On December 3, 2009, George W. Grayson delivered a Banner Lecture titled "The Struggle with Drugs and Thugs in U.S.-Mexican Relations:

Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State?" about his book "Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State?". The armed conflict between Mexico's rival drug cartels and the central government is headline news in the United States. George W. Grayson put Mexican-American relations into historical context and examined Mexican efforts to tackle both the demand and supply sides of the problems spawned by the wildly profitable supply route for illegal drugs making their way into the United States. Professor Grayson teaches at the College of William & Mary.

(Introduction by Nelson D. Lankford)

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