Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Mexico's anti-alcohol campaigns, 1910-40 (dissertation)

Gretchen Kristine Pierce, "Sobering the Revolution: Mexico's anti-alcohol campaigns and the process of State-building, 1910-1940" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona, 2008). An abstract and a 24-page preview are available without charge at ProQuest (where you can purchase the full text of the dissertation).

How Mexican brewers might be affected by ImBev's bid for Anheuser-Busch

The bid by Belgian brewer ImBev for the American brewer Anheuser-Busch may affect the Mexican brewing industry. Nearly all of Mexico's beer is brewed by either Modelo (which brews Corona) or Femsa (which brews Dos Equis). Anheuser-Busch owns half of Modelo. Possibiities include ImBev taking over the Anheuser-Busch half of Modelo, Modelo buying out Anheuser-Busch's half, or Anheuser-Busch buying the other half of Modelo to make an ImBev take-over too expensive. Whatever happens, Femsa probably becomes a take-over target for a non-Mexican brewery company. For more, see here.

Drug-related violence in Mexico with police as victims

The campaign against drugs (and related police corruption) in Mexico hasn't reduced fighting between drug cartels but has led to the death of many police officers, including the acting head of the federal police. For more, see here.

Drug cartel wars kill 1100 in Mexico in a year

Killings between rival drug cartels have killed 1100 in Mexico in the past year. For details, see here.

Temperance and revolution in Mexico (dissertation)

Gretchen Pierce, “Sober Revolutionaries: Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in the Anti-Alcohol Campaigns in Jalisco, Oaxaca, and Sonora, Mexico, 1910-40” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona, 2008).

Pennsylvania chocolate factory moving to Mexico

The fears and anger among Pennsylvanian blue collar workers are part of the story of the Democratic presidential primary. An example of the NAFTA problem is the decision of the Hershey company to move a candy factory from Reading, Pennsylvania, to Mexico. For more, see here.

Recent Spanish-language publications on alcohol

Courtesy of Dr. Gretchen Pierce (Indiana University Northwest), here are a few publications that appeared after the year 2000. The comment about one of them is hers.

Brito Rodríguez, Félix. “La cultura política en el Sinaloa posrevolucionario: elecciones, alcohol, y violencia.” Paper presented at XXX Simposio de Historia y Antropología de Sonora, Hermosillo, February 25, 2005. [I believe this is a chapter from his dissertation].

Fernández Labbé, Marcos. “Las comunidades de la sobriedad: la instalación de zonas secas como método de control del beber inmoderado en Chile, 1910-1930.” _Scripta Nova: Revista Electrónica de Geografía y Ciencias Sociales_ 9, no. 194 (59) (1 August 2005).

Gracida Romo, Juan José. “Historia de la Cervecería de Sonora y sus empresarios.” In _La industria en la historia de Sonora_. Hermosillo: Editorial Sociedad Sonorense de Historia and Editorial Universidad de Arizona, 2004.

Lewis, Stephen E. “La guerra del posh, 1951-1954: Un conflicto decisivo entre el Instituto Nacional Indígenista, el monopolio del alcohol y el gobierno del estado de Chiapas.” _Mesoamérica: Nuevas Historias de Chiapas_, siglos XIX y XX 25, no. 46 (2004).

Romero Gil, Juan Manuel. “Notas para un studio sobre la industria de alcohol en Sonora en los siglos XIX y XX.” In _La Industria en la Historia de Sonora_. Hermosillo: Editorial Sociedad Sonorense de Historia and Editorial Universidad de Arizona, 2004.

Absolut vodka redraws the border between Mexico and the USA

In a controversial advertising campaign in Mexico, the vodka maker Absolut presented the border between Mexico and the USA as it has existed in the 1830s when California, Texas, and the other southwestern states were part of Mexico. Some people in the USA have called for a boycott of the Swedish vodka. For more, see here.

Mexico City bans smoking in public places

For health reasons, Mexico City has banned smoking in public places. The population of the metropolitan area is 18 million, many of them smokers. For more, see here.

Jesús Malverde, patron saint of Mexican drug dealers and poor Mexicans and Mexican-Americans

Jesús Malverde (killed by Mexican police in 1909) has become the unofficial patron saint of Mexican drug dealers and also is widely revered by poor Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. His statues and other memorials are increasingly widespread. For more, see here.

"Fair Trade" concept began in the late 1980s through the Max Havelaar Foundation

The "Fair Trade" designation began in 1988 when the Max Havelaar Foundation provided some coffee grown in Mexico with this label.

By the way, the name Max Havelaar comes from a fictive character in a novel, Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, whose author was Eduard Douwes Dekker, pen name Multatuli. Published in 1860, the novel is set in the Dutch East Indies, modern Indonesia, and sharply criticized Dutch colonial administrators there. The novel is available in English translation and in 1976 was made into a Dutch-language film.

Tequila! (book)

Lucinda Hutson, Tequila!: Cooking with the Spirit of Mexico (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1995). For a recent article on tequila's history and tequila today (which quotes Hutson and miscites her book's subtitle), see here.

Fortified coffee for schoolchildren in Chiapas, Mexico?

Controversially, an American coffee company (Voyava Republic) and a Mexican one (LaSelva) hope to provide schoolchildren in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas with fortified coffee, that is, fortified with folic acid and other nutrients. Voyava Republic already sells fortified coffee in the USA under the brand name Spava. for more, see here.

Marijuana, madness and modernity in Mexico (dissertation)

Isaac Peter Campos-Costero, "Marijuana, madness, and modernity in global Mexico, 1545-1920" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2006). In 1920 marijuana became illegal in Mexico.

Tequila imitators

Mexico's tequila industry (735 brands produced by 118 companies) is concerned about competition from imitators, most of them disapproved tequila coming from Mexican garages and small workshops and a few located in South Africa. (Tequila is supposed by be at least 51% from the agave plant.) The tequila industry, heavily dependent on the USA market (about 75% of Mexican tequila exports go north of the border), has grown rapidly. Formerly a peasant drink, extensive advertising by the Jose Cuervo brand made it acceptable to middle class Americans. Production has grown from 16.7 million gallons in 1995 to 32.1 million gallons in 2005. Mexico asserts a geographic claim to the name tequila as does the Champagne district of France to that bubbly drink. For more, see the USA Today, 17 October 2007.

Ten tons of cocaine and a "drug queen"

Mexican police seized ten tons of cocaine at the Gulf port of Tampico. Among those arrested was a so-called "drug queen," Sandra Avila Beltran, who allegedly helped unite Mexican and Colombian drug gangs. For more, see here.

Breweries in Mexico (dissertation)

Gerald J, Cadet, "L'internationalisation de l'industrie brassicole mexicaine" (Ph.D. dissertation, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, 2006). Includes Grupo Modelo and Cervecería Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma.

Coffee war brewing in Tijuana

Starbucks, backed by a Mexican multi-billionaire, is moving into Tijuana where most branded coffee shops belong to D'Volada which brews a milder coffee. Although Mexico is a coffee grower, Mexicans are not big coffee drinkers, and 70% of Mexicans who do drink coffee settle for instant. For more, see here.

Jesús Malverde, Mexico's narco-saint

Jesús Malverde, a Robin Hood figure apparently hanged as a bandit shortly before the Mexican Revolution of 1910, has become Mexico's narco-saint, reverenced by drug dealers, first in Sinaloa and other northern parts of the country and then in the capital. For more, see the Washington Post article, here. He has become a figure in popular culture, remembered in films and song, most recently hip-hop.

Corn for ethanol displacing agave for tequila in Mexico

The demand for ethanol as a replacement for petroleum has made the price of corn skyrocket. As a result, Mexican farmers are burning their fields of agave (the plant from which tequila is made) to make room for corn. For more, see here.

Transnational Sobriety: Exporting American Ideas about Alcohol and Alcoholism (conference panel)

Culture, Alcohol & Society Quarterly: Newsletter of Kirk/CAAS Collections at Brown, 3/1 (Oct./Nov./Dec. 2006): 2-6, reports details for a panel at the American Studies Association, Philadelphia, October 2007. It is "Transnational Sobriety: Exporting American Ideas about Alcohol and Alcoholism," with as chair Jared Lobdell (editor, CA & SQ), panelists Jason S. Lantzer (Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis), Trysh Travis (Center of Women's Studies and Gender Research, University of Florida), Brian Eugenio Herrera (Department of Theatre and Dance, University of New Mexico), comment by Mark Lender (Kean College of New Jersey).

There are detailed abstracts of the three papers.

Jason S. Lantzer, "Drying up the World: America's Dry Crusade, Wilsonian Idealism, and the Transnational Context"

Trysh Travis, "The Globalization of 12-Step Recovery: Exporting 'The Language of the Heart'"

Brian Eugenio Herrera, "Performative Autobiography and Transnational Sobriety in Ignacio Solares' Delerium Tremens"

Mexican border towns and U.S. prohibition (thesis)

Abby Diaz, "The Conjectural Battle between Good and Evil: Alcohol, the US and Mexico" (undergraduate honors thesis, Ohio State University, 2007). For abstract, see here.

Certified coffee in Chiapas

The New York Times, 22 April 2007, explores the effects of "certified" coffee with a case study of Chiapas in Mexico, where the local coops sell to Starbucks. For more, see here.

New malt whiskey distillery in Scotland

Diageo, the drinks company, is building its first new malt whiskey distillery in Scotland to satisfy growing demand in Brazil, Russia, China, and Mexico. For more, see here.

Mexico's President promises no respite in war on drugs

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said there will be "no truce or quarter" in his war on drug gangs after the killing of seven law enforcement officials in an apparent attempt to intimidate the federal government.

Find the full story here.

Coffee: who grows it? who drinks it?

India's Financial Times, 5 Feburary 2007, reports on who grows and who drinks coffee. Although there are 25 kinds of coffee grown, two varieties dominate, (mostly) Arabica and (secondly) Robusta. The major producers are Brazil (33.16%), Columbia (11.65%), Vietnam (10.61%), Indonesia (5.97%), Mexico (4.59%) and India (4.60%) that combined produce about 70% of the world's coffee. The major consumers are the United States, Canada, Japan. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Spain. As an Indian newspaper, the Financial Times mentions that India consumes 30% of the coffee that it grows. For more, see here.

Frontwide World, May 2003, lists the top 10 coffee-importing countries, in order of amount imported, as the United States, Germany (less than half that of the USA), Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Netherlands. Per capita the Scandinavian countries drink the most coffee, with Finland averaging more than four cups a day per person. This website lists the ten leading coffee producers, in order of amount produced, as Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Ivory Coast and Uganda. Nearly 25 million farmers grow coffee in more than fifty countries. For more, see here.

Asia new source for meth in USA

As Mexico recently has cracked down on a crucial compoment for making meth, India and China likely will become major suppliers for the American market. According to the UN, a majority of meth users worldwide live in Asia. For more, see here.

Around the World in eight hangovers

The task: investigating the 'cultural and traditional aspects of alcohol around the world'. In other words, getting very drunk in six of the world's most formidable drinking capitals. The man for the job? The Independent's Dom Joly.

Political uses of alcohol in Latin America (conference session)

The Alcohol and Drugs History Society will sponsor a session, "Political Uses of Alcohol: The State and the Lower Classes in Colonial and Modern Latin America," in conjunction with the American Historical Association, Atlanta, Saturday, 6 January 2007, 9-11 am.  Douglas Yarrington will chair and session and Scott Martin will provide the comment.  There will be four papers.  (Apology for lack of Spanish accent marks.)

Sharon Bailey Glasco, "Elites, Plebeians, Drinking, and Space: Alcohol and Ideas about Urban Space in Late Colonial Mexico City"

Marcos Fernandez Labbe, "Clientelismo, Taxes, and Proletarian Opposition: The Political Uses of Chile's Taverns, 1870-1930"

Gretchen Pierce, "'Se prohibe la cerveza y en cambio se tolera la menta de vino': Popular Temperance Leagues, Corruption, and State-Building in Sonora, Mexico, 1929-40"

Joes Orozco, "Disgust and Creation of a Nationalist Tequila Discourse in Pre-Revolutionary Mexico"

Among other AHA sessions at Atlanta relevant to the ADHS is a joint session with the Labor and Working-Class History Association, "Labor, Migration, and Global Trade, Part !: Coca-Cola in Guatemala, Colombia, and India.

increased coffee drinking in India, Indonesia, Mexico?

The International Coffee Organization plans an advertising campaign aimed at increasing coffee consumption in India, Indonesia and Mexico by more than 25 percent in the next three years. The three countries are major coffee producers which lack a strong coffee-drinking culture. For details, see here.

drinking in the Yucatan, 1915-35 (article)

Ben Fallow, "Dry Law, Wet Politics: Drinking and Prohibition in Post-Revolutionary Yucatan, 1915-1935," Latin American Research Review 37/2 (2002): 37-64.

anti-alcohol campaigns in Mexico, 1910-40 (dissertation in progress)

Gretchen Pierce, "Sober Revolutionaries: Class, Gender, and Ethnicity in the National and Sonoran Anti-Alcohol Campaigns in Mexico, 1910-1940" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of  Arizona,  in preparation).  Pierce teaches at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, Indiana.

Drug gang violence political issue in Mexico's presidential race

Ahead of the July 2 vote, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited Nuevo Laredo, a border town, to comment on the country's violent drug gang problem. AP story here.

The leftist candidate in Mexico's presidential race vowed on Saturday to give more power to the army to fight violent drug gangs, which he said have hopelessly corrupted the country's police force.

Mexico has been in the grip of a drug war between rival cartels since last year and some 1,500 people have been shot, beaten or suffocated to death as bands of gunmen battle for control of the lucrative cocaine, heroin and marijuana trade.

Methamphetamine in the US

This Seattle Times publication of an AP report by Rachel La Corte states that methamphetamine production, especially in small domestic labs, has been dramatically reduced since the introduction of laws concerning the sale of over-the-counter cold medicines. The importation of "crystal meth," a stronger methamphetamine, has shot up to fill that void.

Mitchell on alcohol in Mexican history and culture (review)

Review by Dwight B. Heath in Americas 62/4 (2006): 674-675, of Tim Mitchell, Intoxicated Identities: Alcohol's Power in Mexican History and Culture (Routedge, 2004).  For details see here.

Davis review of Eber, Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town

Christine Eber. Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. xxiv + 303 pp. Bibliographical references and index. $40.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-2927-2090-4; 0-2927-2089-0; $18.95 (paper), ISBN .

Reviewed by: Kate Davis , University of California Berkeley .

Published by: H-LatAm (December, 1995)

Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow is a well-written feminist analysis of culture, tradition, gender, and alcohol use within a Highland Chiapas community. Eber states that her research was guided by two primary questions: "How is women's relationship to alcohol changing in Chenalho, and how are Pedranas handling their own and others' drinking problems?" (p. 3). While her focus is on women in particular, her efforts to contextualize the study within the historical, cultural, and spiritual framework of an indigenous community broadens her work by providing a basic understanding of community life as a whole.

Eber's method of feminist analysis which includes symbolic systems, historical materialism, and social construction of gender provides a solid, but not rigid, research framework which she uses quite masterfully. One of the most intriguing and ultimately effective aspects of this book is the choice of storytelling as the vehicle for presenting her research and analysis. This platform allows her to give voice to the women she worked with in Chenalho. While that voice is filtered through Eber's own personal and professional assumptions and experience, it is nevertheless a sincere and quite effective attempt. Eber does not pretend to be an "objective" participant-observer. Rather, she includes her own thoughts, feelings, and actions which gives the reader a three-dimensional perspective of the relationships Eber had with the women she studied. Eber's methodology and literary style added depth to the analysis of a very complicated cultural, social, and economic system.

One of the main themes evident throughout the book is, of course, alcohol. Eber's analysis of the dialectical role of rum is excellent. Rum is a powerful substance within the context of traditional spirituality while it destroys people's ability to follow a path that demonstrates understanding of their god's desires for individual and community behavior. Rum is empowering and debilitating. Rum is cause and cure. Alcohol eased the pain of the economic exploitation. Alcohol created and increased the pain of women and children through escalating domestic violence. The sale of alcohol (usually by women) often provided the only source of income for a family. Economic exploitation of Ladinos contributes to poverty, violence, alcohol consumption and frustration to a level that challenges the ability of Pedrano communities to maintain their culture and reject mestisoization. However, Eber does make the reader aware that for some in the community, especially the young, mestisoization is an attractive alternative to poverty and oppression.

Alcohol is only one of many contributing factors in cultural, gender, and structural changes occurring in Highland communities. Ladino domination of indigenous peoples sets up an increasingly intolerable imbalance of power. Power struggles between Pedranos, Ladinos, and mestisoized indigenous people occur with increasing frequency. There are also internal power struggles within the community in which land and women are symbols of the struggle over autonomy and freedom from Ladino exploitation. As Pedranos become more powerless and aware of that condition, they turn with greater frequency to domestic violence, which jeopardizes family and community structure as well as the health and lives of women and children (p. 200). Economic instability in Mexico contributes to the significant re-definition and re-situating of traditional gender roles when women are forced to become breadwinners in whole or in part (p. 69).

In the chapter on "Traditions, Religion, and Drinking," Eber's analysis of the spiritual, religious, economic, political, and cultural aspects of the organization Catholic Action, Protestantism, and traditionalism is especially powerful. Protestant churches offered Pedrano communities entry into a capitalist economic system (p. 217), improved living conditions, and required abstinence from alcohol. With the help of priests and nuns, Catholic Action lay leaders "organize their communities into small groups which identify and study the sources of their economic exploitation and political oppression, and develop strategies to confront these (p. 223). Nuns (madres) work with women to place their "agenda within an overall economic and political liberation context" (p. 226) without stressing the radicalism within feminist theology.

I found the comparison and contrast between the alcoholics in the indigenous community and Alcoholics Anonymous in the U.S. a bit disconcerting. While I find cross-cultural comparisons important and useful, a comparison between the wealthiest country and one of the poorest communities in the world was, for me, ineffective. Near the end of the book, Eber states that AA does exist in San Cristobal. It would be more useful to know whether AA in Mexico was successful in helping indigenous people stop drinking. Was the group in San Cristobal strictly Ladino? Did AA groups reach out to indigenous communities? If there were no meetings, groups, or outreach services to the Highland Chiapas communities then why was AA used as a point of comparison and contrast?

This book is an important contribution to studies of indigenous communities and especially gender issues within those communities. It is clearly analyzed, artfully written, and perceptive. Perhaps one of the central contributions of this work is the lesson Eber credits Pedranas with teaching her. "[T]ake women's concerns out of a western framework of individual rights and put them into their framework of community and cultural survival" (p. 242). This same advice is especially useful when studying and analyzing different cultures, ethnicities, and races. It is also one of the most difficult tasks of a researcher, but one that is crucial to an attempt to give voice to the people we study and work with.

Library of Congress Call Number: F1221.T9 E24

Subjects:
Tzotzil women -- Alcohol use
Tzotzil women -- Social conditions
Tzotzil women -- Religion
Abused women -- Mexico -- Chenalhâo
Social structure -- Mexico -- Chenalhâo
Feminist anthropology -- Mexico -- Chenalhâo
Chenalhâo (Mexico) -- Social conditions

          

Citation: Kate Davis . "Review of Christine Eber, Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow," H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews, December, 1995. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=4649850445583.
     Copyright © 1995 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.

Coca-colonization of diets in the Yucatan (article)

Leathermana, Thomas L., and Alan Goodman. 2005. "Coca-colonization of diets in the Yucatan." Social Science & Medicine 61, no. 4: 833-846.

Mexico rethinking decriminalization

Mark Stevenson reports for the AP that Mexico is reconsidering the decriminalization of small quantities of cocaine and marijuana.

Latin America's "wrong left" and drug trafficking

Jorge G. Castañeda, in the May/June 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, counsels Washington and the international community on what they should do about "Latin America's left turn." Castañeda characterizes his "wrong left" with many "moral" problems, including the tolerance of drug trafficking.

The international community should also clarify what it expects from the "wrong left," given that it exists and that attempts to displace it would be not only morally unacceptable but also pragmatically ineffective. The first point to emphasize is that Latin American governments of any persuasion must abide by their countries' commitments regarding human rights and democracy. The region has built up an incipient scaffolding on these matters over recent years, and any backsliding, for whatever reason or purpose, should be met by a rebuke from the international community. The second point to stress is that all governments must continue to comply with the multilateral effort to build a new international legal order, one that addresses, among other things, the environment, indigenous people's rights, international criminal jurisdiction (despite Washington's continued rejection of the International Criminal Court and its pressure on several Latin American governments to do the same), nuclear nonproliferation, World Trade Organization rules and norms, regional agreements, and the fight against corruption, drug trafficking, and terrorism, consensually defined. Europe and the United States have enormous leverage in many of these countries. They should use it.

Full text here.

Mexico to decriminalize pot and coke

Mexico appears poised to decriminalize cannabis and cocaine carried in small "personal use" quantities, Noel Randewich reports here in an undated but new Reuters report.

'Users may also journey to other worlds, communicate with strange beings or chat with the plant itself'

Additional unique physical effects include a strange twisting or pulling of the body, viewing tube- or snake-like patterns and, in some cases, encountering an 'alien geometry.'

Sometimes called “the drug the government forgot to ban,” salvia, a Mexican herb known to give users intense hallucinations, has recently crept into small-town America by way of the internet.

The Batesville Daily Guard reports.

Surely that must be a sacrilege?

U.S. Federal agents on Thursday said they had broken up a ring of drug smugglers who used tombstones featuring the Virgin Mary to move hundreds of pounds of cocaine into the United States from Mexico. CNN reports.

Chocolate in Mesoamerica (Book)

Cameron L. McNeil, ed., Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao (University Press of Florida, 2006).

'This method of shipment is rather clever and unique, however it wasn't clever enough,' says Hamilton County Sheriff

Cincinnati's Regional Narcotics Unit found 245 pounds of marijuana, worth half a million dollars, inside storage containers shipped from Tucson, Arizona.

The discovery resulted in what the narcotics unit said was the shutting down of a marijuana distribution ring that funneled marijuana from Mexico to Cincinnati and the arrest of seven people over the last few days, including four from Cincinnati.

Read more.

Internet 'pharmacies'

Legal prescription drugs are being trafficked illegally over the internet, the UN's anti-drugs body has warned. The BBC reports.

Nothing good ever comes of drug gangs

The bodies of seven people executed in what appeared to be a gruesome settling of accounts among drug gangs were found on Wednesday in Mexico's Veracruz state, the latest victims in a wave of drug-related violence.

The New York Times reports.

Officers squash latest marijuana smuggling attempt

For the second time in less than a week, [U.S.] Custom and Border Protection officers have prevented an attempt to smuggle more than a half-ton of marijuana hidden in a tractor-trailer rig.

The latest incident occurred Monday when officers working at the Nogales port of entry found more than 1,400 pounds of marijuana hidden in a rig carrying squash, according to a news release from the agency.

The Arizona Daily Star reports.

Narcapulco?

Drug traffickers have shaken Acapulco, as the drug war that began at the border heads south, bringing violence to a resort visited by hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of Mexicans every year. A shootout last week in downtown Acapulco left four suspected drug gang members dead and four police officers injured, sparking the increased security. Some fear that Acapulco, which has been enjoying a rapid rebirth, is becoming "Narcapulco" just as quickly. At stake for the traffickers are the city's drug-trafficking routes, nearby marijuana and poppy production and the booming local trade in cocaine and other drugs.

Read more.

'Our quick assumption is it's the drug cartels'

Drug smugglers have dug one of the longest, most sophisticated tunnels discovered in recent years along the Mexican border, and the American and Mexican authorities have hauled nearly two tons of marijuana out of it since they entered it on Wednesday, officials said.

The tunnel is 60 feet below ground at some points, five feet high, and nearly half a mile long, extending from a warehouse near the international airport in Tijuana, Mexico, to a vacant industrial building in Otay Mesa, Calif., about 20 miles southeast of downtown San Diego. The sophistication of the tunnel surprised officials, who found it outfitted with a concrete floor, electricity, lights and ventilation and groundwater pumping systems.

The authorities said a tip led to the discovery.

The New York Times reports.

This isn't the good old fashion meth your mother used to make

The drop in home-cooked drugs [in the US] has been met by a flood of crystal methamphetamine, a purer drug coming largely from Mexico. The New York Times reports.

Neither the time nor the place

More than 200 holidaymakers returning to the UK from Mexico were forced to spend last night in Florida after a drunken passenger caused their flight to be diverted.

The man was restrained by passengers and cabin crew after starting an argument with another traveller and smashing a toilet on the aircraft. The Thomsonfly flight from Cancun to Manchester was diverted to Sanford airport in Orlando, where the man was arrested.

Read more.

Mexican drug gangs force Indians to grow opium

Mexican Indians have grown maize, worshiped nature and lived by the light of pine torches in the canyons of the western Sierra Madre mountains for centuries. But this way of life is abruptly changing.

Now armed drug gangs are forcing them to plant opium poppies and marijuana in their ancestral lands, which lie in a notorious region dubbed Mexico's 'Golden Triangle' of drug trafficking.

Reuters reports.

Alcohol in Chiapas, Mexico, in 1970s and 1980s (Article)

Christine Eber, "Take My Water: Liberation through Prohibition in San Pedro Chenalho, Chiapas, Mexico," Social Science and Medicine 53/2 (2001): 252-262.  During and since Zapatista uprising.

Not the goulash your grandmother used to make

Mexican police seized over one ton of cocaine packed into a shipment of paprika at the Pacific coast port of Manzanillo on Thursday. The drugs were packed into 1,175 cases of paprika that had been shipped to Mexico from the port of El Cayao, Peru, the Attorney General's Office reported. The shipment arrived aboard a Panama-flagged cargo ship.

Inspectors at the port became suspicious when they noticed that some of the supposed "paprika" had been pressed into brick-shaped packets, a frequent means of transporting cocaine but an unusual procedure for paprika, a spice used in goulash and other dishes. The Miami Herald reports.

Tequila Sunset

Newsweek reports (15 August 2005) that Mexico's tequila industry is now on track to produce a record 210 million liters this year. Sales hit a new high in tequila's top export market, the United States, when tipplers consumed 8.5 million cases in 2004. Big distillers like Jose Cuervo and Tequila Sauza are benefiting from a glut of blue agave, the spiky plant with a sweet heart, from which the sugary juice for tequila is squeezed. But the good fortune of tequila makers is bad news for their main suppliers. Read more here.

Mexico (bibliography)

Dermota, Ken. “Snow Business: Drugs and The Spirit of Capitalism.” World Policy Journal 16:4 (1999-2000), 15-24. [Explains the increase in drug traffic from Columbia through Mexico to the United States after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993.]

Rodriguez Centeno, Mabel M. “Borrachera y vagancia: Argumentos sobre marginalidades economica y moral de los peones en los Congresos Agricolas Mexicanos del cambio de siglo.” Historia Mexicana 47:1 (1997), 103-131. [Analysis of statements published by congresses on agriculture in 1896, 1904, and 1905 on the drunkenness and sexual misconduct of rural farmworkers; argues that drunkenness was a form of traditional resistance.]
Rosovsky, Hayde. “Alcoholics Anonymous in Mexico: A Strong but Fragmented Movement.” In Irmgard Eisenbach-Stangl and Pia Rosenqvist, eds., Diversity in Unity: Studies of Alcoholics Anonymous in Eight Societies (Helsinki, Finland: Nordic Council for Alcohol and Drug Research, 1998), 165-184.
Toro, Maria Celia. “The Internationalization of Police: The DEA in Mexico.” Journal of American History 86:2 (1999), 623-640.
Vargaslugo, Elisa. “A Theater of Forms: Austerity of the Soul.” Artes de Mexico 25 (July/August 1995), 75-77. [Explains the fear of exalting worldly values and the consequent extreme temperance that characterizes the eighteenth-century portraiture of colonial New Spain.]

Mexican drug folk hero

The Times Online reports (6 June 2005) that Mexico has begun a media offensive against the country’s most notorious drug baron, whose ability to evade capture has become a serious embarrassment to President Fox. Since escaping from a maximum-security prison inside a laundry trolley in 1991, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has engineered so many disappearing acts that he has become a Robin Hood figure among his own people and a serious threat to the hugely expensive US and Mexican war on drugs. Find the full story here.

Mexico says US criticism of drug war is 'nonsense'

Reuters reports (15 June 2005) that Mexico hit back on Wednesday at U.S. criticism of its drug war, accusing a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official who censured Mexico of talking nonsense. Anthony Placido, the DEA's assistant administrator for intelligence, told a House of Representatives subcommittee on Tuesday that U.S. efforts to slow the inflow of illegal drugs were being hampered by Mexican inefficiency and corruption.

"It is worthwhile making it clear that we are not worried nor interested about his opinion, which is wrong, and what we have to do is be clear that this gentleman has no reason to be talking this nonsense," Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez told journalists. More than 500 people have died in a war between drug gangs on the Mexican side of the two countries' border. Mexico has told Washington several times this year that U.S. criticism of its efforts to curb the cartels was not welcome. Read more here.

Nuevo Laredo and the Drug War

For the Narcosphere, Al Giordano offers this editorial on the recent violence in Nuevo Lardeo.

Drug-war mercenaries on the Texas-Mexico border

For the May 28, 2005 Narco News Bulletin, Bill Conroy reports on the role of the "Zetas,", a mercenary group involved in the Nuevo Laredo turf war between (it appears) rival warlords Osiel Cardenas Guillen and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Full report here.

Alcohol not a big part of Mexican Cinco celebration

SouthWest Florida's Herald Tribune reports that while Cinco de Mayo is a celebration marked in the United States by beer promotions, by Mexican-themed dinners, by, in effect, one big party, in the mountains of Southern Mexico, Cinco De Mayo (the fifth of May) is a more reverent, respected day of national celebration. Find the full story here.

In Tequila's Home, a Wine Region Comes of Age

The New York Times reports (1 May 2005) that once the butt of jokes, Mexican wine is rapidly gaining a reputation for subtlety and complexity, and the scenic Guadalupe Valley is turning into an intimate and unusual wine destination. Find the full story here.

Boozy gunfight and murder

Paul Allen regales the readers of the Tucson Citizen with this account of a boozy gunfight and murder in a 1908 border and frontier town.

Alcoholism in Mexico (Article)

M.B. Ramos and S. Flores, "The Treatment of Alcoholism in Mexico in the XIX Century," Salud Mental 22/1 (Feb. 1999): 11-16 [in Spanish].  San Andreas hospital.

Women Workers in Coffee Industry at Veracruz (Article)

Heather Fowler-Salamini, "Gender, Work, and Working-Class Women's Culture in the Veracruz Coffee Export Industry, 1920-1945," International Labor and Working-Class History 63/1 (2003): 102-121.

Drugs, Alcohol and U.S.-Mexican Relations (Article)

Gabriela Recio, "Drugs and Alcohol: US Prohibition and the Origins of the Drug Trade in Mexico, 1910-1930," Journal of Latin American Studies 34/1 (2002): 21-42.

Pit Stop on the Cocaine Highway

The Washington Post reported on 6 October 2004 that in the 1990s, tons of Colombian cocaine were flown to northern Mexico and then driven across the border into the United States. But now better-equipped Mexican military pilots scramble to intercept suspicious planes. So traffickers prefer Guatemala, where the radar is spotty and the government is largely unable to stop the flights, according to Guatemalan and U.S. law enforcement officials. As a result, Guatemala is now the hottest destination in Central America for Colombian cocaine on its way to the United States. Find the full story here.

Big brewers target young Latin Americans

MSNBC reports (9 March 2005) from Bogota that the world's giant brewers hope young and thirsty Latin Americans will bring faster profit growth than aging, carbohydrate-wary consumers in Europe and the United States. Find the full story here.

World Coffee Demand Rises

Yahoo News reports (7 March 2005) that coffee-sales opportunities exist in mature and newer markets, with Eastern Europe, parts of Western Europe, Japan and other Asian nations all looking promising, said John Gilmore, of Datamonitor, speaking at a National Coffee Association conference in Aventura, Florida.  Overall coffee demand in the 40 countries tracked by Datamonitor's research is growing by 1%-1.5% annually and should increase at a faster pace later in the decade. Western Europe is the largest single market for coffee, with 63% of consumption from roasted, ground beans and the rest from instant coffee. Find the full story here.

World coca production down, but opium soars

New Kerala reports (4 March 2005) that a decline in estimated coca leaf production was tempered by a near-double increase in opium cultivation in 2004. Find the full story here.

Mystery Surrounds Mexico Drug Lord's $5 Million Reward

Reteurs reports (2 March 2005) from Monterrey, Mexico that a mysterious blitz of wanted posters offering a $5 million reward for the capture of Mexico's top drug lord has raised suspicions that the publicity drive could be a dirty tricks campaign by rival narco gangs. Puzzled security officials said they had no idea who put up the posters. Find the full story here.

Drug dealers glorified in Mexican school book

MSNBC News reports (21 February 2005) that Mexico’s school libraries are stocking a book, entitled 100 Corridos: The Heart of Mexican Song, that includes the lyrics of “narcocorridos” — folk songs that glorify drug traffickers — causing a storm of criticism in a country where the drug market and its violence have become part of life in thousands of communities. Find the full story here.

Winemakers make their mark in Mexico

For Sign On San Diego.com, Will Weissert reports (28 February 2005) that accomplished winemakers, who have worked toward restoring respectability to Mexico since the late 1980s, are getting results. Their efforts have made everyday Mexican wines more drinkable, and their premium products have won international awards, surprised food critics and are beginning to catch the eyes of importers in Europe and the United States. Find the full story here.

Prohibition Stimulated Economies of El Paso, Juárez

An article entitled "Prohibition Stimulated Economies of El Paso, Juárez," by Dominique Ahedo, Larry Van Slyke, Valerie Peña, Yvette Barraza, Mirna Gonzalez and Sonia Carrasco, can be found here.

Latino Beer

DSN Retailing Today reports (10 January 2005) that Corona made the first successful incursion in the 1980s, and today Latino beers are gaining ground in the United States beer market. Find the full story here.

Mexican Indian Drug Production

For Reuter, Tim Gaynor reported (8 February 2005) that Mexican drug gangs are forcing aboriginal peoples to grow marijuana and heroin poppies.

The report by Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute said armed drug gangs were driving communities of Tarahumara, Guarijio and Pima Indians to give up their age-old way of life in the mountains of Sonora and Chihuahua states.

More than 50,000 members of the tribes have lived in caves and log cabins in remote canyons in the Western Sierra Madre mountain range in the area for millennia, surviving on subsistence corn crops.

They mix Roman Catholic rites with traditional beliefs in sun and moon deities, and chew hallucinogenic peyote buttons to perform an ancient dance to cure the sick.

Researchers said drug gangs from neighboring Sinaloa state are entering the remote region and forcing the native villagers to stop growing traditional corn in favor of marijuana and heroin poppies.

Full report here. Curiously, Yahoo! filed this story in their curiosities and oddities category.

Worm Survives Mexico's Liquor Police

For the Palm Beach Post, Jeremy Schwartz reports (9 February 2005) that the world nearly lost a peculiar piece of Mexico's cultural tradition this week after the government, without regard to drinkers anywhere, targeted the lowly worm at the bottom of the mescal bottle for extinction.  Mexican officials, concerned with the high fat content of the blue agave cactus worm in bottles of mescal, had sought to remove it with new laws governing the liquor's production.  The full story can be found here.

Vice and Tourism on the United States-Mexico Border

Robinson, Robin E. “Vice and Tourism on the United States-Mexico Border: A Comparison of Three Communities in the Era of U.S. Prohibition.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Arizona State University, 2002.

Drinking and Prohibition in Post-Revolutionary Yucatan

Fallaw, Ben. “Dry Law, Wet Politics: Drinking and Prohibition in Post-Revolutionary Yucatan, 1915-1935.” Latin American Research Review 37:2 (2002): 37-64.

Mexico (Intoxicated Identities)

Can somebody knowledgeable about Mexican history provide me with an appraisal of the new book by Tim Mitchell, Intoxicated Identities: Alcohol's Power in Mexican History and Culture (Routledge, 2004)? I haven't seen any reviews.

Hispanics & Alcohol

From the Center for Alcohol Studies at Rutgers, here is an online bibliography on Hispanics and Alcohol.