this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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In Puerto Vallarta right now:
Malecón is on fire , gas stations are ablaze, both costco and its gas station are burning and the airport is at least partially on fire. Plus no ability to put them out because cartels are blocking all major roads and freeways.
Guadalajara, Chihuahua, Durango and Acapulco Norte are also under seige where they are both under statewide lockdown orders and some were warned by Cartels to stay at home the next couple days... Schools closed too.
How much do Mexican security services have to suck that they let Cartels blockade highways for days. Fucking US cops would go apeshit, bring in tanks and shit. Helicopters with machine guns, it would be the highlight of their rotten lives.
Well, try living someplace labelled '3rd world' where poverty is so bad that said Police are often paid off by companies and cartels who offer a living wage.
Those not paid off are often threatened or worse: disappear and are found months later in a shallow pit.
So no, it's not that Mexico's Federales nor National Guard nor Police 'suck' so much as poverty sucks. Poverty proliferates corruption which ultimately brings out the worst in all humanity.
Cartels taking this shit out on the people sucks. Corruption sucks. Ignorance here is also 'sucks'.
I do remember reading the police aren't paid enough to get by without money under the table. They buy their own bullets, have to buy their own air conditioners in cars, and whatever else. Same up and down the line, judges, what have you. Everyone is on the take, it's presumed everyone is, and it costs society a lot more than paying them a living wage and keeping them in line.
But this is an ongoing problem that's gotten worse, their public hates the cartels for the violence, but they've been unable to at least get the local police in charge of their own states? Something is off with their leadership from the top down. Either than, or maybe they just need a hug!.
It's gotta be rough when the local gangs have better financing than the local pd
Local gangs are partially funded by cartels with international drug empires funneling cash from places like the United States.
Making drugs illegal doesn't prevent people from using them, the demand is still there and someone will fill it. It just inflates the prices because of the layers and dangers involved with importing the drugs, there is no tax revenue, and the money eventually leaves the country instead of being recirculated like a normal economy.
And that doesn't even get into the societal impacts. Or the underlying mental/psychological reasons people turn to the drugs in the first place that aren't being addressed by society. But it does mean a nice constant stream of "criminals" into the penal system that can legally be used as slave labor.
The best thing the US could do to fight the cartels would be to legalize and regulate the drug trade. Take away their massive funding source.