Gloomy About The Future Of Mexico...

Do the sicarios operate under a contract that would expire if Mexico were to make marihuana legal? Are you trying to say that grupos and gobernacion would reach some kind of agreement?

The sicarios work for the white collar narcos, the ones living in nice houses in upper-middle class and luxury neighbourhoods in typical Mexican cities, and some that live out in the small towns. Living in Michoacan you must be familiar with them. The ones that are really clean, where the people are well behaved and no one drives around with "boom box cars" in the middle of the night. The sicarios are just random disposable guys working for a meagre salary, probably less than Canadian minimum wage. If the federal government weren't decapitating the top leadership of the cartels, there would be less power vacuums, and the cartel leadership wouldn't be forced to deploy their sicarios as often, if they were all forced to stick to their own territories a bit more and not cause too many local problems. In exchange for the government somewhat turning a blind eye to their business. In other words, the way it was before. And from there, begin to legalize. The sicarios aren't the people making the money, they're employees, otherwise known as enforcers. Generally speaking, the people actually getting rich aren't the ones killing each other in the streets. They're living quieter, more unassuming lives and yes I believe they would prefer as little drama as possible.

Also, at least part of the increase in common delinquency can be attributed to the loss of cartel authority in their territories, as they are attacked by both the federal government and their rivals, and splinter. Read the news carefully and you'll see it. Some of Mexico's safest cities were safe precisely because the local cartels were doing the policing of common crime. When you take out the top leadership and they begin to splinter, those cartel policing functions are lost and the rateros you complain of come out of the woodwork. I don't know much about the domestic situation in the US, but I've heard that the street crime in some of your cities such as Boston is also similarly controlled by the mafia.

The alternative to presidente calderon's war is to surrender to the grupos?

If marijuana were legal the cartel leadership could run their businesses legally and instead of hiring those sicarios to settle disputes, they could turn to the justice system, and compete through good old-fashioned market competition, not through superior firepower. When was the last time you heard of the executives of a North American alcohol or tobacco company hiring hitmen to kill their rivals? And I suggest using strong public education campaigns to warn about the harmful effects of recreational drugs and make them less attractive.