In the first half of 2018 the homicide rate rose 16% making a total number of those killed to 15,973. At the same time in 2017, the number of those killed in Mexico was 13,751 and both of those staggering numbers were just in a span of six months! Today the number of people killed in Mexico is estimated to be around 200,000 killed with another 30,000 missing. The killing of rival cartel members and authorities has spilled over to innocent civilians with some of the worst tortures humans have ever conducted. All of this is still going on despite the arrest and extradition of El Chapo into the United States, the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Everything short of total war involving a regular military invasion from US forces (reminiscent of the war in Iraq) with on-the-ground- intelligence, counter insurgency (nation building), tanks, classifying cartel members as "unlawful enemy combatants" and everything else that goes along with asymmetrical warfare may very well stop the drug cartels but that will only last so long as the war. That's all assuming if US forces aren't corrupted into the cartel drug trade similar to what happened in Vietnam when our soldiers were bringing back heroin.
The second our forces pull out the cartels will start back up again as long as there's a demand for the drugs and there's money to be maid. The Zbigniew Brzezinski's of the world would love for this scenario to play out because it's be another endless war the we 'must' fight, especially that the battlefield is on our border.
Many libertarian minded people call for the end to the war on drugs but I don't think that's the solution to solve drug violence because it does not stop demand and they would still be illegal!
The only viable alternative to total war with the cartels is to put the drug business into the hands of people who operate within the legal system, i.e. make all drugs legal! From there, at least we can deal with the demand of drugs which a cultural problem but as long as they're illegal the people in charge of their distribution will settle disputes outside of the legal system.
In a scenario where drugs are legal people will be allowed to openly advertise their product which will likely consist of it's purity and transparency of the production process.
The legalization of drugs may be good for the cartel slave farmers in South America as well. Suddenly there aren't so many middlemen with guns sucking money from their leathered dirty hands. Corporations will negotiate to buy their coca plantations making the farmers rich or they will expand into the production process, given that drugs are also legal in the farmers' respective country but why wouldn't it if drugs are legal in America where everyone has a thirsty nose and deep pockets? Another possibility is people in America will grow and produce the drugs themselves freely in controlled environments.
I'm not crazy about drugs being legal, they destroy lives but the demand for them is already out of control with them being illegal. Even if overdose deaths go up marginally it'll more than compensate for the deaths associated with gang and cartel violence.
It's insane to approach the drug topic the same way we have been for almost a hundred years and all we got from it are overpopulated prisons, death on a mass scale and an invasion on our civil liberties. We need to legalize all drugs and it's up to us as individuals to see if we can handle it.