Mexico's 'Drug War' Is Not About Drugs

Mexico's 'Drug War' Is Not About Drugs
An armed man stands guard at a barricade in the outskirts of Apatzingan, Michoacan State, Mexico, on February 9, 2014. Vigilante militias that have fought a drug cartel in western Mexico for a year entered on Saturday a city considered a key gang bastion and they are helping authorities police the town. Michoacan, where much of the population lives in poverty, has become the most pressing security issue facing Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto, who inherited a bloody war on drugs. AFP PHOTO/Enrique Castro (Photo credit should read ENRIQUE CASTRO/AFP/Getty Images)
An armed man stands guard at a barricade in the outskirts of Apatzingan, Michoacan State, Mexico, on February 9, 2014. Vigilante militias that have fought a drug cartel in western Mexico for a year entered on Saturday a city considered a key gang bastion and they are helping authorities police the town. Michoacan, where much of the population lives in poverty, has become the most pressing security issue facing Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto, who inherited a bloody war on drugs. AFP PHOTO/Enrique Castro (Photo credit should read ENRIQUE CASTRO/AFP/Getty Images)

TIERRA COLORADA, Mexico — Major events these days in Mexico's seven-year-long criminal conflict have precious little to do with a war on drugs.

In the past year, the capture of town after town by volunteer police and citizen militias in the Pacific coast states of Michoacan and Guerrero has roiled and embarrassed President Enrique Pena Nieto's government.

Officials have dispatched thousands of troops and militarized police to contain the “self-defense” groups, which claim they're filling a vacuum left by incompetent or corrupt officials.

Before You Go

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