Pubdate: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 Source: Pueblo Chieftain (CO) Copyright: 2002 The Star-Journal Publishing Corp. Contact: http://www.chieftain.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1613 Author: Will Weissert FOX SAYS MEXICO HAS IGNORED RISING DRUG-USE RATES TOO LONG MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico, long focused on the war against top drug lords and cartels that smuggle narcotics to the United States, must do more to curb its own fast-rising drug-use and addiction rates, President Vicente Fox said Saturday. Two days before he is scheduled to unveil his government's aggressive, five-year anti-drug strategy, Fox said the new plan will push for improved drug treatment and prevention programs nationwide and work to impose tougher punishments for those caught selling drugs on Mexico's streets. "In the past they talked about drug production and smuggling to the large market in the United States," Fox said in his weekly radio address. "But now the problem is hitting much closer to home because it affects our children, our young people." For decades dubbed a "transit" country that drugs flowed through on their way to an insatiable market on America's streets, law enforcement officials on both sides of the border now agree Mexico is beginning to look more like a drug "consumer" nation. The number of Mexicans addicted to hard drugs has skyrocket over the past decade and addicts have begun congregating in border towns where drugs are easily available and law enforcement often looks the other way. Mexican drug use is still well below U.S. levels, but Fox acknowledged that it is rising fast. He said Mexico's past emphasis on busting up major smuggling gangs that move drugs across the border has forced smugglers to cultivate a Mexican market for their products. "We were so busy focusing on that task that we failed to take care of the health of our own young people," he said. "That can't happen." Fox's administration has been responsible for the arrest of several high-profile kingpins this year, including Benjamin Arellano Felix, the alleged leader of the Arellano Felix smuggling gang. Fox, who appeared on the radio with Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha and his administration's top drug-addiction adviser, took a call from Hugo Ernesto Garcia, a 20-year-old who said drug dealers now hang out on every street corner in his working-class neighborhood in northwest Mexico City. "They deliver (drugs) to your house like pizza," Garcia told the president, adding that the police often protect drug pushers in exchange for small bribes. Another 20-year-old caller said Mexico's drug problem "was now such a normal part of life" that there was very little Fox's government could do about it. Fox responded by calling on Mexican families to make sure their children weren't using or selling drugs. "This is a job that clearly the government should do, wants to do and is going to do," he said. "But in no way is the government capable of winning this battle without the cooperation of young people themselves and their families. - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl