Pubdate: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 Source: Tallahassee Democrat (FL) Copyright: 2002 Tallahassee Democrat. Contact: http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/444 Author: Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Tribune Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?203 (Terrorism) MEXICAN ADDICTION RATES RISE AS U.S. BORDER SECURITY TIGHTENS MEXICO CITY -- After years of dismissing cocaine as a U.S. problem, Mexicans are finding that it's their problem, too. Government drug treatment clinics that saw 3,000 abusers a year in the 1990s now see 50,000. Abuse used to be largely confined to the northern Mexican states from which U.S. cocaine smuggling operations were launched. Now it has seeped south to big cities such as Mexico City and Guadalajara. There, powdered cocaine, with its high price limiting its use to Mexico's upper classes, has given way to $2-a-rock crack so cheap that it's luring street kids away from sniffing solvents. Security Made Problem Worse The problem has deep roots, but the security crackdown on the U.S.-Mexican border since Sept. 11 intensified it, Mexican drug officials say. They say smugglers are finding it harder to move cocaine into the United States and instead are selling it in Mexico - at rock-bottom prices. As evidence, they cite the high purity of cocaine recently seized, suggesting that smugglers are selling the drug before squeezing out the extra profit derived from cutting it. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson corroborates the theory that tighter border enforcement is responsible. Cocaine purity fell 9 percent last year in the United States, reflecting tight supply, Hutchinson told Knight Ridder. U.S. coke dealers are "diluting it to make it go further," he said. In Mexico City's outskirts, at a group therapy session for parents of drug addicts, Pedro Bernal Garcia rues the consequences. "We are just so sad because we don't want to accept that our kids have fallen into drugs," said Garcia, whose two sons, aged 27 and 24, are imprisoned for stealing to feed their cocaine habits. As other parents nod in unison, he adds something many U.S. families already know: "This is a global problem." Mexico now has at least 2.5 million drug users, and at least half a million of them are hard-core drug addicts, said Guido Belsasso, Mexico's anti-addictions czar. Mexico's population is about 100 million. According to Health Ministry studies, more than 5 percent of Mexicans aged 12 to 65 have tried illicit drugs. That's nothing like the 39 percent rate for Americans reported by U.S. drug abuse agencies. But it's a troubling number for a conservative country more accustomed to alcoholism than drug abuse. New Smuggling Routes Historically, traffickers brought Colombian cocaine to the United States via the Florida and Gulf coasts. More effective interdiction in those areas during the 1990s compelled Colombian traffickers to seek other routes. Along the way, Colombians began paying with cocaine instead of money. What Mexican cartels couldn't get across the border they began selling in Mexico. "If you have a 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) block of cocaine, you can't go to the bank and cash it out. That's how kids 7, 8 and 9 are getting hooked," Belsasso said. "That is the new scene in Mexico City." - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl