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US Special Agent Rodney Irby looks over some 500 pounds of marijuana seized on January 18, 2011, in the Tohono O'odham Nation, Arizona.
Virtually the entire US illicit-drug market is controlled by seven Mexican cartels, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration's 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary.
The DEA report notes that there are no organizations at this time with the infrastructure and power to challenge these cartels and their hold over the US market.
Trafficking heroin, meth, cocaine, and marijuana, these organizations will continue to dominate throughout the US, according to the DEA.
"Narcotics are the biggest black market earner of all," wrote Ioan Grillo, author of "Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America."
"Estimated to be worth more than three hundred billion dollars a year, the global industry has pumped huge resources into criminal empires decade after decade."
A number of criminal organizations have risen and fallen over those decades, but we have listed the seven Mexican cartels that currently supply the US drug market below.