A ‘Glittering and Golden’ Museum to Mexico’s Drug War Is Heavy on Trinkets and Light on Tragedy

The Private ‘Narco Museum’ Documents One Side of the Story—Perhaps Someday the Public Will See the Whole Picture

Amid the gridlocked streets of northern Mexico City lies a fascinating and surreal museum that is not open to the public. Officially called the Museo del Enervante—a rather dull technical name that could be translated as the Museum of the Stupefacient—it is better known as the “Narco Museum.”

Located inside the sprawling complex of the Ministry of National Defense, the headquarters of the Mexican army, the museum gets its unofficial moniker because it displays the craziest artifacts that Mexican soldiers have nabbed from drug traffickers. Vials of marijuana, crystal meth, …