Danny Rosas-Salas

English 1010

Doctor Haslam

November 11, 2021

Annotated Bibliography

Introduction: How the influence of the Mexican Drug Cartel has been impacting civilians and

various issues in Mexico and the United States? What are the solutions that will decrease the

various problems that the Mexican Drug Cartel influences and causes? Where this issue has

caused corruption within the government and the politicians in Mexico, it has caused addictions

for people in the United States, but overall has caused mass violence for many years for both

countries.

Topic/Thesis

Source # 1

Borges, Guilherme, et al. “Drug Use on Both Sides of the US-Mexico Border.” Salud Pública de

México, vol. 60, no. 4, July 2018, pp. 451–461. EBSCOhost, doi:10.21149/8603.

Guilherme Borges wrote an article called “Drug Use on Both Sides of the US-Mexico

Border,” published in the Salud Pública de México on July 4, 2018. The article discusses how

cities in the United States that are near the border of Mexico are suffering from higher drug use

problems with having a high poverty and unemployment rate. Where cities in Mexico near the

United States border suffer from the same thing, but the article expresses that the United States

border cities have a higher percentage of drug use than Mexican border cities. The information

that I plan to use is when Borges describes the issues of drug use that are being faced in cities

near the border for both the U.S. and Mexico. “While the marijuana prevalence of any illicit drug
use was similar across all sites, Laredo had higher rates of cocaine/crack/ and

methamphetamines, while Brownsville/McAllen showed lower rates of heroin or opium use,”

(Borges 454). This information will help back up my rhetorical question on the influence of the

Mexican Drug Cartel on how it is impacting people in both countries. The article is credible

because the authors conducted their own research and statistics to back up their claims on how

the drug use is higher in cities near the border. Then it is also able to cite other information that

they used in their research and explain what they found. The research that was conducted is

current with being from three years ago, yet there seems to be no bias. I wasn’t able to find

information about the publishers nor the author, but at the beginning of the article there were

multiple names listed with degrees. That could indicate the people that were involved with the

article apart from the author.

Source # 2

“Mexico's Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on

Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mexicos-long-war-drugs-crime-and-cartels.

“Mexico’s Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels,” published on the Council on

Foreign Relations describes the background information about the Mexican Drug Cartel on what

they do, who the biggest cartels are, what contributed to their growth, and other information. I

plan to use the variety of information about the drug cartel that the source uses, for it will be

helpful to introduce my rhetorical question and be able to answer the influence that the issue

causes.“Mexican drug trafficking groups-sometimes referred to as transnational criminal

organizations-dominate the import and distribution of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, marijuana, and

methamphetamine in the United States,” This will be one of the quotes that I use in my project to

inform my audience on what the drug cartel does. The quote helps explain the variety of drugs
that are being distributed by the cartel, and this demonstrates one of the issues that the drug cartel

has contributed to. The source’s publisher is trusted because they have published a variety of

other information involving the Mexican cartels, but also of other world issues. The only concern

is that there is no specific author mentioned, but the website says the editors of the website wrote

the article. There is no bias from what I have read, for they express this issue using a lot of

factual information, statistics, and other sources where they are cited at the end of the article. In

the beginning it says that it was updated on February 26, 2021 at 8:00 A.M. (EST) which

indicates that the article is current with their information.

Source # 3

Dulin, Adam. “Mexican Cartel Negotiative Interactions with the State.” Trends in Organized Crime, vol.

22, no. 2, June 2019, pp. 210–230. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s12117-017-9327-2.

Adam Dullin wrote an article called “Mexican cartel negotiative interactions with the state,”

published in Trends in Organized Crime on December 9, 2017. Dullin discusses how the Mexican Drug

Cartel uses and non-violent alternatives to favor their power and influence over Mexico. “Staggering

sums of money are paid to those who choose to look the other way, and over the years a long list of

powerful officials have worked on both sides of the law. From defense secretaries to army generals and all

manner of state and municipal officials, Mexican DTOs’ ability to use “soft tactics” has been amply

demonstrated,” (Dullin 211). Dullin expresses how the drug trafficking organizations have corrupted a

variety of government officials by paying them, and using them as an advantage to work on both sides of

the law and even ignore some of the crimes that they commit. The author says that the cartel uses this as a

non-violent and lighter alternative to gain power and influence throughout some states in Mexico. Dullin

uses resources to express that even sometimes a drug trafficking organization negotiates and uses a third

party in their conflicts with another organization for territorial control. The article uses research and other

studies to analyze the communications of the drug organizations and the tension from the control of the
territory to see if that influenced the negotiations of the cartel. Dullin argues that the conflict over territory

causes a lot of the violence that occurs in Mexico. In the research that was conducted, Dullin finds and

explains how a variety of events and violence between drug organizations was about territorial disputes

because of them trying to maintain or increase their vertical status (wealth). The author expresses that the

cartels would try to gain control of certain areas of Mexico like territories near the border or coast of

Mexico in order to increase their economic status. Dullin also expresses that these disputes involve

negotiations between other cartels or even the government. I will use this information in my civic

engagement project to explain the corruption that is involved in the government system of Mexico, and

address that the drug cartels corrupt government officials as a strategy to have territorial control in certain

areas towards their economical and integration status. In the interviews that I conducted they explained to

me that the cartel continues to be powerful because of the corruption in the government system that the

cartel has caused and influenced. I will be able to use this information from the interviews and from the

article to explain that one of the cartel’s influences is in negotiating and corrupting the Mexican

government. Overall, this article is credible because the author is able to cite the resources that he used in

his research and writing, andis able to provide a references page on the last few pages of his article. Then

the article is current or recent with being published online 4 years ago. Also there was a lot of detail and

information that the author expressed throughout the article. Especially when he explained in his research

on how the negotiations of the cartel relate to the interest of territorial control and growth in their status

by using their communications. There were no biases that I noticed throughout this article, for I think their

purpose was to research the issue of the cartel and make negotiations and inform their audience about this

result.

Source #4

Light, Michael T., et al. “Undocumented Immigration, Drug Problems, and Driving Under the

Influence in the United States, 1990-2014.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 107, no. 9,

Sept. 2017, pp. 1448–1454. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2017.303884.

 Michael T. Light, Ty Miller, Brian C. Kelly wrote an article called “Undocumented

Immigration, Drug Problems, and Driving Under the Influence in the United States, 1990-2014,”

published in the American Journal of Public Health on September 1, 2017. The authors conduct a

research that revolves around the public health issues of driving under the influence and the drug

problems that continues to develop, and in their research they discuss if there is any connection

between this issue and undocumented immgrants. Where the authors create two hypothesis

where one of the hypothesis is that undocumented immgrants increase the ammount of drug

problems and DUI’s because of their high stress and low mental health from the fear of being

explotitated and deportated, yet also taking in consideration of the poverty and low engagement

in education that they face. The authors suggest another hypothesis that undocumented

immigrants could reduce the number of DUI’s and drug problems in the United States. Where

they are motivated by economic opportunities that will lead them to life without criminal

involvement and to have better social behaviors. The author’s tested both hypotheses by

collecting a variety of data from multiple sources at the state level starting from the year of 1990

to 2014, yet they collected data of socioeconomic, demographic, and criminal justice characters

from trusted sources like the US Census, the National Prisoner Statistics, and the Federal Bureau

of Investigation Police Employment data. The authors have stated their results from their

research by saying, “Taken together, the findings offer no evidence that unauthorized

immigration increases the rate of DUI or drug problems. Rather, the pattern in the data suggests

that undocumented immigration reduced the prevalence of DUI and drug problems over the past

25 years or had no effect,” (Light, Miller, Kelly 1451). This means that the second hypothesis

was correct on the idea that undocumented immgrants reudce the amount of drug problems and

DUI’s in the United States. Using this type of information for my civic engagement project I will
explain how people, especially citizens in the United States are the main contributors to DUI and

Drug Problems in the United States, yet it demonstrates that people in the United States are

facing the problem of consuming and being addictive to the major drugs that are being produced

and transported from the drug cartel. The source is credible because of the large amount of

research that they have conducted into this issue, and they were able to cite the other credible

sources they have used in their findings. The authors are trustworthy with the information that

they provided in the article because they are able to explain and describe their research in full

depth and be able to give credit to sources that they have used. The title of the article the authors

names are provided, and next to the names they have the degrees that the authors have. It does

not say what their degrees are, but what gives the article credibility is the publisher of their

research. The American Journal of Public Health Association publishes peer reviewed public

health journals in the American Journal of Public Health to “advance public health research,

policy, practice, and education.” The currency of this article is good enough to be able to use and

discuss about the current issues that the Mexican Drug Cartel causes in the United States. What I

liked about this article is that they were able to have no bias in their research, and they were able

to use two different hypotheses in their research to describe how undocumented immgrants affect

drug problems and driving under the influnce in the United States.

Source #5

DeMatthews, David. “School Leadership, Social Capital, and Community Engagement: A Case Study of

an Elementary School in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.” School Community Journal, vol. 28, no. 1,

Spring/Summer2018 2018, pp. 167–194. EBSCOhost,

search-ebscohost-com.libprox1.slcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eft&AN=130751864&site=eds-live

&scope=site.
 David DeMatthews wrote an article called “School Leadership, Social Capital, and Community

Engagement: A Case Study of an Elementary School in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico,” published in the School

Community Journal on March 1, 2018. DeMatthews has conducted research and investigation on a small

private, non denominational Christan elementary school in Ciudad Juárez called Colegio Zapata’s. “Over

the previous decade, Ciudad Juárez has been named the world’s most violent city with an estimated

10,000 murders in the city between 2008 and 2013 (Moran, 2012),” (DeMatthews 174). Unfortunately the

author expresses that the city is faced with a lot of violence, poverty, adult illiteracy, lack of access to

quality public schools, and a lack of community communication and interaction. Based on attending and

sometimes interacting with people at Colegio Zapata's, the author expresses how the school is making and

trying to make an impact in the community. The author mentions that the school is heavily involved with

engaging the community, and having parents volunteer, work, or have small roles at the school.

DeMatthews mentions a lot of things that the school has been involved with helping the community to

grow and develop with teaching students alongside parents important lessons on problem solving,

nutrition, basic math and reading, but overall community service and cooperation. This article will be

beneficial towards my civic engagement project because it will help me explain another solution for the

issues and impact of the Mexican Drug Cartel. Where I can express that schools like Colegio Zapata’s

with the way that they teach and how they are heavily focused on community and parent involvement can

help decrease the negative influence that the cartels bring into communities. This source is credible

because the author writes in great detail about the background of the city, the school, and Señora Marie

who founded the school, yet it describes a lot of information of the schools impact and involvement with

the students, parents, and the community. The article is current and relevant with the issues that I will

describe in my project. The author is really credible because he is an educator, and he was present for a

school year at Colegio Zapata’s while he was conducting his research. Which gives him the authority to

express information about the importance and impact that education has on people.

Source #6
Gómez San Luis, Anel Hortensia, and Ariagor Manuel Almanza Avendaño. “Barriers to Addiction

Prevention and Treatment in Communities with Organized Crime: The Perspective of Health Providers.”

Salud Mental, vol. 41, no. 2, Mar. 2018, pp. 73–80. EBSCOhost, doi:10.17711/SM.0185-3325.2018.010.

Anel Hortensia Gómez San Luis and Ariagor Manuel Almanza Avendaño wrote an article called

the “Barriers to addiction prevention and treatment in communities with organized crime: the perspective

of health providers,” published in Salud Mental on March 1, 2018. Where both authors express how

substance addiction is becoming an issue, and how people are limited for treatment and prevention.

Gomez and Almaza express that there are various limitations to the access for treatment, but the major

obstacle in obtaining help is the organized crime that is involved and present in communities. “In

particular, organizations linked to illicit drug trafficking affect the social and economic development of

countries due to rationalized use of violence and the corruption links established with the state (Silva,

2004), the emergence of health problems, decrease in productivity, diversion of economies towards

activities such as money laundering and the incorporation of young people into crime (Vázquez, 2012).”

Everything that was mentioned by the authors discusses the problems that the cartels cause, and how their

actions of causing violence, supplying drugs, and promoting a certain lifestyle involving drugs hinder the

availability for treatment and prevention against addiction. The authors conducted a research by

interviewing 8 women psychologists that would have activities with outside prevention and outpatient

treatment with patients that have problems with substance abuse. According to the authors the cartel has

control and influence over communities and even schools. In the research the psychologists express that

students would be carrying drugs or be involved by joining criminal groups. The authors found in their

research that the school administration and even the psychologists are afraid to address the issues of

substance abuse because of the violence and threats that they could possibly receive from the cartel. What

the authors have also found is that sometimes the teenagers or young adults that get involved with the

cartel want to stop their substance abuse. I plan to incorporate this information into my civic engagement

project to discuss how the cartel is impacting and being a barrier for people, especially young people, to
provide them with the proper treatment and help that they need. I could use this as a possible solution as

well because I could describe how these young people are seeking help, but because of the circumstances

that they are put in they can’t receive it. Where I could say that with the proper treatment and facility

centers could help decrease the consumption of substance abuse, yet it will also decrease the influence

and impact the cartel causes with lowering the amount of money that they earn from drug addiction and

consumption. This article has credibility because it is current with the article being published on March 1,

2018. Then the article mentions that both authors are both psychologists as well that have clinical

experience, and each author conducted their own effort and part to accomplish their studies. The authors

are also credible because they cite the sources that they use in their article. They were also able to use

what their participants said to express and support what they found in their research. As like the other

sources this article has no bias towards a side, but supports the idea that prevention of substance abuse can

be done through proper educational and community reform. This can help support the solution on how

proper educational systems that focus on community involvement can make a difference and unite people

in communities to support each other and the younger generations.