PLN 4

Felipe Calderon in my opinion has been one of the best presidents that Mexico has ever had. In December of 2006, former President Felipe Calderon made combating drug cartels and violence his top priority. He sent 24,000 soldiers and federal police to 9 states to fight against the cartels. The general attorney of Mexico, Eduardo Medina Mora stated that the only way Mexico can successfully defeat the cartels is if it gets more help from the U.S. in the arm trafficking and money laundering from the U.S. to Mexico. In October 2007 the “White House Office of National Drug Control Policy” said that the Mexican government increased the pressure on the cartels and helped with cocaine shortages in 37 U.S. cities and 24% increase in the price of cocaine. President Calderon made his administration stand up to threats by the cartels and claimed that it would take at least two years to take back control of Mexico. Drug violence still continues, some reports even say that "the cartels remain intact and executions have spread to previously violence-free areas." More than 45 press reports have indicated that an average of 1,900 Mexicans were killed in cartel violence in the first nine months of 2007. The Mexican government does not have statistics on cartel killings. President Calderon has increased the salaries of the people involved in the cartel operations by almost 50%. He placed the Federal Preventative Police (PFP) and the Federal Investigative Agency (AFI) under one commander so he could create one good federal police force. He then announced the "Platform Mexico" it was made to improve federal, state and local law enforcement, including a creation of a database that covers more than 5,000 police stations. On April 9, 2007, there was a report of the results of the first four months of Felipe Calderón's presidency. The results where that he captured 1,102 drug dealers, the about $500 million pesos, 556 kilograms of marijuana, 1,419 military grade weapons, two airplanes, 630 automobiles, 15 sea ships that transported drugs, and the destruction of 285 clandestine runways, 777 drug camps, 52,842 marijuana farms and 33,019 opium poppy farms. This report claims that these results stopped the distribution of 1,428,124 doses of marijuana, 17,728,000 doses of cocaine, 193,922,000 doses of heroin, and 6,996,000 toxic pills, stopping the intoxication of 647,771,000 people.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34215.pdf

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32934.pdf