More Killed At Another Drug Treatment Facility

At least 10 people, patients and therapists, were killed at another drug treatment facility in Ciudad Juarez. Armed men attacked a rehabilitation clinic for drug addicts in the violent border city for the second time in two weeks, authorities said Wednesday. The streets of Juarez are chaotic to say the least, but, this is the sixth drug treatment center attacked in the last 13 months. As we reported earlier this month 18 people were slain in the same way September 2. "Scores of treatment centers for people suffering from drug and alcohol abuse have sprung up in Mexican cities, reflecting the country's fast-growing addiction problem. Once just a pathway for drugs headed to the United States, Mexico has become a consumer nation; the government says the number of addicts increased by 51 percent from 2002 to 2008", the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Unfortunately, homes of recovery and rehabilitation have become hideouts for the very same people trafficking the drugs and the centers are used as recruiting grounds. This stark reality has led to the horrific executions by rival gangs where, sadly, innocent bystanders get caught in the mix.

"Despite a heavy military presence, Juarez is Mexico's most violent city in a raging drug war that has claimed more than 13,000 lives since December 2006", according to the SFC. Nobody is safe from the violence, Tuesday's attack at the Life Annex treatment left dead Dr. Iram Ortiz, the director, along with one female patient, seven male patients, and one other doctor. The Life Annex, whose name has become rather counter intuitive, is a center located in a working-class neighborhood of Juarez. "A survivor, who watched the massacre from a hiding place inside the clinic, told reporters that as many as eight men opened fire at random, shooting patients and anyone else in the building".

The Coco Bongo nightclub in Juarez was attacked, Wednesday, as customers were celebrating Mexican Independence Day. This shooting left five people dead and there is no doubt that this attack was drug cartel related. Once again it seems very clear that there is no safe place for anyone along the border cities; hospitals, treatment centers, and even night clubs. What will it take for Mexico to take control of its country again? The "wild west" has clearly moved south into what has become the lawless lands of beautiful, yet dangerous, Mexico. My heart goes out to all the innocent people caught in the middle of this greed driven war to supply drugs into the United States. What will it take to cure the human epidemic?

Seventeen Patients Killed in Drug Rehabilitation Center Shooting

Nobody is safe on the front line in the war on drugs in Mexico, nor in the United States. Tensions still run high despite the recent legalization of drugs in Mexico, on September 3rd, 17 patients were killed and two others were wounded in a drug rehabilitation center shooting in northern Mexico. Ciudad Juarez, a city in northern Mexico, has been the epicenter of the drug war, whose death toll has been literally "through the roof". It's a tragedy when people who are trying to better their lives by checking themselves into drug treatment centers find themselves still caught in the middle of this conflict. What will it take for people to be rid of the tyranny in Mexico? How long can the killings continue before the people of Mexico become tired and can't take it anymore demanding real change?

According to CNN, "Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said authorities believe a rival drug gang attacked the men at the El Aviane rehab facility. At the very least, it was one organized crime group thinking that another group was operating in that place," Reyes told CNN. Juarez this year has had a staggering number of murders with a death toll of more than 1,420 people. This number will only increase before the year's end and most likely surpass last year's count of 1600 people. According to a Mexican Civic Group, Ciudad Juarez has had more murders per capita than any other city in the world. With a population of roughly 1.5 million people, that's 130 killings per 100,000 people was seen in a report released last week by the Mexican Citizens Council for Public Security; compared to New Orleans, which had more killings than any other city in the United States, who had 64 killings to every 100,000 people in 2008.

The constant war to control drug trade routes into the United States between the two major cartels in Mexico has brought about such a high murder rate. However, control of the trafficking routes is not the only cause for the spike in murders. "An unprecedented wave of violence has washed over Mexico since Calderon declared war on drug cartels shortly after coming into office in December 2006. More than 11,000 people have since died, about 1,000 of them police", said CNN. Many of the recent murders have been in retaliation to the "so-called" offensive, which sadly has been quite ineffective. The La Familia Michoacana drug cartel and its rival Sinaloa cartel are believed to be responsible for most of the violence seen in the last few years in northern Mexico.

We are very fortunate that drug treatment facilities in the U.S. are safe places to begin the journey into recovery. Nevertheless, America is a large part of the equation regarding the extensive murders in Mexico. Mexico fuels our insatiable need for drugs, it can not be stressed enough how crucial the United States is to finding a solution to the drug war in Mexico. If we are not part of the solution then we are part of the problem and it is clear that we have been part of the latter for too long. As it is, right now, the cartels are clearly in control and that is unacceptable; the time has come for better days, we cannot sit by and watch this massacre continue.

Mexico's Drug War is Worsening

The Mexican government is sending out 45,000 troop to conflict areas throughout the country, more troops than the United States has in Afghanistan, as a result of the 11,000 dead in just under three years. Mexico's drug war is worsening and it does not seem like much can be done to curb the cartels and their bloody war over smuggling routes and government control according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "attacking offices, killing investigators, and threatening citizens who speak out".

The hot spots where most of, but not all, the action is taking place are in border cities where the drugs come one way and American guns and money go back the other way. In the U.S. guns are sold to private citizens that are often more high-powered than most government officials have throughout Mexico. Again, according to the San Francisco Chronicle: "This month, Mexican President Felipe Calderon ordered more soldiers into Ciudad Juarez, a major border town and drug entry point opposite El Paso, to quell the violence. Closer to Mexico City, he faces trouble from an upstart gang in his native state of Michoacan, where the bodies of 12 federal agents were dumped on a back road, all of them tortured and shot in the head. In response, he sent 5,500 troops to the region".

The cartels are certainly a major factor in this war, but, Americas never ending thirst for drugs is the driving force. This is a war over money, and not just any money - American money. The cartels in Mexico control all the drugs coming out of South and Central-America and it appears that Mexico has become the new Columbia. Back in March, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stated our nation's responsibility. The violence is caused by "our insatiable demand for illegal drugs."

Next month, President Obama is due at a North American summit in Guadalajara, Mexico. Obama needs to make this war one of his top priorities otherwise it will only get worse. Better attempts at drug education here in America need to take place because as long as we demand the drugs Mexico will continue to fight to supply them. Furthermore, better gun policies need to be enacted; Mexicans killing with our guns makes us partly liable. Mexican drugs are the gasoline that fuel America's engine of addiction.