MEXICAN MUSEUM A PRIMER IN WAR ON DRUGS

MEXICO CITY - Hidden away on the top floor of the Defense Secretariat here
is a museum that would truly blow the minds of Cheech and Chong.

Dedicated to Mexico's fierce war on drug cultivation and traffic, the
museum is equal parts memorial, instructional tool and grudging
appreciation of the absurdly creative mind of Mexico's public enemy No. 1.

"Their ingenuity has no limits," Capt. V.M. Jimenez, the Secretary of
National Defense officer in charge of El Museo de Enervantes, marveled as
he offered a recent tour of the narcotics museum to foreign diplomats and
other visitors.

There are gruesome photos of a woman whose heroin-filled buttock implants
ruptured on a failed mission north, and oil barrels that concealed the
radio-communications equipment of drug traffickers.

Quesadillas, doughnuts, sandals, fruit and even a stack of phone books all
harbor secret compartments that were stuffed with marijuana, cocaine and
heroin derived from the Sierra Madre's poppy fields.

Then there is the miniature floor model of a pickup confiscated by
soldiers. The truck was equipped to spew oil slicks, smoke and
three-pointed tacks at potential pursuers.

A life-size model of a marijuana growers' camp displays handmade
sprinklers, a rusted press used to compact the herb into transportable
bricks, and a grower relaxing with a can of Modelo beer in hand.

To be sure, the museum's mission is a somber one: It is a newly anointed
training center for the nation's drug-fighting troops filled with lessons
on interdiction and eradication.

For starters, it offers a remembrance wall dedicated to the 380 soldiers,
by rank, killed in the fight against drugs since 1976.

Near the entrance stands a mannequin of the quintessential culprit: "El
Narcotraficante." He wears gaudy gold bracelets and chains, a fancy watch
and - almost always, the captain stresses - a Texas-style cowboy hat and
boots of exotic leather.

But the street soldiers in the northbound drug trade are hardly ever so
well-dressed. The museum also showcases the children who are recruited -
sometimes unwittingly. A tiny bicycle's wheel rims were once packed with
cocaine, and a sad-looking doll that was once stuffed with illicit bounty
peeks from behind the glass of one display.

The museum is also a primer on the horticulture and eradication of
marijuana and poppies, Mexico's two illicit cash crops, and the
physiological effects of addiction. A marijuana plant more than 15 feet
tall hangs wrapped from the ceiling. Lining one wall are photos of an
elaborate greenhouse operation said to have belonged to the fugitive
Arellano Felix brothers, head of the Tijuana-based cartel.

The arsenal of confiscated weapons fills about one-fourth of the small
museum. There are handmade guns and grenade launchers, as well as engraved
AK-47s and sophisticated military-style weapons.

A 38-caliber pistol that is said to have been confiscated from drug kingpin
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman sports a 24-carat gold handle embossed with 22
emeralds and other stones. The stones spell out the initials ACF, allegedly
for the late Juarez drug cartel leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was said
to have given it to Guzman.

If anyone doubted the cunning and corrupting power of the traffickers, the
escape of Guzman in January from a maximum-security prison near Guadalajara
should be persuasive. More than 70 prison guards and officials, including
the prison director, have been arrested on suspicion of helping him slip
out of the prison.

The museum is not open to the public. Visitors are closely escorted - and
filmed.

Still, defense officials are proud of the display. President Vicente Fox
has poured new resources into the drug war, and the museum shows that the
army is on to more than a few of its opponents' tricks.

The museum's message is clear.

"We want to help our troops attack narco-trafficking efficiently," Jimenez said.