Pubdate: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2003 The Dallas Morning News Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 Author: Ricardo Chavira Jr., The Dallas Morning News NO LONGER MERELY A PIPELINE, MEXICO WATCHES DRUG USE SURGE New Users Are Mostly Lower-, Middle-Class Youngsters, Officials Say MEXICO CITY - Scores of small stores dot the seedy Santa Julia neighborhood near downtown, serving the restless youths who shamble up throughout the day. But they're not selling chips and soft drinks. The shops are among the city's estimated 2,000 tienditas - little stores - that sell illegal drugs such as crack, cocaine, methamphetamines and even heroin, authorities say. Mexico, once largely a stop in the pipeline for illegal drugs bound for the United States, is confronting a rise in domestic drug use. "Colombian drug lords began paying Mexican traffickers in drugs about three or four years ago, and that has led to an increased drug presence," said Daniel Lund, a pollster for MUND Americas in Mexico City. In a March survey by MUND Americas, 39 percent of 1,506 Mexicans polled nationwide said drug use had "increased a great deal" in the last few months, and an additional 23 percent said it had increased some. Only 1 percent said drug use had "decreased a lot." And the new users are mostly lower- and middle-class people in their teens and 20s who are being targeted by traffickers and dealers offering cheaper drugs, authorities say. These young people pay for the drugs with money they get from part-time jobs or their parents, said Dr. Arturo Alvarado, a sociology professor at El Colegio de Mexico. "The group that has seen the largest jump in drug consumption is 14- to 21-year-olds," he said. "This generation is the first to encounter widespread problems with drug addiction." The proportion of Mexican youths who had tried cocaine, marijuana, heroin or methamphetamines at least once rose from 1 percent to 5.2 percent from 1992 to 2002, according to a joint study by the International Prosecutors Monitoring Drug Use and the United Nations. The study, released in February, did not include raw numbers. But because it focused only on high school students, the overall number "is probably higher," said Victor Manuel Guisa Cruz, head of the Juvenile Intervention Center, a government-funded nonprofit group that runs rehabilitation centers nationwide. Still Lower Than U.S. Drug use in Mexico is still much lower than in the United States. According to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a 2002 study of U.S. youths in grades seven through 12 found that 48 percent had tried illegal drugs. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 42.4 percent of U.S. high school students surveyed nationwide had used marijuana. Mexico appears to have begun catching up. Bombarded with images of drug use in films and videos, some of Mexico's adolescents apparently crave chic drugs the way they do Tommy Hilfiger jeans. "I think the American dream has influenced Mexico's drug culture," said Alvaro Perez, a 20-year-old college student who described himself as a user of marijuana and hallucinogens. "Kids see drug use in movies and TV, and they think it's cool. Even though their lives are fine without drugs, they want what they see." Victor, a 14-year-old junior high student whose last name was not used because of his age, said he regularly uses marijuana and cocaine to bond with his elder brothers. "It's just something we all do together. All of my friends use drugs. About 90 percent of my classmates have used drugs." U.N. statistics show that children 14 and younger make up one-third of Mexico's 100 million people a large group of potential drug users. No big surprise Higher illegal-drug use in Mexico should not surprise anyone, said John Walters, head of the National Office for Drug Control Policy in Washington. Countries that supply the drugs "will eventually face demand problems in their own countries," he said. In Mexico, that increased demand has fueled other problems: The number of drug rehabilitation centers has grown to 65 since the first one opened in 1973, Mr. Guisa said. Statistics being compiled for release at the end of the year will show that the number of youths in drug rehab programs has steadily increased, he added. And the number of violent crimes associated with illegal drugs also has increased, especially in Mexico City, Mr. Guisa said. There were 23,588 drug-related offenses in Mexico in 2002, more than twice the number five years earlier, when there were 10,742 drug-related offenses, according to the Mexican attorney general's office, which is known by the Spanish acronym PGR. "Mexico City is the trendsetter for the rest of the country," Mr. Guisa said. "The urban drug phenomenon in Mexico's larger cities is imitating Mexico City." Increased violence has been most evident in the city's bustling downtown area, open-air markets and slums, Dr. Alvarado said. "Fights among gangs dedicated to selling drugs are increasing," he said. President Vicente Fox blames the usage problem, in part, on the ongoing battle to staunch the tide of drugs heading to the United States from Mexico. "We were so busy focusing on that task that we failed to take care of the health of our own young people," he said recently in his weekly radio address. "That can't happen." Mr. Fox presented a five-year strategy that bolsters drug-treatment and prevention programs and imposes tougher punishment on drug dealers. "This is a war that we have to fight on all fronts," he said. "It's not enough to attack the supply. We must also stop the growth of demand." Some experts and anti-drug officials, however, say Mexico lacks the resources and law enforcement ability to successfully fight its drug problem, and they described the government's drug-fighting effort as archaic and ineffective. Law enforcement is outmanned, outgunned and overmatched in its dealings with drug cartels, said a PGR agent on an anti-drug task force. "How can we stop drugs from entering our country if the U.S. couldn't?" the agent said on condition of anonymity. "There is no way we can win the war on drugs." Moreover, many Mexicans deeply distrust law enforcement, a situation some experts attribute to police corruption. In a nationwide survey of 800 Mexicans released this month by Barrometro Iberoamericano, a Spanish polling organization that specializes in social issues, only 13 percent of respondents said they had confidence in the police the lowest rating of any group. Many police officers will take a bribe instead of enforcing a drug violation, Dr. Alvarado said, and the police often scold young people or administer punishment themselves rather than prosecute violators. "And families ... will support their kids' anti-social behavior by protecting them from the law," he said. "They don't preach drug use and violence, but they do everything they can to cover for their kids. They see the incarceration of their kids as unjust." Dr. Alvarado said most youths buy drugs at Mexico City's tienditas , which authorities say are popping up in poor, middle-class and even wealthy neighborhoods. Some Are in Homes, Others in Restaurants. More than a ton of cocaine circulates monthly among tienditas in the crime-ridden neighborhoods of Tepito, Itztapalapa and Nezahualcoyotl, police said. The tienditas sell crack for as little as $1.20 per dose just enough to get high and an ounce of cocaine for $300, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In the United States, cocaine sells for $340 to $990 an ounce, depending on quality, DEA statistics show. In the Santa Julia neighborhood, the most popular tiendita complex has been around a few months and operates round-the-clock. 'They Just Appeared' "It happened so fast that none of us could react," says Guadalupe Garcia, a 45-year-old maid living next to the building on Lago Chapala Street. "It was like one day they just appeared. And when we went to the police they did nothing. These people are destroying our neighborhood, and there's no way to stop it." Calls to a local police station seeking comment on the tienditas were referred to the attorney general's office. Drug use in Mexico is a federal crime. Bernardo Batiz, Mexico City's district attorney, said in a prepared statement that Mexico City police and the PGR were working together with residents to combat the proliferation of tienditas. Residents remain skeptical, pointing to regular reports of police malfeasance. Police Chief Carlos Ernesto Garcia of Nezahualcoyotl, a sprawling municipality in the state of Mexico, was recently arrested on charges of helping run tienditas, reported Reforma, a Mexico City daily newspaper. At the tiendita complex on Lago Chapala, dozens of eager people, mostly gaunt young men in shabby jackets and worn jeans, line up as early as 9 a.m. every day. Two stocky guards armed with pistols stand watch in front of the crumbling facade. The building is divided into 16 makeshift stalls separated only by hanging blankets. Half the stalls are for selling drugs. The rest serve as living quarters for poor families with nowhere else to go. At the stalls selling drugs, buyers approach a person sitting in front, place their orders and pay in cash. The person disappears behind the blanket partition and returns with the drugs. The tienditas get their drugs from distributors who run their operations from houses in nearby neighborhoods. One such operation is in a squat, decrepit one-bedroom house in the nearby Observatorio neighborhood. The house is occupied by nine drug smugglers from the central state of Michoacan and reeks of unwashed bodies, marijuana and uncut cocaine. Crammed inside are 10 kilos of cocaine, 10 kilos of marijuana, and 5 kilos of heroin. The dealers estimate they will net $16,000 from selling the cache to tienditas. The distributors say they feel no remorse about their drugs falling into the hands of teens. One, who refused to give his real name but called himself "Samuel," said his choice of profession is all about economics. Given the country's low wages, and with easy money to be made in the illegal-drugs industry, this line of work is a golden opportunity, he said. "There is no work in Michoacan," he said. "My family has to eat and I have to provide for them. How else can I provide when there is no work?" Samuel said cocaine, heroin and marijuana arrive from the Pacific Coast state of Guerrero the cocaine is shipped there from South America. "We pick up the drugs in Guerrero and bring them to Mexico City. We sell the marijuana ourselves. The cocaine and heroin are sold to our connections here [Mexico City]. They mix what we sell them and distribute it from their tienditas." Aggressive Marketing Cocaine, once a drug of the Mexican elite, is now aggressively marketed to lower- and middle-class youths, authorities said. It is made affordable by mixing pure cocaine with other substances, such as methamphetamine and aspirin. Mr. Guisa of the Juvenile Intervention Center attributes the popularity of cocaine to a "desire for refinement found in cosmopolitan cities," noting that it had been a drug primarily of the upper class. "Even though the cocaine is impure, cheap, and often mixed, they [lower and middle classes] will buy it," he said. One seller, known to clients as "Juan," said he prefers wealthier customers. On a hot afternoon, Juan, who declined to give his real name, roamed a city block with a large backpack full of illegal drugs. He said he moves from one wealthy neighborhood to another, trying to stay one step ahead of police officers. "I used to be in Condesa, but the police kept pinching me for money," he said. "I moved here to Polanco to get away from them. But they can't stop me. I'm in this business to stay." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake