Mexico is very much in it's New York mafioso days of the 80s. Still endemic, entrenched, and powerful, but losing ground and slowly legitimizing. The reason it's so slow is more to due with high rates of corruption in the government (local to federal) and justice system and the cultural effect it's had on the general populace.
They look bad, their boss looks bad, the paperwork for each individual crime begets a massive, impossible to hide conspiracy, and even nations struggle to execute on multi-year plans - individuals aren't going to be better at controlling multiple lower levels to hit each step of their plan, year after year
Which particular expert you listen to might emphasize different things to focus on to enable the trend to continue.
Listening to the people who ignore the facts because they find scaring people with lies more effective for their putposes is almost certainly a worse idea.
US can afford to have militarized police with armoured cars. But the combination of drugs, poverty and weapons is very dangerous