Your background information of the previous administration is much appreciated. However, I don't think that that excuses any of the actions of the current administration.
When people do drugs for at least 6 months, their brains don't function well that they could rape young children, sell all their stuffs in exchange for drugs, kill the taxi drivers and all the crimes that can come in your imagination. They will do whatever they want (which includes killings) for their own needs since they're already retarded addict and since a lot of people do drugs the crime rate gets to increase rapidly. Look now, the crime rate just got lowered except for the drug related crimes that is happening now since drug lords would kill all the people they do not trust and do everything just to avoid the consequence that could happen when they got caught. There's no joke about the actions of the current government.
There is nothing to negotiate: you give these people money and they will just want more. You give in to their demands, or ignore them, and you become a part of the problem. A war suddenly becomes a lot more tempting to wage...