Women Drug Traffickers: Mules, Bosses, and Organized Crime

by Elaine Carey

In the flow of drugs to the United States from Latin America, women have always played key roles as bosses, business partners, money launderers, confidantes, and couriers--work rarely acknowledged. Elaine Carey's study of women in the drug trade offers a new understanding of this intriguing subject, from women drug smugglers in the early twentieth century to the cartel queens who make news today. Using international diplomatic documents, trial transcripts, medical and public welfare studies, correspondence between drug czars, and prison and hospital records, the author's research shows that history can be as gripping as a thriller.

312 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

Reviews

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Women Drug Traffickers: Mules, Bosses, & Organized Crime, Elaine Carey brings a much-needed narrative focused on the role of women in a predominately male centric understanding of the illicit narcotics trade between Mexico and the United States. Drawing on an exhaustive list of primary sources ranging from personal interviews of female drug bosses, letters between drug traffickers, to governmental archival sources from both the United States and Mexico, Carey makes an extremely convincing argument that women were not just lower-level workers in the drug trade industry serving primarily as “mules” but were also bosses who successfully operated large transnational drug networks.
Carey remarks that most early historical studies of the narcotics and drug trafficking industry that emerged in the 1980s and early 1990s “rarely mentioned women” and those that did primarily focused on women as “addicts, mules, lovers, or victims.” Carey’s intervention and addition to the existing scholarship is one that explores the role of women as “bosses, money launderers, and couriers,” roles generally believed reserved for men. Carey expertly uses stories depicting individuals such as La Nacha and Lola la Chata as successful heads of transnational drug networks, how they used gender stereotypes to their advantage and the practical realities that necessitated the use and selling of illicit drugs.
As the domestic center of Mexican families, Carey argues, women “forge the basic links of society” and “establish communal networks and market systems.” Women had an inherent advantage over men in running drug trade networks as they already had existing networks developed through their familial roles. Women knew their neighbors, shopkeepers, service providers, and better understood the atmosphere of their communities. This allowed women traffickers and peddlers to “remain in the trade for decades longer than many men.” When not serving as their own drug bosses, women were sought after by their male counterparts because of their biological advantages. Carey argues that until the United States started using women as customs and border agents, drug traffickers preferred using women as their “mules” because they could more easily hide drugs in their bodies and take advantage of male border agents not wanting to compromise their propriety by closely searching a woman’s body.
Carey also “rejects the framework regarding the drug trade that usually employs tropes of good versus evil” as the story is often “far more complex.” She paints a picture of women (and men) turning to drug trafficking to escape poverty and to provide for their families. People also historically used drugs not just for recreation but as a native, indigenous method of treating illnesses. To construct the issue of drug use and trade in a moral binary framework oversimplifies a complex reality that involves people trying to survive.
While this book primarily focuses on the role of women in the illicit drug trafficking industry, it also offers much more. Carey explains the origins of narcotics such as marijuana and cocaine and debunks the common myth that they are indigenous to Mexico when in fact they come from Asia. She also explicates the role of race and how governments and societies used it to frame certain demographics as morally corrupt and therefore more prone to using recreational drugs. Racial explanations were subsequently used to ostracize, condemn, and restrict “undesirable” groups of people under the guise of “war on drugs.” Through these narratives, this book becomes one narrowly centered on the role of women, to a text that explores and connects aspects of social, public health, and economic history. Finally, Carey also addresses the complex “war on drugs” campaigns launched by both the United States and Mexican governments and the lasting issues caused by such policies.
A main critique of this book is its quite casual framing of drugs as something benign and only an issue as it relates to government overreaction and heavy-handed crackdown of illicit narcotics. While one must admit that the issue of drugs is rarely as morally and ethically dichotomous as Carey argues, ignoring the very dangerous properties of drugs and the public health hazards they create is equally imprudent. Today, many authors such as Carey believe governments have overemphasized the danger of drugs and that many anti-drug campaigns disproportionately hurt minority groups—both intentionally and accidently—that are already marginalized. While these are all very salient points that society must address and work to revise policies that are indeed overbearing and in some instances counter-productive, historians and scholars must also acknowledge that drugs are, in fact, dangerous and kill millions of people around the world every year. While Carey may have implied the dangers of narcotics, she must be more explicit in her acknowledgement. Too many pundits and activists today are overly cavalier about decriminalizing drugs and use academic writings as their justification. No matter how noble the reasoning behind the need to change the societal narrative on drugs, society cannot ignore its deadly components.
Overall, this book was extremely well-researched and an insightful read. Not only does it add to the scholarship of gender studies as it relates the role of women in the illicit narcotics trade, but it also has much broader societal implications in the on-going modern conversation on drugs. This book is best suited for historians interested in Latin America, economic, gender, and transnational history. However, due to its readability and engaging characteristics, this book is also appropriate for a casual American reader desiring to learn more on the general history of the drug trade along the US southern border so often discussed in the news.

[Kent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite repetitive and not always the best organization; Carey spends too much time in the introduction explaining her place in the literature (most of which could exist in the footnotes with no harm lost); While she uncovers and tells some fantastic narratives of a variety of women in the Latin American-US drug trade, her writing can be quite didactic; On the other hand, I assigned this in an undergrad course and most of the students enjoyed it

[Anthony Rivera · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not the biggest fan of the background leading up to this book. Of course, you need some sort of state of mind for the book, but it seems Elaine Carey substitutes extensive profiles of the women of the drug trade for information only relevant to law enforcement and bureaucrats. If anything, just skip the first chapter and skip around every so often.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book provides a historical look at women and their involvement in the drug trade. the discussion early on about the blaming of the "other" and Chinese immigrants to North America was really interesting. I have a much more thorough understanding of the drug trade in North America from the early 1900's through the Depression, Prohibition, and up until now. The author highlights a few very prominent women from Mexico and Colombia and how they built their "empires". I really enjoyed this read and agree with the author's argument that women are often left out of this narrative.