The cartels are embedded in the local population. If you treat the cartel as a military that needs a military solution, then you end up not just with civilian casualties, but with local hostility to you (for killing friends / family by collateral damage). If there was an effective way to fight a guerilla military embedded in the local population, the US would've already won in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen would've been long defeated, and Hezbollah long forgotten.