The summer of 2015 I spent time in Mexico City conducting preliminary dissertation research with support from the CLACLS Travel Grant. My intention was to probe how civil society organizations have responded to the current climate of human rights abuses and disappearances since the launch of the Mexican Drug War in 2008. During my time, I was able to collect and examine a large number of reports produced by grass-roots human rights defenders, activists, as well as from more established national organizations that would have not been available to me otherwise. Moving forward, the content of the reports and my overall experience has pushed me to critically examine the broader linkages of political and social violence attributed to the drug trade as they relate to American consumption of illicit drugs, especially heroin.