''Drug War Mexico: Politics, Neoliberalism and Violence in the New Narcoeconomy''

From Upside Down World

''A brief history of drug cultivation, use, and state power in Mexico opens the book, which then delves into anti-drugs initiatives in Mexico from the 1970s onwards. By the time of the presidency of Luis Echeverría (1970-1976), write Watt and Zepeda, the government of Mexico was already associating "all types of political activism with criminality and frequently with drug trafficking." Watt and Zepeda set up the national and international context at the time, painting in broad strokes the Mexico where the CIA and the DEA began to set up a "permanent drug war." 

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