[10][11][12] Michoacán is a leading producer of marijuana and opium poppy, making it a lucrative route for smugglers taking narcotics into the United States.

Many of these areas are plagued with drug-related violence, so the political parties have faced difficulties finding people interested in holding the post of mayor.

[15] It was in Michoacán that Felipe Calderón launched the country's first military-led operation in the ongoing drug war, just ten days after he took office on 11 December 2006.

After years of past administrations taking a passive stance against the drug cartels, Calderón had decided it was time for the government to "flex its muscles.

The cartels in Michoacán force the local population to pay for "protection", spy, and report suspicious activities and law enforcement presence.

[16] "I am sure that the Mexicans of tomorrow will remember these days as the moment when the country took the decision to defend itself, with all its force, against a voracious criminal phenomenon of transnational dimensions," Calderón said on 20 November 2012 at a ceremony for fallen soldiers.

[16] In January 2008, three months after Gorrostieta Salazar took office, she and her husband were travelling near the rural community of Las Mojarras when an automobile ran them off the road.

"[5] On 16 January 2009, in the rural area of El Limón de Papatzindán, the couple was attacked by armed assailants and received minor injuries that did not prevent them from continuing their public lives.

[5] On 23 January 2010, Gorrostieta Salazar was attacked by armed men in Ciudad Altamirano, Guerrero, while returning from a local event with four other people.

[21] Also injured were the driver of the vehicle, who was shot twice; Marbella Reyes Ortoño, head of the Institute of Women in Tiquicheo; and Fanny Almazán Gómez, a journalist from El Sol de Morelia.

[22] She publicly displayed her wounds in photographs published in an issue of Contacto Ciudadano magazine, and repeated her statement that she would continue her work.

[A 3] On 15 November, police identified the body after farm workers from the rural community of San Juan Tararameo in Cuitzeo found the corpse on their way to work.

[34] Gorrostieta Salazar was buried alongside her husband José Sánchez Chávez in a tomb at a local cemetery in Tiquicheo, her hometown.