Mexican drug cartels and their negative influence on the Mexican state through the eighties and nineties to present

Since the 1960s, Mexican drug cartels have continually been a major problem to the normal functioning of the Mexican state. Drug syndicates persistently apply corruption and violence, which in turn destabilizes the country’s structures providing them with further impunity and security from law enforcement. In the following paper, I intend to show the beginnings of Mexican drug business: its genesis and the evolution of Mexican Drug Cartels, as well as the negative effects of their activities in contemporary Mexico’s territory. I will focus on three distinct periods that vividly illustrate transformations occurring in the Mexican drug trafficking industry. These will be: the origins of drug business and the El Padrino era, the 1990s, and the 21st century.