Transcript The Drug Trade - University of Warwick

The Drug Trade
AM102
Cartel Land, Dir. Matthew Heineman,
2015
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkYBbBK
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• Think about the usefulness and limitations of
this film as a source.
Questions for discussion
• How has the drug trade affected politics and
society in Mexico?
• What has been the relationship between the
state and the drug trade?
Michoacán
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Isaac Campos, “Degeneration and the Origins of the War on Drugs,” Mexican
Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 26, no. 2 (2010): 379-408 (CORE READING)
Benjamin T. Smith, Drug Policies in Mexico, 1900-1980, Beatriz C.Labate, Clancy
Cavnar, & Thiago Rodrigues, (eds.), Drug Policies and the Politics of Drugs in Latin
America. (Cham: Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2016)
Isaac Campos and Paul Gootenberg, “Toward a New Drug History of Latin America:
A Research Frontier at the Center of Debates,”, Hispanic American Historical
Review, 95, no. 1 (Feb. 2015): 1-35.
Peter Watt and Robert Zepeda, Drug War Mexico
Elaine Carey, "Selling is More of a Habit than Using": Narcotraficante Lola la Chata
and Her Threat to Civilization, 1930-1960 in Journal of Women’s History, 21.2
(Summer 2009)
Isaac Campos, Homegrown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012)
Mark Cameron Edberg, El Narcotrafficante: Narcocorridos and the Construction of
a Cultural Persona on the US-Mexico Border
Charles Bowden, Molly Molloy, El Sicario, Confessions of a Cartel Hitman (New
York: Nation Books, 2011)
Terrence Poppa, Drug Lord. The life and death of a Mexican kingpin, (Seattle:
Demand Press, 1998)
Articles by Peter Watt, Trevor Stack and Ben Smith online in ‘The Conversation’
Essay Questions
• How is the downfall and decline of the PRI
connected to the rise of the drug cartels?
• Did or does the Mexican state benefit in any
way from the drug trade?
• How has the development of the drug trade
effected the lives of peasants in Mexico?
• How have the Mexican drug cartels adapted to
an increasingly globalised world?
Essay Questions
• To what extent have drug cartels in Mexico come to
supplement the services of the state in some areas?
To what extent do preferences for drug consumption in the
US effect the nature of the drug trade/ cartels in Mexico?
• To what extent has the war on drugs changed the nature of
the drug trade?
• To what extent has the development of neoliberalism
contributed to an escalation of the drug trade in Mexico?
How has the drug trade influenced US-Mexican relations
and foreign policy?
• Assess the extent of collaboration between state officials
and the cartels?
Essay Questions
• To what extent did government policies
encourage rather than quell the power of the
cartels?
• Has democratization caused the current situation
of cartel violence and control in Mexico?
Was neo-liberalism the main reason behind the
proliferation of drug cartels and the escalation of
violence in the context of the War on Drugs?
• What has been the effect of US policy on the drug
cartel situation?