By Bridget Johnson, your guide to Journalism

After Felipe Calderon was sworn in as Mexico’s president in late 2006, one of his first actions was to send troops to Michoacan state — his native state — to crack down on bloody battles between rival drug gangs. But his get-tough policy on drugs seems to have had negligible impact on the country’s industry as whole. And while troops have had a presence trying to rein in the violence in tourist-popular Tijuana, the loosely controlled border remains a vital transit point to get drugs into the U.S. Chihuahua state, which borders Texas and New Mexico, has seen a surge in drug violence that has prompted the government to send in the military. More:

“There is already a low profile contingent of about 500 troops in Juarez but analysts say that this light military presence has been taken advantage of by the drugs cartels who control lucrative trade routes into the US.


Authorities say around 200 people have been killed in drug violence in Juarez so far this year, 10 times the number of deaths than in 2007.


Some of the victims were shot dead on busy streets in broad daylight or brutally tortured and then strangled.


Police say Mexico’s most wanted man, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, who leads the Sinaloa cartel on the Pacific coast, is currently targeting Juarez’s cartel in a bid to take control of its smuggling routes.


The Juarez cartel was weakened by the 1997 death of its leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes, and is also being attacked by eastern Mexico’s Gulf cartel.


Juarez is already notorious for its high number of violent murders of women, many of which remain unsolved.


Mexico’s drug turf wars have killed some 720 people so far this year and more than 2,500 people in 2007, Reuters news agency reported.


Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico, has sent out about 25,000 troops and federal police to fight drug gangs since taking office in December 2006.”

Last year’s Congressional Research Service report on Mexican drug cartels provides a window into just what kind of problem Calderon has on his hands:

“Mexico, a major drug producing and transit country, is the main foreign supplier of marijuana and a major supplier of methamphetamine to the United States. Although Mexico accounts for only a small share of worldwide heroin production,
it supplies a large share of heroin consumed in the United States. An estimated 90% of cocaine entering the United States transits Mexico. Violence in the border region has affected U.S. citizens. More than 60 Americans have been kidnaped in Nuevo Laredo, and in July 2007, Mexican drug cartels reportedly threatened to kill a U.S. journalist covering drug violence in the border region.”

(Photo by Carl De Souza-Pool/AFP/Getty Images)