Why are the drug cartels in Mexico fighting each other, the police and military forces? Why are they carrying their reign of terror into the streets of Baja and elsewhere without regard to human life? What is the connection between these events in Mexico, San Diego and the rest of the United States?

Money is the engine that drives the illicit drug trade and trafficking is the crucial link between production and consumption. Trafficking, as described by the United Nations, is “far and away the most lucrative stage in the process from the cultivation and processing to the point of final consumption.” Gross profits from production to consumer sale ranges from 93 percent to 98 percent. The estimated value of world trade in illicit drugs tops $500 billion a year.

The United States is the largest market. At least 70 percent of cocaine for U.S. consumption enters through Mexico. Marijuana is the world’s most used illicit drug. The U.S. and Mexico are the largest producers of marijuana in the world.

Mexico annually eradicates 85 percent of the marijuana grown throughout the country and leads the world with 38 percent of the marijuana tonnage confiscations. The U.S. manages to eradicate between 30 percent and 50 percent of the marijuana grown on its shores and seizes 24 percent of that confiscated worldwide.

The U.S. and Mexico are making it tougher for criminals to ship illicit drugs into the world’s biggest market. But the dollar value remains high as drugs have won a place in the subculture, particularly with young adults.

A United Nations’ survey indicates the number of people in the U.S. having consumed illicit drugs at least once in the year prior to the survey was 26 million, or 13 percent of the population aged 12 years and over. Of those, more than 13 million use illicit drugs at least once a month. Some estimates show illicit drugs to be a $150 billion business in the United States.

The rash of killings are about those dollars.

How it affects San Diego is illustrated by the recent arrests of as many as 76 SDSU students for distribution and buying of illicit drugs after a year-long undercover investigation. One of those arrested has ties to a Tijuana drug cartel and is suspected of being the supplier to the student distributors.

The arrests made headlines throughout the U.S. and most of the world and generated hundreds of message board comments from readers of The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Excerpts:

• “Drugs are on every campus. And the people who died due to overdoses died from choosing to use drugs, not from the dealing of drugs.”
  
  
• “What a waste of money and time! There are terrorists and serial killers out there, why are we wasting our police enforcement’s capacity to control violent crime on arresting stoned students?”
  
  
• “Yet another story of the police out to lock people up for consensual crimes. No one forced anyone to buy or take drugs. Why lock up people for things that hurt no one else than those willingly involved?”

Such comments indicate these individuals have no inkling or sense of the real life consequences regarding drug trafficking and drug usage. The idea that drugs and drug trafficking “hurt no one else” ignores the bloodbath taking place a mere 25 miles south of the SDSU campus where Mexican authorities have drawn a line in the sand in their battle against narco terrorists.

Students of all ages must be made aware that illicit drug distribution and usage does have life and death consequences not only for users, but also for those attempting to stop, or at least gain the upper hand on the ruthless criminals bringing them into our country.

Patrick Osio Jr. can be reached at posiojr@sandiegometro.com. The veteran consultant also has issued The Mexican Perspective, an intensive primer on business culture and protocol. Copies are available at hispanicvista.com/sales/book_sale.htm.