The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade

This is a detailed and wildly frustrating book about the history of drugs in Mexico.

To be technically correct, it’s about the industry of drugs in Mexico, but the one truth that shines through: not a lot of drugs get used in Mexico. The country’s drug trade is a big factory to supply it’s addicted neighbor to the north. The demand for drugs in the U.S. is so big, that no amount of work will shut off the supply.

Some things I learned:

• A lot of expertise about drugs came from Chinese immigrants to Mexico in the early part of the 20th century. They brought knowledge and skill in processing opium. They were racially persecuted and basically kicked out of the country, but they left behind expertise in heroin manufacturing.

• Corruption in Mexican politics and law enforcement is so pervasive that it’s a significant part of the economy. Many people can only make ends meet because they’re taking money from drug traffickers. Bribery goes very, very high in Mexican politics, sometimes up to the cabinet level.

• Entire local economies exist because of the drug trade. Without it, many towns and urban areas would collapse. Incoming drug money is the only thing that keeps them afloat.

• About 18,000 vehicles cross the southern border every day. You could fit America’s daily drug supply into just 13 trucks (with the exception of weed, drugs are very compact). So, good luck stopping that.

• A lot of the drug violence in Mexico isn’t directly related to drugs, but rather to “protection rackets.” For a long time, it was Mexican law enforcement demanding money to leave traffickers alone, but now some big traffickers have learned there’s good money in harassing lower-level traffickers and forcing them to pay money to be left alone. The industry has started to prey on itself.

• All stronger drug laws seem to do is ratchet up the violence. When the “war on drugs” started in the 1980s, violence went off the charts. In 2006, the murder rate was on the same level as Baghdad, Iraq. The drugs are going to get made and trafficked; the only question seems to be how high the stakes are and how many people are going to die in the process.

• Corruption in American drug enforcement is pretty bad too. Many DEA agents have been caught taking money, because there’s just so much of it.

• The “French Connection” was a real thing (not just a movie). In the 1960s, lots of heroin was manufactured in Marseilles, France, then shipped to Mexico because it was easier to get over the southern border than to bring it in directly from Europe. Mexico is often a “transshipment” point for incoming drugs, rather than the actual origin.

• Marijuana from Mexico is not much of a thing anymore. Given that it’s mostly legal in the U.S., Mexico is now bringing in heroin and opioids manufactured elsewhere.

Here’s an example of how much money is in the drug trade – one trafficker just started stealing airliners to move drugs. Not prop planes – like, Boeing 727s (maybe this one). If one of them crashed (empty), he didn’t care because the drugs he could move in just one trip were worth 300x the value of the plane. He could move a load of drugs, then just ditch the plane in the ocean if he wanted.

The book was both compelling and depressing. Drugs are such a wicked problem that it’s tough to figure out which “end” of the problem to concentrate on. The book makes it seem that brutal enforcement of supply is not doing much, but has an emphasis on reducing demand done much either?

No answers. Just lots of sad questions.