Talk:Sierra Madre Occidental

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Discussion for: Sierra Madre Occidental • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Sierra Madre Occidental is a Growing Region: a named cultivation region that sits above Growing Areas and below the regional complex and gene pool. It covers 13 municipalities of the Sierra Madre Occidental in Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango and Sonora that the sources name for cannabis cultivation or eradication. The rest of the range, which runs south into Zacatecas, Nayarit and Jalisco, is not part of it. No growing areas are defined under it yet.

Data verification

Check the main page for the sources behind each statement. Discuss the boundary, the municipalities the region takes in, and the accessions and news items that belong to it here.

Discussion

Why the region is on the map

Cedillo (2021, p. 2) places the "so-called Golden Triangle" where the Sierra Madre Occidental connects Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua, and calls it the country's leading producer of marijuana and poppy. She names the municipalities of the Operation Condor task force's jurisdiction (p. 15) and those most affected by it (p. 23).
The sources since 2000 name the same municipalities:
- Mexico News Daily (26 August 2019), from defence ministry data given to Milenio: Badiraguato, Tamazula and Guadalupe y Calvo were the three municipalities with the largest areas of marijuana destroyed in January–May 2019, and Guachochi was among the ten. In 2014 seven of the ten were in Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango, and Álamos in Sonora was another.
- Valdivia (2019): marijuana and poppy are the main source of income in the Sierra Tarahumara for mestizos and for many Rarámuri, Ódami and Makurawe families.
- Eradication reports: Tamazula (Luz Noticias, 25 May 2022), Badiraguato (Luz Noticias, 7 October 2024), Guadalupe y Calvo (El Imparcial, 25 April 2025).
- InSight Crime (6 December 2022): many farmers in the sierra of Sinaloa have given up cannabis and poppy, and some still grow them.
The NNICC report of 1989 (p. 66) names Chihuahua, Sonora and Sinaloa among the western states holding Mexico's major growing areas. It works at state level and does not name the range.
No source read describes the seed or the plants of the sierra as a landrace, and the article does not call them one.

The name

The page takes the name of the range. "Golden Triangle", the name Cedillo, InSight Crime and Mexico News Daily use for the meeting of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua, is given in the article as their word. It is not used as the title, because the same name belongs to the border region of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.

Growing status

The status is Active. The army and navy destroyed cannabis plantations in the region's municipalities in 2014, 2018 and 2019 (defence ministry data), in Tamazula in May 2022 and in Badiraguato in October 2024, and Chihuahua state investigators destroyed one in Guadalupe y Calvo in April 2025. InSight Crime (2022) reports a fall in cannabis growing in the sierra of Sinaloa after prices collapsed. It also reports that some farmers still grow it and that the sierra's crop supplies dispensaries in Culiacán. No source says that growing in the region has ended.

How the border is drawn

The border is a proxy, drawn on administrative units: 13 municipalities, Choix, Sinaloa (seat Sinaloa de Leyva) and Badiraguato in Sinaloa; Guadalupe y Calvo, Morelos, Batopilas, Urique and Guachochi in Chihuahua; Tamazula, Canelas, Topia and Guanaceví in Durango; and Álamos in Sonora (OpenStreetMap relations 5605659, 5606394, 5605578, 5605823, 5606063, 5605583, 5606577, 5605819, 5606420, 5605615, 5606548, 5605827 and 5605484). The union is one piece of about 58,800 km², the figure in the infobox.
These are the municipalities the sources point to. Choix, Sinaloa, Badiraguato, Guadalupe y Calvo, Morelos, Batopilas, Tamazula and Canelas are in the Condor task force's jurisdiction (Cedillo, p. 15). Urique, Topia and Guanaceví are among the municipalities most affected by it (p. 23). Guachochi and Álamos are among the top ten for marijuana destroyed in 2019 and 2014 (Mexico News Daily 2019).
Culiacán is outside. It is in the task force's jurisdiction, but it is the state capital, and the sources place the growing in the highlands; InSight Crime (2022) describes the farms of "the valley" around the city as commercial vegetable fields.
The rest of the range is outside: González-Elizondo et al. (2012) carry it into Zacatecas, Nayarit, Jalisco and Aguascalientes, where no source read places cultivation in the range. La Yesca (Nayarit) and Tequila (Jalisco), in the 2014 top ten, are not drawn in.
The border is not drawn from accession or news points.

Accessions

The one accession from Sinaloa on the wiki, CBG-MEX-SIN-0120120001 (Cannabiogen's Jarilla Sinaloa), records the state but no locality, so it is not attached to the region.

Sources

Cedillo (2021), Kellogg Institute Working Paper 443: read in full. Page numbers are the paper's own (1–34, after the abstract).
González-Elizondo et al. (2012), Acta Botanica Mexicana 100: 351–403: the abstract, introduction and description of the study area (pp. 351–357) were read.
NNICC (1990), The NNICC Report 1989: the Mexico sections (pp. 45–47, opium; pp. 65–67, marijuana) were read.
Valdivia (2019), Portal (University of Texas at Austin): read in full.
Press. Every article cited was read in full: Mexico News Daily (26 August 2019), Luz Noticias (25 May 2022; 7 October 2024), El Imparcial (25 April 2025) and InSight Crime (Parker Asmann and Victoria Dittmar, 6 December 2022).

Where the sources disagree

The dates of Operation Canador. Cedillo gives 1969–1975 in the abstract and 1970–1975 on p. 1, and calls it the Mexican name for Operation Cooperation, announced in October 1969 (p. 6). The article dates the joint campaign to 1969.
The Tamazula operation of May 2022. Luz Noticias (25 May 2022) reports eight plantations covering 11.5 hectares (115,000 m²) near El Palmar. La Razón (26 May 2022) reports six plantations covering 115 hectares near Duras, from a defence ministry statement. It is not clear whether these are one operation or two. The article uses Luz Noticias, whose figures agree with each other.

Sources not used

Craig (1980), "Operation Condor: Mexico's Antidrug Campaign Enters a New Era", is cited only through Cedillo (the figure of 70 per cent, p. 9).
Fernández Velázquez (2018), El narcotráfico en los Altos de Sinaloa (1940–1970) (Universidad Veracruzana), was not obtained; only a review of it was read. The review places the Altos de Sinaloa in Choix, El Fuerte, Sinaloa de Leyva, Mocorito, Badiraguato, Cosalá and parts of Culiacán, Elota and San Ignacio.
The Washington Post (2014) on the fall in prices paid to Sinaloa growers was not obtained; it is known only through other outlets' summaries.
Opium poppy. The NNICC report of 1989 (p. 46) places the main opium-growing area in Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango. The article does not use poppy figures as evidence for cannabis.
Herbarium sheets. The sheets from the Tamazula River and Tepehuanes in Durango (cited on the Mexico page) record plants escaped from cultivation. They are not accessions on the wiki and do not show where the crop was grown.