MUSEUM DEDICATED TO MEXICO'S WAR ON DRUGS

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 Defense
Secretariat 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 truck confiscated
by soldiers. The truck was equipped to spew oil, 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 plant 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 listing 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 opium 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.

Jimenez demonstrates how a flammable gel is used to torch marijuana
fields. And photos show uniformed troops constructing dirt berms on
remote landing strips to trip up small aircraft bringing cocaine from
Colombia.

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-karat gold handle
adorned 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 guards and officials,
including the director, have been arrested on suspicion of helping him
escape.

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 display of trafficking devices, confiscated weapons, photos and
dioramas offers lessons to troops.