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Source: The NBC Special "DRUG BUST, THE LONGEST WAR"
Copyright: 1999 MSNBC
Pubdate: Sunday, 20 June 1999
Contacts: http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0111.html

THE WAR ON DRUGS GOES BUST

After 31 years, we're not stopping the traffickers or curing the addicts

The White House first declared war on drugs 31 years ago. Three hundred
billion dollars later, victory is nowhere in sight. Six American presidents
have waged our anti-drug crusade, yet despite the billions spent, millions
have been addicted, and hundreds of thousands are in prison on drug raps
that range from the real to the ridiculous. In a three-part report, NBC's
Geraldo Rivera looks at what went wrong in America's longest war.

ACT ONE: 

DRUGS ARE still everywhere and they're cheap, in some cases cheaper and
more readily available than they were when this costly campaign began.
Here's a hard look at the war that has not and maybe cannot be won. We
begin on the front lines at the world's busiest border crossing, San
Ysidro, California, where smuggling drugs into our country can be as easy
as walking across the street.

"It's a game of cat and mouse," says U.S. Customs Inspector Bob Hood.
"They're trying to hide from us and we're trying to catch them. And it's a
thrill to get that load of dope. Makes your job worthwhile. It's worth all
the hard work when we catch somebody," adds Hood.

After eleven years on the line, he's known as the man with a special sense
when it comes to busting dope smugglers.

Everyday customs inspectors surveil an endless river of cars flowing to
America from Mexico. Thirty-three million vehicles and 7 million
pedestrians were funneled through this choke-point last year alone.

Geraldo Rivera: "Robert, with this much traffic how do you know which ones
to give special attention to, which ones to check out?"

Bob Hood: "With my experience I can look at vehicles that don't look right
to me. Sometimes it could be the person doesn't fit the vehicle. You just
look at them and know something is wrong. Maybe the stress on the person or
things like that. Sometimes, when I talk to somebody it's their story.
Their story doesn't make any sense."

Hood, is up against a wily, worldly foe - big time smugglers like Roger
Golden, who has trafficked marijuana around the world.

"I worked in Europe, Turkey, Thailand, Caribbean, and then the last 15
years on the Mexican border," says Golden.

It's a border that he turned into a gold mine with the intricate planning
that is the smugglers' routine.

Roger Golden: "It became a regular business. We very rarely thought that we
were even doing something illegal. Every once in a while I'd look at my
partner and I'd go, 'You know, this is illegal!' Because we didn't even
think about that. The best quality, how to get it through safely, how to
keep all the cars registered, have the tires been changed? Most of the
things the outlaw, the professional outlaw thinks about is logistics."

Bob Hood: "The smugglers are patient, they wait for us to go in or take a
break or something, then they'll try to..."

Geraldo Rivera: "Do they watch you, do they surveil you, your activities
from the other side?"

Hood: "I'm sure they do. There are certain areas that we know they're at."

The drug lookouts are known as "spotters." They work for big traffickers
pushing the stuff across the border.

Bob Hood: "They look to see what lanes are moving fast... they're watching
for the dog that's wandering out here... they're watching for us... they're
watching their load vehicle to see if it gets through or not."

Roger Golden: "I didn't do any work. It was the drivers driving, counters
counting, bookkeepers bookkeeping."

William von Raab: "Smugglers are brilliant in many cases. If they would
apply these talents to normal businesses they might out-do Bill Gates."

Former Republican-appointed Customs boss William von Raab knows a
smuggler's strategy includes finding the most unlikely drivers. Drivers
like "Dave" a pseudonym we'll use to protect his identity. "They want
Americans. They want Americans to drive. They want California plates, they
want U.S. plates. They want American drivers," says Dave.

"Dave" seemed a perfect recruit. A middle-aged, white American. He became a
drug mule for the Mexicans.

Dave: "I was offered money."

Geraldo Rivera: "And was it big money for a comparatively simple task?"

Dave: "Yes it was a substantial amount of money. A couple of thousand
dollars."

Geraldo Rivera: "So that's what you got for six hours... eight hours work?"

Dave: "Forty minutes work."

Geraldo Rivera: "How many times did you successfully complete that task?"

Dave: "Well, I was arrested once sir."

Dave's load was discovered by a dog. The traffickers try to outwit the
dogs. So, they camouflage the odor of their dope by wrapping it a thousand
different ways.

Agent one: "It's plastic, baby powder..."

Agent two: "They try all kinds of tricks - coffee, mustard, grease..."

Agent three: "They're trying to distract the dog by putting shrimp in the
car. He's not trained to find shrimp, he's trained to find dope. And
obviously he's found it."

The arrests and seizures never seem to stop.

Last year, federal agents alone seized close to two million pounds of
marijuana and close to two tons of heroin. Still, at least nine times that
much got through. Smugglers don't have to take the main road. They've got
2,000 miles of Mexican border to work with. They'll fly over it... and
tunnel under it. Anything to get their product into America's insatiable
market - a market worth $57 billion a year. And all Customs can do is play
catch up. At the Domestic Air Interdiction Coordination Center at March Air
Force base in Riverside, California, the chase goes hi-tech.

Like many of the anti-smuggling tools, the state of the art radar is
expensive, costing taxpayers $9 million a year to maintain. The center is
designed to identify all aircraft entering U.S. airspace. But as with most
of the drug war's arsenal, the bad guys have figured a way to beat this
weapon too. San Diego Customs air chief, Bill Ceicil says, "They pretty
much know when there's radar around. They can detect that. The pilots have
gained expertise." Roger Golden pretty much agrees. He says, "you use a
Cessna and you are two or three miles from the border on one side and you
only fly it to a few miles above the border - you're in the air a matter of
minutes. So even if they radar you and say, 'Uh-oh there's a plane,' it's
down before they're up."

And at the end of the day, after all this effort, government sources
estimate they're only stopping five to ten percent of the dope from coming
across our borders. That's the same percentage they've been getting for
decades. 

William von Raab: "You can't not do interdiction. I mean, it's just
something that has to be done. I mean, you cannot give up traffic lights in
the middle of a town because no one obeys them."

Roger Golden: "Interdiction can never work in America. Because there's too
much money and there is too many people willing to risk anything including
life in prison and death to bring drugs into this country because there's
too many people that want them."

Sen. Diane Feinstein, D.-Calif., is a member of the U.S. Senate caucus on
international narcotics control. She says, "In my state you see the cocaine
- - street price of cocaine - is at a five-year low. The street price of
black tar Mexican heroin is at a 25-year low."

According to the D.E.A., heroin production has doubled since 1986 and the
heroin hitting the streets is three times as pure. It's also cheaper than
ever. In just the last 15 years the price has plummeted 50 percent. 

Geraldo Rivera: "What's a gram of coke cost these days?"

Brett: "Sixty, seventy..."

Sam: "Forties, fifties..."

Rivera: "Forty, fifty bucks?"

Sam: "It depends... it depends on who you get it from..."

Rivera: "And a gram of heroin?"

Sam: "About the same. About 70... maybe a little more."

Sam, Jaye and Brett - middle-class, well-educated heroin addicts living in
San Diego. They're the kind of kids who can now buy a dose of heroin and
get high for just $10. 

Geraldo Rivera: "So how much do you use every day?"

Brett: "Anywhere from probably about a half a gram to about a gram and a
half."

Rivera: "How much money?"

Brett: "It's about a hundred to a hundred-fifty dollars."

Rivera: "That's a lot of money. So how do you get the money?"

Jaye: "Hustling."

Brett: "Just lie, cheat and steal."

They are among the ranks of America's 4 million hard core users - a number
that has not changed much in years - a permanent part of the population.
America's same old appetite, but with a new supplier - Mexico - that's how
the story has changed. There's a brand new bad guy and it's one many in
Washington would rather not talk about. Because Mexico is our neighbor, a
huge trading partner, and is supposed to be our ally in the war on drugs.
But 70 percent of the drugs sold on our streets are either produced in or
shipped through Mexico - by Mafia-like cartels. Von Raab says, "Mexico is
the number one public enemy for the United States as far as drug smuggling
is concerned."

ACT TWO: BUSINESS AS USUAL

Living In A World Of Drug Trafficking

Tijuana, Mexico - Four ruthless drug cartels now control the trade in this
troubled country - one of them is based right here in Tijuana. Together
they earn an estimated $30 billion a year in revenue, and that blood money
reaped a whirlwind of violence and corruption that has spread all the way
from the cop on the beat to the office of the president. And if you're a
brave Mexican journalist who dares to tell that story...

JESUS BLANCORNELAS' WIFE eases him into his vest every day and prays he
will not be a target again. He is the internationally honored publisher one
of the best newspapers in Mexico, Zeta.

Juan Blancornelas: "I put this on every day. It's very heavy but it can
even stop an AK-47."

Geraldo Rivera: "So it's Thanksgiving 1997. Your dad's driving to work,
he's going in this direction."

Blancornelas is using that bulletproof vest today because of what happened
on a local street two years ago. His son Rene recalls that awful morning
when more than 100 bullets were shot at his father.

Geraldo Rivera: "As he comes here, approaching the hill what happens?"

Rene Blancornelas: "A car blocks the ramp over there. And a guy standing
over [on the] right side starts shooting a nine millimeters to the
chauffeur, to the bodyguard of my dad."

Rivera: "The car ends here?"

Blancornelas: "Yeah."

Rivera: "Describe the kinds of stories that your dad was doing that made
these people so angry with him."

Blancornelas: "Corruption uh, bad handling... bad handling of money in the
government, narco-trafficker."

There have been no shortage of stories for Blancornelas. Item: a Mexican
cardinal is gunned down at the airport by drug gangs. Item: a main street
shootout between members of the army and state police on the payroll of a
drug cartel. Item: a reform presidential candidate, Donaldo Colosio,
assassinated in broad daylight.

POLICE PROTECTION

Don Ferrarone: "Their motto was, 'It's either the silver or the lead,'
which means we're either gonna pay you off or we're gonna kill you."

Don Ferrarone is a former D.E.A. station chief who ran 14 offices on the
Mexican border.

Don Ferrarone: "And so a lot of good people in Mexico, folks who really
wanted to do the right thing - even the press, prosecutors, special
prosecutors, special judges, commandantes - have been assassinated."

He is not shocked by the Blancornelas shooting or by the fact that no
arrests have been made. Because Ferrarone's experience is that more often
than not, the police are protecting cartel bosses, not arresting them. 

Don Ferrarone: "I guess it's important to understand that the drug dealers
in Mexico believe that they cannot function effectively without the help of
the national police force, the Mexican Federal Police."

Geraldo Rivera: "Are they on the payroll, do they get a retainer, are they
paid by the job?"

Don Ferrarone: "All of the above."

Eduardo Ibarrola: "They can work with impunity and they can buy everything.
They can bribe everyone here."

One of Mexico's top crime fighters, Assistant Attorney General Eduardo
Ibarrola agrees about the power of the cartels.

Geraldo Rivera: "Are the cartels more powerful than the government?"

Eduardo Ibarrola: "I don't think they are more powerful than the Mexican
institutions, fortunately. But they are very powerful... yes... yes they are."

This past February, President Clinton met with Mexico's President Ernesto
Zedillo. Zedillo has never been linked to corruption or drug cartels.
Ironically, the meeting was held on the Yucatan peninsula. This tourist
paradise is now the newest international hub for cocaine shipments to the
United States. At the time of the visit, there was another embarrassment -
the governor of the adjoining state, Mario Villanueva, was under
investigation for aiding the cocaine traffickers. He has been missing since
late March.

Roger Golden: "Anyone in a position of power in Mexico, in my opinion, is
on the take. Occasionally there's probably somebody not on the take. And
those are how all the people on the take make a living. They all, 95
percent of the time, guide you around that one person that's really trying
to do his job."

Blancornelas refuses to stop writing about the corruption, the cartels and
the violence. So this is how he must get to work everyday.

NOT OUR PROBLEM

That he continues to write about the cartels is all the more heroic when
you realize he is a minority voice among editors in Mexico. In a country
with staggering poverty, and a 40 percent unemployment rate, very few
people have time to worry about drug cartels, 

Don Ferrarone: "There is a culture of admiration and close to worship of
drug traffickers in some of the poorest areas of Mexico."

Saturday night in Temisco - a two-hour drive from Mexico City. Los Tucanes
de Tijuana - one of Mexico's biggest bands singing their songs of love and
narcotics. They are part of the popular culture, and in their song called
"Postre" or "Dessert," the dessert they sing of is cocaine.

Jorge Castenada: "The cartels are not seen as, in as sinister a fashion in
Mexico as they are in the United States."

Jorge Castenada, author and professor at the national university, has
written extensively on U.S./Mexican relations.

Jorge Castenada: "What do the cartels do here? They bring stuff in from
South America and they expedite it on its way to the United States. While
it's here, there's a little shooting now and then...there's a little
corruption now and then, there's a little. So what else is new? Corruption,
a little violence. In Mexico? It's been going on forever."

But on this trip, the Mexican army clearly challenged that idea that drugs
and corruption will last forever. We asked the Mexican government to show
us their eradication efforts first hand.

So they took us to the remote part of the state of Guerrero, northeast of
Acapulco. These rugged mountains shield lush valleys perfect for growing
heroin poppies. The poppies link the lives of the poor Mexican farmers
directly to the drug cartels, according to General Lopez Portillo.

I asked the general if the farmers work for themselves or the cartels. He
pointed out how economic desperation influences the farmer's decisions.

General Lopez Portillo: "The intention of the farmers is to resolve their
immediate problems - to make sure they can eat. And for that they have to
work for other people."

The officers in charge of this operation seem sincere. They say there are
25,000 brave soldiers deployed to cut down fields like this. Soldiers do
back-breaking work living and sleeping in the mountains for weeks at a time.

Geraldo Rivera: "Is the reputation of Mexico being unfairly smeared?"

General: "We do not think that it is. We are sure of it. Look at these men
here; they are deployed 300 days a year, working very hard to stop this
problem. How can you accuse us of not doing enough if you see this is what
we are doing."

According to Jorge Castenada, there is evidence that some Mexican kids are
starting to use hard drugs but he says drug abuse is really seen here as an
American problem. So most Mexicans are not overly concerned.

Jorge Castenada: "Society has to be willing to fight a war on drugs. You
have to have Mexican society up in arms saying 'You have to do something
about this. Our children are dying.' Its kids are not dying, because there
is not a mass social problem and consequently there is no mass social
reaction."

BUSINESS AS USUAL

Whether or not the Mexican people support a war on drugs, the Mexican
government is supposedly cooperating, at least according to Clinton's drug
czar General Barry McCaffrey.

Barry McCaffrey: "We are absolutely maintaining a presence, an interdiction
presence working with Mexico on their coastal waters. So cooperation has
gone from zero to considerable. Is it adequate? No."

William Von Raab: "The notion that Mexico is a partner fighting at our side
in the drug war is a political dream, or maybe just a political lie."

The U.S. Senate faced the hard truth earlier this year when Ron Kushner, an
investigator for the non-partisan GAO, the Government Accounting Office,
reported on Mexican failures.

Ron Kushner: "Drugs are still flowing across the Mexican border into the
U.S. at basically the same levels they have been for the last couple of
years. There's been no significant increase in seizures or eradications.
There's been no major drug trafficker extradited or surrendered to the
United States."

In short, Mexico's anti-drug efforts last year were mostly a disaster
according to our government statistics.

Sen. Diane Feinstein, D.-Calif.: "Cocaine seizures fell by 41 percent to
nearly their lowest point in the '90s. Heroin seizures rose slightly but
remained 67 percent below 1996 levels."

But those aren't the numbers that Washington really cares about. It's the
$174 billion worth of cross-border trade stimulated by the NAFTA agreement
that most politicians and business leaders are focused on.

This booming trade almost guarantees Mexico's annual recertification as our
partner in the drug war.

For Mexico, the implications of certification are great. Certification
means trade benefits and loan guarantees for Mexico. It also guarantees a
stable business environment for U.S. business, which has $25 billion
invested in this country. So, every year - the drug war takes a back seat
to business despite the failures, and Mexico is recertified.

William Von Raab: "When the [U.S.] secretary of the treasury goes to
Mexico, does he talk about drugs or does he talk about bank loans and
commerce? If he talks about the latter, the drugs take a back seat, the
Mexicans take their cue, and they don't worry about their own corruption
situation."

Geraldo Rivera: "I was in this office maybe 20 years ago and I spoke to the
then-attorney general and took the army helicopters to the state of
Guerrero and watched the eradication of the fields. It's a mirror of what I
am doing today. It indicates to me that the attempt to stop drugs, for
whatever reason are not succeeding. Have we lost this war?"

Eduardo Ibarrola: "I wouldn't say we have lost the war, but I would
certainly say we are in a very difficult position to win it."

So the drugs continue to pour across the border... and the people who use
them and want to stop are fighting on their own desperate front in this
longest war.

ACT THREE: THE TREATMENT GAP

Eric Sterling is a drug policy expert. He has followed the numbers for
decades and has concluded we're losing the drug war because we are spending
our money in all the wrong places.

Eric Sterling: "An $18 billion anti-drug budget - two-thirds of that is for
high-tech equipment, law enforcement, imprisonment, AWACS (PH) aircraft,
specialized go-fast boats, international crop suppression programs
overseas. All of the fancy and expensive stuff grows faster than ... the
treatment side of the ledger."

Counselor: "You ever been in treatment before?"

Rachael Hammond: "No."

Counselor: "Okay, drug of choice?"

Hammond: "Methamphetamine."

Counselor: "How many times used in the last month?"

Hammond: "I couldn't count."

Rachael Hammond grew up in San Diego County addicted to methamphetamine, 90
percent of which is made and distributed by the Mexican cartels, according
to federal law enforcement.

Counselor: "Okay, what is your reason for wanting to enter treatment at
this time?"

Rachael Hammond: "My reason? 'Cause I want to get sober and stay sober."

Methamphetamine. Some call it crystal, crank or speed. It has controlled
Rachael's life ever since she was a teenager.

Counselor: "I need to know how many years total you've been using meth."

Rachael Hammond: "Okay, 14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24..."

Shanda Hammond: "Today she is 27 years old. Actually it's her birthday. And
she has been a crystal methamphetamine user for 10 years. And I suppose
that a lot of that time the family was in denial about it. You just think
somebody is going to get okay. And she is not okay as of today. She's not
okay."

Rachael's mother, Shanda Hammond, has watched as drugs stole Rachael's
dreams, her youth, and most recently her two children.

Rachael Hammond: "You know you're hurting them. You know that those are
things you can't take back and you know that. You watch them grow up,
they're changing. Their speech is different. Their hands are bigger and
you're losing that time with them. You've been there the whole time but
you're not."

Counselor: "Your mother has custody?"

Rachael Hammond: "My mother has temporary custody..."

Today, Rachael has come here to San Diego's McAlister Institute hoping to
be assigned a detox bed. 

Counselor: "In the meantime, what we need to do is just keep you on the
regular waiting list until we can figure out where we can place you."

Jeanne McAlister founded the clinic. She knows how most of society judges
the addict. 

Jeanne McAlister: "They think of these drug addicts that want treatment as
animals. And yet they're somebody's daughter or son or granddaughter or
grandson, and they don't understand that that's who were working with."

Eric Mosley: "We can't even take them to juvenile hall..." 'We don't have
adequate drug treatment capacity in this country. Generally speaking I'd
say we probably have 50 percent of what we need.' - BARRY MCCAFFERY U.S.
drug czar 

Jeanne sees the failure of our drug policy first hand - the lack of
treatment for those who are ready to stop using drugs - the human cost of
our longest war. They can't afford private treatment, so the taxpayers must
pick up their tab.

Rachael Hammond: "There's so much of you that doesn't want to use. But...
some lack of something, you are. If it's information, if it's not enough
resources, whatever. It doesn't matter how much I didn't want to, I was."

Jeanne McAlister: "I've been involved in drug abuse work for 42 years and
the whole population has changed. It's worse than it's ever been, it's more
than it's ever been."

Geraldo Rivera: "How is it worse? Describe it."

Jeanne McAlister: "I think that people are using earlier. They start at 8,
9, 12 years old. So they've been using longer."

One by one they come here to San Diego's McAlister Institute, the
casualties in the drug war - addicts desperate for the help they need to
break their habits.

And one by one they are given the same answer - there is no room for them -
a long waiting list - no beds available to detox.

The grim reality after three decades of fighting the drug wars is, that
it's a lot easier in our country to score dope than it is to find the help
you need to break your habit.

Woman counselor: "Right now there is no beds available. There is a waiting
list. It is anywhere from 24 hours to three weeks."

Vernon Agustin (on phone): "We don't have any bed spaces right now."

Lorrie Hernandez (on phone): "Hi this is Lorrie Hernandez. I need to find
out where I am at on the waiting list."

Janine: "What I need you to do is call this phone number right here
everyday..."

Even Rachael, at the top of the list because she has young children, was
told she must wait.

Janine: "...and you call in and check in every day, we're going to put a
little check mark next to your name."

Counselor: "Our detox waiting list is kind of a long list..."

All over San Diego County it's the same sad story. It's estimated that at
least 1,500 people a day want to detox from drugs. The problem is there are
only 48 county-funded detox beds where an addict who can't afford private
treatment can go. And that treatment gap between what's needed and what's
available is mirrored nationwide, according to the drug czar General Barry
McCaffrey.

Barry McCaffery: "We don't have adequate drug treatment capacity in this
country. Generally speaking I'd say we probably have 50 percent of what we
need."

Last year the national anti-drug budget was close to 18 billion dollars.
Only 3 billion went to treatment.

Shane Johnson: "It's just breaking me."

Geraldo Rivera: "What do you say to the addict for whom there is no room?"

Jeanne McAlister: "We say wait."

Tori Barr: "Okay let's go. You can bring your bag."

And that's what happened to Tony Mena as he went through the painful
waiting game that is the reality of trying to get treatment. 

Tori Barr: "Okay, here's the problem, is that there's a long waiting list
to get in - three to six weeks."

Tony Mena: "I was hoping just to come in and sign up and go in like right
away you know."

Tori Barr: "What we can offer you is some interim services."

Tony Mena: "I, like, right then and there I just felt like giving up, you
know, and I felt myself... I just pictured myself getting high and just
fucking up all over again." 

In five months Tony has gone from a casual user to a hard-core meth addict
- - breaking into houses to support his habit.

Tony Mena: "It's turned me into a totally different person than I am. I
would have never thought about going and robbing people's houses, doing all
this crap. And you know, I like, I was doing it. I was doing it and it was
stupid. All for a little like chemical in a bag, you know?"

But now he seems ready to accept help... and returns to McAlister a second
day, still hoping for a bed.

Tony Mena: "Right now I'm clean for my second day and I'm, like, really
happy right now and I feel really good about myself. So I'm doing pretty
good."

Woman: "Okay this is where you start. The ball is in your hand now."

Rachael got her detox bed and hoped it would help her get clean from drugs.

Maria: "Okay, this will be your bed. Right now you have one roommate."

But Tony wasn't as lucky. After four days on the waiting list, there were
still no beds. And Tony left McAlister and never returned. 

Geraldo Rivera: "Is it in society's best interest now to give that person a
bed?"

Jeanne McAlister: "Because treatment works. Recovery works. And it may not
work this day but it will work eventually."

Geraldo Rivera: "And the alternative?"

Jeanne McAlister: "The alternative is death or incarceration and that's it.
Those are the alternatives."

Geraldo Rivera: "Death or jail."

Jeanne McAlister: "Mmm hmm."

Judge: "Anthony Mena."

Soon after Tony gave up on getting treatment, he got high on
methamphetamine again and got arrested. As for Rachael, she stayed in
treatment for less than a week, walked out, and started injecting
methamphetamine again.

Judge: "To the charge of vandalism and resisting arrest, what is your plea,
guilty or not guilty?"

Tony Mena: "Guilty."

Tony managed to stay out of jail by promising to quit using
methamphetamine, but Rachael Hammond chose to go to jail because she
couldn't pay an old drunk driving fine. While she was locked up, she quit
using drugs after going cold-turkey for a week and now she says she's
finally ready to stay drug free.

Geraldo Rivera: "So do you ever feel like screaming to the wind, saying
you've got it all wrong, this war that you're fighting with helicopters and
speed boats is not the real war, not the right war."

Jeanne McAlister: "I feel like screaming a lot. Because you're absolutely
right. In my opinion, we've lost the war on drugs."

When we met Tony and Rachael they were trying to find and stick with drug
treatment. When we left them they had wound up in the criminal justice
system instead - and that's the destination of many of the casualties of
America's longest war. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake