They are all over our country and the Dept. of Justice and the rest of the federal government know this. The DoJ says Mexico produced 15,500 metric tons of pot in 2007 and most of it came here. The feds say that Mexicans bring in and distribute about 90% of the cocaine (2nd most popular illegal drug) consumed in this country and better than 80% of the heroin and meth. Marijuana is their big money maker, because they sell thousands of tons of that compared to hundreds of tons of all the other illegal drugs combined. The other drugs piggy back in on the pot and are distributed through the same channels. They are by far the biggest wholesalers of illegal drugs in this country today, and have been for quite a while now. What's been changing slowly but surely is that they are taking an ever increasing role in distributing the drugs here in this country after they've been smuggled in. The drugs are changing hands fewer times after they leave the hands of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations, thus these organizations are making more of the profits. These drugs tend double in value several times from the point they leave Mexico to the point they end up in a consumers hands. They aren't usually the ones selling directly to consumers, because that's the way you get caught, but they are trying to get within a couple of layers above those who sell to consumers so they take a bigger percentage of the profits that will be made from the drugs from the time they leave their point of origin t the time they reach consumers’ hands.
Life in prison for dealers would help put a stop to this.
Or maybe go back to the very early days of handling serious crime — public hangings. That one would work for sure.
The country just can’t get serious enough about stopping drugs. Could be the pay-off is under the table... while the country goes up in smoke.