Every day the US Border Patrol must keep a constant eye on drug smuggling by Mexican cartels. There has been a lot of violence because of this drug problem that has killed many people near the border and is allowing more criminals to obtain these weapons. Much of this attention goes to the United States because many of the weapons used in the “war on drugs” are made in the United States and interfere with trade relations between both the United States and Mexico. The current violent situation in Mexico has transformed the flow of weapons on an even larger scale. During the mid-2000s former Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced his war on the cartels and led a crackdown on these organizations, along with assistance with the U.S. Since then more than 40,000 people have been killed due of this violence that took place near the US-Mexico border. Even as the United States has invested its own funds into countering drug trafficking, it has been concerned about border policies and targeting drug users on the mainland. This has made it difficult for Mexico to catch these drug lords and many have argued that the war on drugs is not successful and that a new way to deal with this problem needs to be found. Drug cartels have existed for a long time, decades before the growing influence of the Mexican cartels. , starting in Colombia, but with the disappearance of the Colombian cartels in the 1990s. The Mexicans have since taken control of the drug trafficking market and control the majority of the market entering the United States. Due to the growing number of captured drug lords, violence has increased all along the Mexican border in the Tijuana areas. This increase in violence pushes cartels to try to take control of their trade routes…half of paper…to help stop this crime. Works Cited • Beittel S, June. Drug trafficking organizations in Mexico: Origin and extent of violence. Congressional Research Service. Washington: GPO, 2008. Print.• United States Senate, Committee on Crime and Drugs, Committee on the Judiciary, and Senate Caucus on International Narcotics. Law enforcement responses to Mexican drug cartels, hearing, March 17, 2009. (Serial J-111-12) Washington: Government Printing Office, 2009.• Rawlins, Aimee. "The War on Drugs in Mexico." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, January 11, 2013. Web. December 9, 2013.• Tobin Hansen, “Extreme Violence and Narco-terrorism in Mexico,” Borderland Beat, September 14, 2012, available at: http://www.borderlandbeat .com/2009/04/test.html• Guevara , America Y. “Propaganda in Mexico's Drug War.” Strategic Security Journal 6, no. 3 Supplement. (2013): 131-151.