MEXICO SEEING RISE IN DRUG USE

In Tijuana, Rehab Sites Growing Because Heroin Is Cheap, Easy

TIJUANA, Mexico - At the top of a dark flight of stairs, "Miguel" is
tasting freedom for the first time since he was paroled from a California
state prison.

For the convicted thief from Tijuana, who demurred from giving his real
name, the flavor of liberty is methadone, the prophylactic, legal drug that
experts say is one of the best ways to withdraw from heroin addiction.

FRED GREAVES / Special Contributor to the DMN A drug user takes his daily
dose of methadone at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. Recently, Mexico has
eased restrictions against methadone imports and made it easier for
qualified physicians to open rehab centers. In Tijuana today there are more
and more "Miguels." They're showing up at rehabilitation clinics and
methadone treatment centers such as Professionals Contra la Adiccion -
Professionals Against Addiction - run by the San Diego Health Alliance, a
private firm that is expanding into Mexico's largest cities.

Drugs always have been problematic for Mexico, but substances such as
cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and designer drugs like "ecstasy," have
traditionally passed through Mexico en route to the streets of major U.S.
cities and the greatest drug-consumer market on the planet.

Perhaps, say addiction experts in both countries, living in the shadow of
drug-happy America, Mexico has traditionally paid little heed to warnings
that it, too, was becoming a user nation.

"It seems there is no longer a distinction" between user, producer and
transit nations, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson
said on a recent visit to Mexico City.

Mexico was once solidly in the category of "transit" nations. But in the
last decade, the country's robust drug industry has found a growing
consumer market in its own back yard.

And this untamed border city, already infamous for drug trafficking and
violent narco-kingpins, is winning a new tag as Mexico's epicenter for drug
use and addiction. A recent government survey found that 14 percent of
Tijuana's population of more than 2 million has tried an illegal drug.

For years government health officials scoffed at the notion that drug abuse
presented much of a threat to Mexican society, which they characterized as
strong on family values and averse to illegal drugs. Alcohol, and perhaps
tobacco, were the real problems, they said.

While those drugs continue to kill thousands of Mexicans each year,
physicians are increasingly recognizing the country's increasing drug habit.

And no event sharpened Mexico's focus on its internal drug problem more
than last fall's terrorist attacks in the United States.

Immediately after the strikes, U.S. authorities shut down the Mexican
border as a defense against new terrorist incursions. For weeks, drug
traffickers could not ship their goods north. Illicit drugs backed up in
border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez.

As a consequence, the price of heroin dropped to around $25 a gram in
Ciudad Juarez and $40 on the streets of Tijuana. By comparison, on the
streets of San Diego, heroin costs $60 to $80 a gram, according to clinic
workers. This makes it tough for addicts to swallow the more expensive
methadone and stay away from "picadores" - ad hoc shooting houses that dot
Tijuana's hardscrabble suburbs.

In these dens, users are seeing drugs diluted with impure ingredients, and
that has led to increasing reports of infections among addicts.

"We're fooling ourselves if we think this is not a problem here in Mexico,"
said Miguel in a contrite whisper, his shaved head bowed and eyes staring
at the stark tiles on the clinic floor. He's a young father, and he's
anxious about restarting his life after prison, using methadone as a leg
up. His family does not approve, he said. They'd rather he depend on
willpower and prayer.

"Heroin is cheap and easy here in Tijuana," Miguel said. "I know of dealers
here who don't want to risk smuggling anymore and are willing to take less
selling here."

Traffickers, pressured to keep up payments to South American suppliers, are
now trying to resume normal smuggling business along the border. Only now
they're splitting drug shipments into a greater number of small loads
hidden in vehicles queued up to cross into the United States. They're also
making greater use of remote sea lanes far out in the Pacific Ocean and
across the chain of islands in the Caribbean.

It's all straining U.S. Customs Service and Coast Guard officials who are
also now on the highest alert for terrorists.

American border guards are indeed confiscating more and more drugs, and
that has addiction-treatment experts anticipating a blow-back of drugs onto
Mexican streets.

"These men are not dumb. They will avoid risk if they can, and we Mexicans
are giving them more options for sales," said Carlos Hernandez, a
46-year-old former dealer who's done time in Mexican jails for trafficking
everything from cocaine to methamphetamines. He's now a counselor for a
couple of halfway houses run by the Center for Integration and Recovery for
Alcoholics and Drug Addicts - CIRAD - a nonprofit religious group that
combines 12-step methods with job training for its treatment programs.

In 1988, health officials conducted their first major drug-use survey
across Mexico. They were comforted that for every nine addicts in the
United States there was but one hooked Mexican. Today, however, experts say
the ratio is down to one Mexican addict for every four in the United States.

The most recent survey indicated that around 5 million Mexicans have used
an illegal drug, up from under 3 million in 1988. Cocaine seems most
popular, with about 1.5 million people saying they've used it at least
once. . More startling are the numbers in Mexico's northern states, where
nearly 2 percent of the population is recorded as "strong" users, admitting
to have taken more than 50 doses..

"We're not in the league of the United States, but it is alarming for our
society," said Dr. Guido Belsasso, whom President Vicente Fox has made
point man in a new campaign against drug abuse. "We cannot deny our
problem, or it will overtake us."

Since Mr. Fox became president, he has redirected some health department
funding for wider education campaigns against drug use. Dr. Belsasso also
commends the president for being Mexico's first to openly acknowledge that
Mexico is on the cusp of an addiction epidemic.

In recent months, Mexican authorities have also eased restrictions against
things such as methadone imports and have made it easier for qualified
physicians to open treatment centers. The president and his wife recently
attended the high-profile inauguration of an addiction clinic in Durango state.

"We're glad to see them on board," said Pastora Maytorena, a registered
nurse who serves as clinic director for the San Diego Health Alliance,
whose network of methadone treatment centers is expanding with the approval
of Mexican officials such as Dr. Belsasso. "Americans can't understand how
difficult it has been for us to destigmatize drug addiction in Mexico, and
educate the families and then the politicians, that methadone is not an
evil way for the weak to continue their addictions."

The Mexican government is even taking some steps the United States has
recently balked at, like allowing experiments with French drugs designed to
curb the use of "episodic" drug users.

At one of three houses in Tijuana run by Mr. Hernandez and CIRAD, there are
180 men living in crowded, but clean, barracks-like structures. They're
segregated by their level of recovery, with recent arrivals in a secluded
section of the complex.

Mr. Hernandez, the drug-abuse counselor, showed off the silk screens and
tapestries he's recently produced for some Tijuana gift shops. It's a craft
he learned after four years in jail, he said, insisting that he's channeled
that experience into an income that will keep him busy and clean. He says
prayer and work have kept him drug-free for two years.

In the complex's busy yard, other men play handball. In one corner, cooks
turn donated vegetables and grain into dinner. In the recreation corner,
amid weights and punching bags, another man practices ballads for a wedding
at which the CIRAD band will perform. And off to one side, a line of men
wait quietly for a buzz haircut - the "prison cut" popular among young
Latinos in California.

"I've been clean 20 days now because they keep me busy here and don't put
up with any bull. You're off drugs, or you're out. I don't want to go back
to that life," said Marcelino Morales, a 16-year-old Tijuana resident sent
to the center by his family, in what he described as a last-chance to avoid
jail and getting hooked on the crack cocaine and ecstasy he was selling on
the streets.

"I was good at school, I loved my parents - everything a young Mexican
should be," Mr. Morales said, flipping back and forth from Spanish and the
English he said he learned from his buyers - the young Californians who
each weekend flock to Tijuana for underage drinking and illicit drugs. "But
I was throwing it away because I loved the money I was making off drugs.
Then I saw I was spending more on drugs for myself than for selling, and I
knew I was in trouble."