approach to the drug trade.
“The impact of this in Mexico is being felt widely,” Cook said. “Necessary discussions on drug policy reform, investing in communities and health, must be prioritized over the war-on-drugs approach.”
“In addition to violence, fractures among non-state actors can lead to the takeover of other markets.”
Zara Snapp, a drug policy expert based in Veracruz and cofounder of Instituto RIA, a civil society organization conducting research and advocacy, doesn’t think the government of Mexico has a drug policy—instead, she told Filter, it merely enforces US drug policy.
This should be considered in light of implicit and explicit US threats—most obviously, those from President Donald Trump to bomb Mexico or conduct ground operations in an attempt to stop the drug trade.
Snapp also explained why cutting off the head of an organization will do nothing but sow chaos without disrupting drug markets in any meaningful way.
“The kingpin method has had little-to-no impact on the flow of drugs in the region and abroad,” she said. “If we take the case of El Chapo in prison in the United States, we can see it’s had little-to-no impact on fentanyl flows.
Former Sinaloa boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera, once considered the world’s most powerful drug trafficker, was captured in Mexico in 2016, before being extradited to the US the following year and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019. US overdose deaths continued to rise to unprecedented levels until 2023.
“So we know that this strategy does not work,” Snapp continued. ”What it does do is generate brutal violence. In addition to violence, fractures among non-state actors can lead to the takeover of other markets.”
Nicotine vapes, sales of which are now completely banned in Mexico, are one example of such an expansion entrenching those actors’ power in recent years. In addition to selling fentanyl and meth, CJNG is in the avocado business.
“If you squeeze one part, it only increases in another part. That’s true of actors and the people who are involved in drug production, transportation and distribution.”
“And this kingpin method doesn’t change anything because there’s always someone there to take up their role,” Snapp added. “Because demand pushes supply … there’s always going to be folks who are willing to step up. So this idea that you get rid of a powerful person, it’ll all go away, we know that’s not true.”
Snapp also described the “balloon effect” so familiar to observers of the global drug war.
“If you squeeze one part, it only increases in another part. That’s true of actors and the people who are involved in drug production, transportation and distribution,” she said. “That’s where we don’t see any difference, except for this period of adjustment, and violence is necessary for folks to establish their role in the altered landscape.”
We mustn’t forget how governments and prohibition foster this dynamic, she urged. “We have to talk about the role of the US government, Mexican government. This is something that just continues happening without any governments trying something new.”
Posing the question, “Who’s winning in this drug war?” Snapp pointed to industries—from weapons manufacturers to the prison-industrial complex—that do very nicely out of it, thank you.
“And it’s the US and global demand that makes it all happen,” she concluded, “and then all the incentives to maintain the status quo and always have us in states of war.”
Photograph (cropped) by Adrian Balasoiu on Unsplash
