RISE SEEN IN MEXICAN COCAINE USE

Security At Border Hinders Smuggling

MEXICO CITY -- U.S. drug chief Edward Jurith said Wednesday that
cocaine use is rising in Mexico and other parts of Latin America --
an increase that officials suggested might result from tightened U.S.
border security.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the United States
increased security on its borders, making it harder to smuggle drugs
and apparently leaving Mexican traffickers with more drugs on their
hands.

"The cocaine threat is increasing in Mexico," Jurith said during a
tour of a drug rehabilitation center in a Mexico City neighborhood at
the start of a two-day visit to meet with Mexican officials.

"We are watching what's happening on the border very carefully," said
Jurith, the acting director of National Drug Control Policy. "We are
watching how the narcotics traffickers will respond" to the increased
U.S. security.

There are signs the traffickers may be trying to sell the drugs in Mexico.

Dr. Guido Belsasso, the director of Mexico's National Council on
Addictions, said "there are some reports of increased availability
(of drugs) after the tightening of security at the border."

Jurith said U.S. drug abuse levels were not rising but he noted
"we're seeing huge amounts of cocaine being used in Central America,
South America and Europe."

As if to underscore that availability, the Mexican Navy announced
Wednesday that it had seized 1 1/2 tons of cocaine found buried under
a beached boat in a remote lagoon on Mexico's southern Pacific Coast.

But it's not just cocaine that has Mexican officials worried.

"The increase in heroin use is something that worries all of us. It
is no longer just a problem on the northern border, as it used to
be," said Victor Manuel Guisa, director of the Iztapalapa
rehabilitation center.