Nah, the problem with drug cartels is that they aren't cartels, as can be seen by the body count they're racking up against each other south of the border. They aren't cartels at all in the economic sense of the term, but rather firms competing against each other.
The term "cartel" arguably did apply up until around the death of Pablo Escobar, and the subsequent usurpation of power from the Colombian producers by the Mexican distributors. For the most part, the drug trade really was a single, multinational, price-fixing monopoly (or at least a cooperative oligopoly) under Pablo's reign.
[I'm not trying to give the guy any credit or praise for his actions, though.]
