When Is a Cartel NOT A Cartel? In Mexico...When Dealing Drugs.

NYTIMES/ECONOMIX/
Some following Mexico’s cartels, like the Tijuana Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and the Beltran Leyva Cartel, acknowledge that the cartels are something else entirely.
“The term drug cartel is inaccurate and improperly used by media, based exclusively on strict economic fundamental theory,’’ Rodolfo Sosa-Garcia, a Mexican economist. He urged reporters to pick a more accurate term, such as “narco-producer."

Drug Dealers And Agribusiness Are Taking Over Guatamala.

GLOBALPOST.COM.
Drug traffickers and agribusinesses are buying thousands of small farms in Guatemala with disasterous social and environmental consequences.

Clinics In Cuidad Juarez Refuse Treating Gun Shot Victims.

LAHT.
Representatives of the private clinics in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico told authorities that they would no longer treat gunshot patients because hit men have sometimes entered hospitals to finish off rival drug members who survived attacks.

Coca And Cocaine Blossom In Bolivia.

WSJOURNAL.

The UN says that Bolivia's coca production is up and so is its cocaine trade with cocaine production increasing by 65%.

US officals say that Colombian and Mexican drug cartels have set up shop in the country while Bolivia's neighbors complain they are being flooded by the cocaine passing thru its borders.

"Bolivia has become the point of least resistance to the drug trade," says one official.

Mexican Drug Cartels Have Become Full-Scale Mafias.

AP.

As cocaine profits have fallen, Mexican drug cartels have turned into full-blown mafias, running extortion and protection rackets and trafficking people and pirated DVDs.