Mexico is struggling to contain a drugs war that has claimed more than 50,000 lives in less than six years. Msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton spoke to NBC News contributor Jorge Castañeda, who is a former Mexican foreign minister and a New York University professor, about the problems he sees with the ongoing efforts to stamp out the illicit trade and possible ways out of the violence.

Q: An estimated 50,000 people have been killed in Mexico since 2006, the country is one of the most dangerous in which to be a journalist, and kidnapping and extortion are rife. Is Mexico teetering over into chaos?

Daniel Becerril / Reuters

Residents look at shoes of missing people that have been arranged to form the number 49 in memory of dozens of people whose bodies were found dumped near Mexico's northern city of Monterrey on Sunday. The mutilated corpses of 43 men and six women, whose hands and feet had been cut off, were found in a pile on a highway.

A: It is not true, but it's less inaccurate that it was three or four years ago. It’s not teetering on the verge of chaos because violence remains concentrated in a few places. But those places have been changing over the past five years. The violence and killings move from one state or one region to another depending on where the army is, where the national police is, what the economic circumstances are in in a given region.

Yuri Cortez / AFP

Jorge Castañeda, foreign minister of Mexico from 2000-03, is a Latin America policy analyst for NBC News and Telemundo.

Another factor is that violence now seems to be stabilizing at very high levels.  It has pretty much leveled off at about 1,000 drug-linked executions a month –- about 12,000 per year. All very high levels, but it is no longer growing.

The problem is that this has been going on for almost six years. It is much more difficult to claim now that this is a temporary problem that will soon be resolved once the cartels are destroyed or weakened or thrown out or whatever.

At six years on, it is beginning to look more difficult to see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel.

Nearly 50 bodies found dumped on Mexico highway

Q: What is the alternative to the war on drugs?

A: I’m against the war. I thought it was a mistake from the very beginning. That said, I can see how many well-intentioned people would for one year, for two years, for three years believe that with a little more time the violence would begin to decline, supply routes of drugs from Mexico to the United States would begin to shut down, the kingpins would be caught and all of this would sort of go away.

None of these things have happened. 

A few kingpins have been caught, but many others, the biggest ones, have not. There is no indication that there has been any decrease in overall drug consumption in the U.S. The Americans point to some decline in powder cocaine but an increase in marijuana, methamphetamines, etc. Those come from Mexico also.

If you put it all together, you see very meager results given the exorbitant costs for Mexico.

18 beheaded bodies found near popular Mexico tourist site

Q: What are the costs to Mexico of fighting this war?

A: I mean 50,000 dead, about 50 billion in expenditures ...  kidnappings, extortions, etc. Plus the terrible deterioration of Mexico’s image in the world, and for a country that thrives on tourism, that’s a big problem. And the human-rights violations that have increased exponentially over the past six years.

Q: So what are the realistic solutions? Deal with the cartels? Legalization? More military involvement? Just live with it?

A: I think it’s a combination of all of those. More military involvement -- we don’t have, we just don’t have the troops, we don’t have the money, we don’t have the equipment.  We don’t have any of the things that are necessary to significantly increase the military involvement.

Q: A lot of American troops are coming back from Afghanistan …

Tomas Bravo / Reuters

Marines escort Jesus Hernandez Rodriguez, a hit man of the Zetas drug cartel, as he is presented to the media in Mexico City on Friday.

A: Yes, well, they could be sent to Mexico, or they could be sent to the U.S. and the United States could do this job from its side of the border. The point being that  ... there is a reasonable case to be made for dramatically increasing the size of the national police force, from 25,000 to 30,000 now to 100,000 or 150,000.  That would be the minimum that would be necessary given that ... there is a great consensus in Mexico that municipal and state police are useless.

Mexico leader's message to US: 'No more weapons!'

Q: Indeed, Mexican states have had to fire their entire police forces.

A: Exactly, just redo the whole thing. So there’s a good case to be made for increasing the number of national police troops to 100,000 or 150,000. The National Action Party (known by its Spanish acronym PAN) candidate for president has said 150,000 troops. That makes sense, but that takes time, and that costs a lot of money. Now you still are not ever going to ever have enough police to really patrol the whole country.  So then the question is, since you’re going to have scarce resources, where do you want to concentrate those scarce resources and on what do you want to concentrate them?

And that is where the real disagreement exists between the government and people like myself. The government has basically concentrated all its resources these past five-and-a-half years on fighting drug trafficking. I think those resources should be concentrated on fighting the effects of violence and crime that hurt people –- kidnapping, extortion, holdups, automobile thefts, etc. –- and basically not concentrated on drug trafficking

Alejandro Acosta / Reuters file

A soldier stands guard at a clandestine drug processing laboratory discovered in Zapotlanejo, on the outskirts of Guadalajara, in September 2011. The burgeoning meth industry is a major concern to officials on both sides of the border.

You don’t have to make a deal with the cartels, you don’t sit down and talk with them, you don’t shake hands with them. You just concentrate your resources on what matters to you; you don’t concentrate them on what matters to the U.S.

Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'

Q: But in terms of lobbying, isn’t legalization a bit of a radioactive subject in the United States? Politicians hardly mention it in public.

A: Yes and no.  Just this past weekend a state legislature in Connecticut approved medical marijuana, which for all practical purposes is legalization. This is the 17^th state, together with the District of Columbia, and it is moving forward on the ballot in two states for full legalization in November.

So politicians don’t touch it, but there’s a real movement in American society, which is being reflected in medical marijuana, which is being reflected in a decline in incarceration rates, which is being reflected in more money being spent on prevention and less on punitive policies now in Obama’s budgets.  You have a lot of changes that are going on, (but) people don’t want to talk about them. But there’s nothing wrong with hypocrisy. Honesty is overrated in these matters.

Q: “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States” has been a popular saying in Mexico.  Do you think most people feel that way?

A: Perhaps it summed up what many Mexicans believed until the 1980s and ‘90s. But I think that from 1982 onwards it became clear that were it not for recurrent American bailouts and were it not for closer economic ties with the U.S., whether it was tourism or immigration then NAFTA, then investment ... that all of this is an opportunity, it is not a misfortune. 

Now most Mexicans believe that by being close to the United States geographically and close economically, socially, etc., is not a misfortune but rather an opportunity.

One killed every half hour in Mexico drug-related violence

Q: On the subject of the war on drugs, what can Mexico legitimately ask of the U.S.?

A: It can ask what President Felipe Calderon has been asking and what every president has been asking for the past 40 years, which is, stop consuming so many drugs and repeal the Second Amendment -- stop allowing people to buy guns in the United States and then export them to Mexico.

The usefulness and effectiveness of asking those two things is very much open to question in my mind. I don’t see what we gain by whining about this when we know it’s not going to happen. It is very similar to how the Americans whine, “Why don’t the Mexicans get their house in order, stop sending all these people to the U.S.?”

Map of Mexico's drug cartels

It’s not going to happen.  All the whining in the world is not going to stop Mexicans from going to the U.S. They’ve been doing it for over a century.  And all the Mexican whining in the world is not going to stop Americans from smoking pot.

Q: Do you feel optimistic about the future of Mexico?

A: I’m very optimistic. I think if Mexico gets three or four things straight over the next year or two, it can finally take off and become a middle class, poor-rich country within 10-15 years.

And I think it will. We have to put this war behind us. It just can’t go on. We have to change some fundamental policies, mainly on the ant-trust fron. We have to find a way to distribute the fruits of growth better, but in a rational, modern, effective way. And we have to improve the educational system rather dramatically and soon.

But these are not impossible to do.

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Alejandro Acosta / Reuters, file

A soldier guards boilers at an outdoor clandestine methamphetamine laboratory discovered in Chiquilistlan, Mexico, on December 7.

The number of methamphetamine “super labs” seized by Mexican authorities has rocketed in the last five years but shipments of the drug across the border have also continued to grow, according to government statistics.

The increase highlights how Mexico’s cartels have diversified beyond their traditional focus of exporting cocaine, heroin and marijuana by transforming their operations to also make methamphetamines on an industrial scale.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has noted “a sustained upward trend in Mexican methamphetamine availability in U.S. markets.” Research by the U.S. government also shows that methamphetamine prices are falling and that the purity level of seizures is rising.

According to information from Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense, 22 methamphetamine labs were seized in 2007. That number increased to 206 in 2011.

The vast majority of these were classed as super labs – in contrast to smaller operations that characterize much of the production in the United States, a secretariat official confirmed to msnbc.com.  The official asked for anonymity for security reasons.

"Methamphetamine seizure rates inside the United States and along the U.S.-Mexico border have increased markedly since 2007," according to a U.S. Department of Justice report.

'In the business of making money'
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials said they could not comment specifically on statistics released by the Mexican government, but acknowledge that the cartels have adapted and changed since President Felipe Calderon declared his war on drugs in December 2006.

“There has been an evolution,” Special Agent Gary Boggs of the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control told msnbc.com. “All of these drug trafficking groups, they are not in the business of drugs, they are in the business of making money.  So regardless of what the drug is, if there is a market for it they are going to try ways of making money out of it.”

Methamphetamine, a white, odorless and bitter crystalline powder, dissolves in water or alcohol and can be taken orally, snorted, injected or smoked.  Known as meth, chalk, go-fast, zip, ice and crystal, among other names, it can be very addictive and lead to dramatic weight loss, dental problems, paranoia, hallucinations and extreme violence.

The methamphetamine trade is only part of the drug problem confronting Mexico – the country’s cartels also produce or traffic large amounts of cocaine, heroin and marijuana, among other narcotics.  Since Calderon's war on drugs began, more than 47,500 people have been killed, according to the country's attorney general's office.  The worsening violence and continued flow of drugs has caused many to question whether Mexico’s militarized approach is the right way to stamp out the cartels.

While most of the bloodshed in the war on drugs has been south of the border, the problem has had a direct impact on Americans.  Mexico is the primary source of methamphetamines consumed in the U.S., according to the Department of Justice’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2011. 

“Methamphetamine production in Mexico is robust and stable, as evidenced by recent law enforcement reporting, laboratory seizure data, an increasing flow from Mexico, and a sustained upward trend in Mexican methamphetamine availability in U.S. markets,” according to the study, which bases its conclusions on data running through September 2010.  “Law enforcement and intelligence reporting, as well as seizure, price, and purity data, indicate that the availability of methamphetamine in general is increasing in every region of the (United States).”

According to the Department of Justice report, from July 2007 through September 2010, the price per pure gram of methamphetamine decreased 60.9 percent, from $270.10 to $105.49. Purity increased 114.1 percent, from 39 percent to 83 percent.

Booming business
After declining sharply in 2007, methamphetamine seizures along the Mexico-U.S. border have increased every year. 

The dramatic growth in operations targeting Mexican methamphetamine super labs from 2007 and 2011 is likely the result of the huge increase in military involvement during Calderon’s war on drugs, said Octavio Rodriguez, coordinator of the Justice in Mexico Project at the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute.

This jump in decommissions cannot be taken alone, however – falling prices also suggest that the trade in methamphetamines remains a booming business despite the enormous military deployment.

“My impression is that this data shows a much greater effectiveness on the part of the army,” Rodriguez told msnbc.com.  “But what these numbers imply to me is that if lab seizures are growing and the price is falling is that the production is so high that it is not causing a serious impact. In other words, if seizures are not having a real effect on prices and the price continues to fall it means that the seizures aren’t even affecting the level of production.”

Since 2007, Mexican spending on security, which includes the army, navy, federal police and attorney general's office, has almost doubled to reach more than $46 billion.

The United States, the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs, had spent around $1.4 billion since 2008 on the struggle against the cartels in Mexico and Central America as part of the so-called Merida Initiative.  Meanwhile, U.S. border patrols costing the United States $3 billion per year have helped make the nearly 2,000-mile-long boundary as fortified as it has been in 160 years, according to a report by the Council of Foreign Relations.

But despite the billions spent and tens of thousands of lives lost, the organization thought to be controlling much of the methamphetamine trade as well as heroin and marijuana, the Sinaloa cartel, remains staggeringly powerful.  In January, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman,  at the helm of the group believed to control the methamphetamine trade and the drug’s key ingredients, earned the title of “world’s most powerful drug trafficker” from the U.S. Department of Treasury.

Fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is believed to be a billionaire.

Guzman has also appeared on Forbes’ World’s Most Powerful People list since 2009, and is thought to be the world’s richest drug dealer, according to the magazine.

Key chemicals
Officials say key to stamping out the methamphetamine trade is interrupting the flow of chemicals needed to manufacture it, known as precursors.

China and India are the main countries involved in the trafficking of key precursor chemicals to Mexico, the DEA’s Boggs said

“We’ve … taken steps to work with our international partners to curb international chemical smuggling,” he added.

Despite efforts by officials on both sides of the border, the trade in methamphetamines and precursors is likely spreading south.  According to The Associated Press, 1,600 tons of precursors were seized in Guatemala in 2011, up from 400 seized there in 2010.

In December alone, 675 tons of precursors destined for Guatemala were seized in Mexico.  Most of it came from Shanghai, China, the AP reported.  At $100 per gram for the finished product, that would end up producing hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of drugs.

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