Lots o' Dealers

Mexican Secretary of Defense Guillermo Galván says that there are 500,000 people involved* with the drug trade in his country: 300,000 involved with the production of drugs, 160,000 more involved in the transport and logistics, and 40,000 who are part of the cartels' operating structure. 

Needless to say, that's a big number. I'm not quite sure what distinguishes the second and the third categories, but I imagine the smaller number reflects the group of hard-core criminals who must be arrested or killed, while the 160,000 that dedicate themselves to logistics are more loosely affiliated. Even supposing that Galván exaggerated the number by a third, that's still a lot of folks in the cartels. 

*Of course, if you extend the meaning of the world "involved"  by a few degrees of separation to people who unwittingly patronize money-laundering businesses, or people who owe their jobs to drug-fueled economic growth, there's probably barely 500,000 who aren't involved in the drug trade.