By David Ramirez
Through my adult life I have grown with the media propaganda that blame Mexico and other Latin American countries as the spreaders of illicit drugs to the so-called first world. The drug traffickers caught by the law that dominate the nightly news are almost without exception of Latin American provenance, mainly from Mexico and Colombia. Cinema and TV media make millions of dollars producing movies and series where the drug traffickers are portrayed as violent, mysterious and misogynistic thugs – often ugly and brown – spreading dread, terror and death in their countries of origin to anyone who would oppose them. However, since the Internet became of age and more information became available and accesible online, the data and history provides a bigger story that is the background to the outcome we all get to see on our screens. As a Mexican national, I have always been aware of what has been happening with the Mexican news cycle regarding this subject practically since I was a teenager; as a US Citizen – an Angloamerican/Gringo national, I am aware of what happens on the ground in US society regarding drug use and its glamourization among celebrities and the average population. What is to follow is an exposition of that bigger story that is little talked about, and hopefully will provide people of good conscious, who want to be part of the solution, the necessary knowledge to dismantle the dominant narrative.
First, although the Angloamerican proclivity to use mind-altering drugs date back to the late 19th century, let’s begin how the US military pushed illicit drug use in the 1960s to have US soldiers cope with the brutal realities of the Vietnam war, because this is when we can trace the genesis of most illicit drug traffic today.
Second, the following American Addiction Centers article discusses how various entertainment forms, such as movies, music, and social media, often glamorize illicit substance use, influencing public perception and behaviors. It highlights the prevalence of illicit drug and alcohol references in media, frequently without depicting negative consequences, which can significantly impact adolescents and correlate with early illicit substance use experimentation.
https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/entertainments-influence-on-addiction
Third, to continue on the subject of US military involvement in the creation and now support for illegal drug traffic, we have investigative journalist and New America Fellow Seth Harp discussing his debut book The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, which uncovers how elite U.S. military personnel stationed at Fort Bragg were involved in drug trafficking and connected to cartel networks, framed by a series of unsolved murders and a broader culture of cover-ups and corruption within Special Forces. Harp’s work challenges the idealized image of special operations troops by revealing widespread drug use, trafficking, and institutional tolerance, and argues for greater transparency and reforms in the U.S. military.
https://www.newamerica.org/the-thread/fort-bragg-cartel-drug-trafficking-seth-harp/
To add salt to injury, fourth, we also have reports of US security and intelligence agencies involved in the act reported by our very own National Security Archive — an online collection of declassified U.S. government documents. Titled “The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations,” this briefing compiles declassified materials related to a controversial 1996 San Jose Mercury News series that linked the rise of crack cocaine in the U.S. to Nicaraguan contras supported by the Reagan administration. It includes handwritten notebooks of National Security Council aide Oliver North, FBI and DEA reports, memos, emails, and court transcripts that show official awareness of drug trafficking by contra forces and possible U.S. involvement or protection of traffickers as part of covert operations.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html
Fifth, as I continuously remind everyone “Always follow the money,” oh my goodness, the US financial system is also involved in the game. Jeepers creepers, wadda ya know!! The Guardian investigates how U.S. bank Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo) allowed billions of dollars in drug cartel cash from Mexico to flow through its financial system with inadequate anti-money-laundering safeguards, enabling major cartel operations to launder profits, including purchases of aircraft used in narcotics trafficking. Despite federal investigations and a record settlement under the Bank Secrecy Act, the institution avoided criminal prosecution, highlighting broader concerns about U.S. banks’ roles in global money laundering and the limited consequences they face.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs?CMP=share_btn_url
Next, sixth, the legal U.S. firearms market serves as the primary source for the illicit arms that fuel drug-related violence, generating significant revenue for the industry through both direct sales to traffickers (via straw purchasers) and subsequent sales to law enforcement agencies, as explained by investigative journalist Sean Campbell and economist Topher McDougal. Money, money, money… MONEY!
Seventh, more connected with the opioid crisis in the US – tied to the ever so scary fentanyl that has been used as an excuse to blow up fisherman boats off the Caribbean coasts of Venezuela and Colombia, the following research paper titled “Interconnected influence: Unraveling Purdue Pharmaceutical’s role in the global response to the opioid crisis” by Andrea Bowra, Amaya Perez-Brumer, Lisa Forman, Jillian Clare Kohler published by International Journal of Drug Policy examines how Purdue Pharmaceuticals, through strategies like deceptive marketing, political ties, and co-optation of pain advocacy groups, shaped the global response to the opioid epidemic that began with the aggressive promotion of OxyContin. Using Actor-Network Theory and visual network analysis of literature from 2007–2022, the study maps the relationships between actors and shows how Purdue’s influence extended into policy and regulatory arenas, often undermining accountability and effective public health interventions, and highlights the need for stronger oversight and transparency in pharmaceutical–government–advocacy interactions. Did anyone from Purdue go to jail for launching this deadly addiction to the US – mostly poor WASPy – population? Don’t hold your breath.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395924002883
Eight, the US leads almost on every metric on illicit drug use, illicit drug related deaths and mental health issues worldwide, mostly affecting young and middle-aged men.
https://ourworldindata.org/illicit-drug-use
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-by-country
Not to mention, ninth, the handsome spending this represent at the national level, according to RAND Corporation press release from August 20, 2019, which reports on a study estimating that Angloamericans spent nearly $150 billion annually on illicit drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine in 2016, an amount approaching what the United States spends on legal alcohol consumption. The analysis found that drug spending fluctuated between about $120 billion and $145 billion per year from 2006 to 2016, with cannabis expenditures rising significantly over that period. The research highlights challenges in measuring drug markets and notes that heroin consumption increased during the study period while data limitations make understanding trends in substances like methamphetamine difficult.
https://www.rand.org/news/press/2019/08/20.html
Tenth, about the accusation that illegal immigrants are the main cause of the criminal illegal drug trade, the Cato Institute report by David J. Bier and Sahana Krishnamurthy – definitely NOT a lefty commie institution – found that “US Citizens Were 80 Percent of All Convicted Drug Traffickers in 2024”, comprising the majority of convictions nationwide and in key border districts, including for fentanyl trafficking, and argues that policies targeting immigration and foreign drug networks overlook the predominantly domestic nature of the problem. It concludes by urging policymakers to focus on reducing domestic demand and reforming drug policy rather than emphasizing immigration enforcement or military actions.
https://www.cato.org/blog/us-citizens-were-80-all-convicted-drug-traffickers-2024
Furthermore, thanks to the forensic investigation of Mexican journalist, and accredited White House correspondent, J. Jesús Esquivel’s 2025-published book Los cárteles gringos (trans. The Gringo Cartels) we get to know most of these US citizens happen to be WASPs. In it, a DEA agent admitted that cartels made up of Angloamericans operate in his country: gangs, motorcycle clubs, and organized crime networks that no longer just buy and sell drugs, but also control routes, dominate territories, and launder thousands of dollars with the complicity of banks.
All of this does not mean to distract the role played by the local and government corruption happening in all the countries where these illicit drugs originate from, however, it is a corruption aided and abetted by the USA with its constant meddling, interventions, invasions and regime change deployed since the 19th century, preventing the political stability and economic development of Latin American countries.
I can understand how people immersed on what is portrayed in Western media, regarding the illicit drug trade, hold a negative opinion on the governments and people of Latin America. It is like a Christian child in the US who grew up hearing from their parents and other grown-ass adults about how Santa Claus brings them gifts each Christmas, sees movies and television series telling stories about him, is immersed on the pervasive Christmas paraphernalia in private and public venues and “Santa Claus” himself showing up for a picture in commercial venues, and finally those gifts show up “by magic” in the morning of December 25 – all “confirming” Santa Claus’ existence – only to learn later on in life that it is all a lie.
There is no sin/fault for being unaware/ignorant of the facts. However, anyone who learns the facts and keeps insisting on the legend/myth – thereby displaying lack of understanding, then deserves the label of being an IMBECILE. The person who even after knowing the facts, and understands them, yet continues spreading the lies with their spell-bound rhetoric and sophistry, deserves the label of CYNIC.
About cynics deploying their false arguments as sophistry, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo (c. 20 BCE – 40 CE) regarded “myth-makers” as a kind of idolatry, who “have invented” art and poetry with the purpose of, “… building up their false imagination into a stronghold to menace the truth, and staging as by machinery new gods, in order that the eternal and really existing God might be consigned to oblivion. And to promote the seductiveness, they have fitted the falsehood into melody, meter and rhythm, thinking thereby to cajole their audience. Furthermore, they have brought in sculpture and painting to cooperate in their deception, in order that with colors and shapes and artistic qualities wrought by their fine workmanship they may enthrall the spectators and so beguile the two leading senses, sight and hearing-sight through lifeless shapes of beauty, hearing through the charm of poetry and music – and thus make the soul unsteady and unsettled and seize it for their prey.[1]”
The same can apply to corporate media and government announcements.
The first prey being the ever “bad hombre,” the “illegal alien,” who bring drugs, disease and rape to our sacred American soil, at the same time the same cynics work to dismantle and defund the very safety net to treat their population’s drug addiction – the secondary ignorant prey who keeps voting the same government that preserves them in their inhuman misery.
The true narco state is the United States of America, and its people consuming the illicit drugs the cogwheels that set the whole trade in motion, machinery designed and sustained by Anglomerican culture, and its financial and security apparatus.
Their capos graduate from Ivy League universities, wear suits or military uniforms, sit on director boards, enjoy security clearance and walk openly and confidently through the halls of Congress.
And no one touches the US domestic side of the trade, because it makes billions of dollars for Western banking institutions, their arms industry and millions for the politicians that are paid by the former two to keep the whole thing working, while condemning its citizens and the rest of the world to despair and ultimately their death.
As the Angloamerican saying of corrupt capitalist politicians goes: Money talks, bullshit works![2]
[1] Philo, “The Special Laws,” I, 28-29, vol. 7, p. 11 5. Hence deception is intrinsic to art; see The Masters of Truth in Ancient Greece, pp. 8-6. Cited in José Faur’s The Naked Crowd, pp. 57-58.
[2] The specific phrase was famously uttered by Pennsylvania Congressman Michael “Ozzie” Myers in 1979 during an FBI sting (ABSCAM), captured on video as he accepted a bribe, highlighting that genuine resources speak louder than empty promises. See Whitten, T. (2024, April 16). ABSCAM and Philadelphia: Tragedy of public corruption. Writing Workshop, Spring 2024. Temple University. https://sites.temple.edu/msp3196s24/2024/04/16/abscam-and-philadelphia-tragedy-of-public-corruption/
David Ramírez 
Muy bueno. Muchas gracias, David
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