Mexico's new government, struggling with rampant drug trafficking and crime, ordered thousands of troops to the western state of Michoacan on Monday to fight drug cartels locked in a vicious turf war. President Felipe Calderon's security cabinet said more than 5,000 soldiers and Marines were being deployed to crack down on drug gangs in the state, a key air and sea transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine. "We will establish control points on highways and secondary roads to limit drug trafficking, along with raids and arrests," Interior Minister Francisco Ramirez Acuna said. The soldiers, accompanied by federal police, also would search for and destroy drug plantations in the state, famous for poppy and marijuana production, Ramirez Acuna said. Almost 3,000 people, mostly drug gang members and police, have been killed in the past two years in escalating cartel wars across Mexico.