How did human life in Ciudad Juarez come to be worth so much less than the drugs being trafficked through?

"Mexico: Impunity and Profits", 2011
Once known as a booming industrial metropolis and a model of economic progress in Mexico, the border city of Juarez has become infamous as the murder capital of the world. Thousands of people have been killed there since 2008 when Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent in the army to carry out his offensive against the drug cartels. The official story is that the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels are fighting for the city and the access it provides to the multi-billion dollar U.S. drug market only a few hundred metres away. On this episode of Fault Lines, Josh Rushing travels to Ciudad Juarez.

The fact is the Mexican government admits only 5% of the murders have ever been investigated so it is absolutely a lie that 90% are dirty. No one knows who they are. But if  you go to the morgue—which Hillary Clinton doesn't do, Obama doesn't do, the president of Mexico doesn't do—on the slabs you'll find a bunch of god damned poor people.

Chuck Bowden, Author of Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields