Amid elections, Mexico's drug violence rages on

(CBS News) MEXICO CITY - Mexico will choose a new president on Sunday. One issue dominates: drug violence. About 56,000 have died in drug-related killings in Mexico since 2007 -- more than 6,000 this year alone -- leaving so many families torn apart.

The toll of Mexico's street war isn't measured only in deaths. It's also the toll on average citizens who are terrorized -- like one young woman that talked to CBS News. She's in hiding, afraid to reveal her identity.

She said she still lives in fear even though she is far away. She fears someone will recognize her.

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A few months ago, she was a happy wife and a mother. with a 2-year-old daughter and a baby on the way. When we met he, she couldn't stop crying. Her family had fled from Los Zetas, Mexico's most ruthless cartel, known for torture and beheadings.

Her father-in-law was the best surgeon in town. One day, a gangster's girlfriend asked him to come help a friend. Suspicious and afraid, he refused. A few weeks later, armed thugs burst into their house looking for the doctor. They found his family instead.

"They said they were going to cut our heads off," she told us. They told her they would cut her unborn baby out of her belly.

The woman thought she would die, but she worried more about her daughter. When they didn't find the doctor, the gangsters took his son -- her husband -- at gunpoint.

The woman told us she wasn't able to get a last word or touch. All she could do was look out the window and call his name.

"I hope he did," she replied when asked if he heard her. She hasn't heard of her husband since.

Valentina Peralta helps victims escape drug violence on a kind of Mexican Underground Railroad. She said all three major presidential candidates vow to stop the violence, but won't say exactly how. Most Mexicans don't think they can.

She said cartels have the money and power to intimidate police, judges and politicians -- a Frankenstein monster no one can control.

These days this woman in hiding lives in a kind of prison: no job, no money, no freedom. What she has in abundance is fear and anger. She doesn't want to raise her children on that.

[nenadelat]

Too late they are already here , living freely and happily . There are so many in California , Texas and Arizona. The only way out would be to legalize drugs, just like alcohol.

[Molly-Pchr]

Hey, USA, coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

[hypnotoad72]

Well, if Mexico is prospering because of companies like Hershey and Ford, then one can say companies have bought the Mexican government just as much as they have bought the American government.

Root cause vs symptom - you should note the difference some time. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm seeing a different root cause. After all,

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/hiring-illegal-immigrants.html

[Freedom7Capsule]

Author, I question your article's motives. She doesn't want to be identified, but you mention her father and his occupation. This would clearly identify her.

[takacrat]

Almost all think that the drugs is coming from Mexico. Mexico is where the big guys is washing all of there drug money. It's harder to get the money there than getting the drugs back, that is why they get the drugs busted so the money can flow south!

[morris2196]

We continue to dance around the issue. The root cause of this violence is demand for drugs in the US. We in the US can stop the violence if we want.

There are two fundamental facts that we need to accept. One is that the demand for drugs is resistant to change; a drug addict does not think rationally, and consequently is willing to incur substantial risk and hardship in order to acquire drugs. The other is that it is impossible to physically prevent the smuggling of drugs into the US to a meaningful extent.

The solution is to deter people from selling or importing drugs. Deterrence can be established by executing several thousand drug traffickers and in the US every month. After only a few months of executions, large numbers of drug traffickers would decide to get out of the business.

This number of executions would be horrifying, but the drug problem is much more horrifying; drug abuse in the US kills far more people than this; in the US, hundreds of people get killed every week in disputes over drugs; thousands of people have been killed in Mexico by drug cartels over the past year.

If you know how to count, you will see my logic.

[guest173]

nope, Mexico needs to do their own capital punishments first. They abolished the death penalty, they are paying the price for it. Texas executes lots of people fairly quick compared to the rest of the U.S. Mexico needs to step up. Don't keep blaming Americans, Mexicans like the gore and violence otherwise they would reinstitute the death penalty like other countries that don't have drug problems have done.

[hypnotoad72]

guest173 -

morris2196 is correct.

And since our country believes corporations are people, I'll believe in the death penalty when the big corporations that use predatory tactics to murder competition get the death penalty as well.

Mexico's government is also bought and paid for by corrupt elements. Or maybe it isn't, since Ford and Mexico built shops down there to bring good wage-paying means to lots of workers to improve their lives with... But I'm sure Bill O'Reilly has more to say on all that...