TIJUANA – "Drug violence is down significantly in the city."

That's the message often repeated in the last year by high-ranking officials, from Baja California's governor and his Cabinet secretaries to Tijuana's mayor and business leaders.

And to an extent, they are right. As of Sept. 1, there have been 180 fewer killings in the city than the same period last year.

That message was challenged in recent days, however, when 22 people were killed in nine days in Tijuana, including a dentist shot to death on Thursday. State authorities point out that a majority of the murders – an estimated 80 percent – were the result of disputes among street-level drug dealers fighting to control sales in a part of the city.

They and the politicians assert that the ruthless war among organized criminal groups, and the crackdown by military-led authorities, have weakened the cartels to the point that they no longer control trafficking in the border.

A sociologist who has studied the drug phenomenon in the region for two decades does not share their optimism.

Victor Clark, the director of the Binational Center for Human Rights, said the cartels may have fewer members and new leaders but they still exert power, and can easily regroup back into large organizations. He credits the drop in violence to an agreement between the home-grown Arellano Félix cartel and the one from Sinaloa that has divided control of the border region.

"The state appears to be downplaying the recent executions tied to drug dealing and is forgetting that drug dealers are the base of the pyramid for organized crime in Tijuana," Clark said.

"Today, drug dealing on the street is controlled by the cartels, not like in the 1990s, when the cartels sold the drugs to dealers and charged them the right to operate on their turf."

The recent murders, however, do not endanger the agreement between the Sinaloa and Arellano Félix cartels because they have no impact on their structure, Clark said.

"The deaths of drug dealers do not disrupt the sale of drugs on the streets; as long as that does not change, the pact between the cartels is not jeopardized," said Clark, "at least for the moment."

The expert noted that the sophisticated, 300-acre marijuana field south of Ensenada, discovered in July, is a sign of the major presence of the Sinaloa cartel in Baja California.

"Not only is the cartel involved crossing drugs into the United States and in controlling the sale of drugs at the retail level, but it is growing better-quality marijuana to be able to compete in the U.S. market, where Mexican marijuana is considered to be of very low quality," he said.

Clark said cells associated with the La Familia cartel, or its offshoot, Los Templarios de Michoacán,

are paying a "travel fee" to the Arellano and Sinaloa cartels be able to cross drugs through the border region. Public pronouncements aside, he said, the city remains under control of both of these criminal organizations.

Omar.millan@sandiegored.com