MEXICAN DRUGS FLOODING REGION

WASHINGTON -- An ever-increasing wave of drugs from Mexico is turning
Southern California into the nation's major distribution center for
heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, officials told
Congress on Friday.

Officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs Service and
Border Patrol told members of a House subcommittee that Mexican
cartels were taking advantage of increased border trade and utilizing
undocumented immigrants to smuggle their drugs into the United States.

They said that Mexican drug cartels, which formerly served as
middlemen for suppliers in Colombia, were now controlling the trade in
the United States and Mexico.

Officials also said that the cartels are using sites throughout
Southern California to store large quantities of drugs for their
growing distribution networks.

In fact, during early morning raids throughout the country on June 15,
authorities arrested 200 people accused of running a highly organized,
multimillion-dollar Mexican black-tar heroin ring led by a Panorama
City man.

On Friday, one member of the congressional panel, Rep. John Mica,
R-Fla., accused the Mexican government of doing little to stem the
drug trade.

"They thumb their noses at our requests for interdiction and
extradition of drug lords," he said. Mica also accused the Mexican
government of widespread corruption, charging that "Baja California
has become a narco-terrorist province."

Jose Zabalgoitia, minister of information for the Mexican Embassy in
Washington, refuted those charges, saying his government is making
strong efforts against the drug trade.

"We are very conscious that narco trafficking is our top national
security threat," he said. "It is our top priority, and we take it
very seriously."

While acknowledging that there have been cases of high-level
corruption in Mexico, Zabalgoitia dismissed Mica's allegation of a
terrorist-run Baja as "really over the line.

"We are fighting drugs because they are poisoning our country, not to
appease the Micas of the world."

The Clinton administration has endorsed and supported Mexico's anti-
drug effort, which has begun to focus on its own borders.

"In the past, programs were directed toward keeping drugs out of the
U.S.," Zabalgoitia said. "Now our goal is to seal off our territory,
stop being a conduit and keep drugs from coming into Mexico."

Edward Logan, special agent in charge for the Customs Service's San
Diego region office, told the congressional panel -- the House
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources --
that 58 percent of the agency's drug busts nationwide in 1999 took
place along the California-Mexico border.

Logan said drug arrests and seizures are on the rise, but that
smugglers can evade detection due to the high volume of border trade
and traffic. Last year, customs agents manning 26 locations in San
Diego and Imperial counties encountered 95 million people, 30 million
passenger vehicles and 1 million trucks, he said.

Logan credited much of the traffic increase to the North American Free
Trade Agreement, which spurred a 115 percent rise in U.S.-Mexico trade
from its enactment in 1994 through 1999.

The Customs Service is also monitoring increased smuggling of
prescription drugs from Mexico to the United States, officials said.

Logan said Mexican pharmaceuticals, long a legal and low-cost
alternative for American visitors filling their own needs, are now
being smuggled in large quantities and distributed across the U.S. in
a black market.

Drug smuggling and related violence have risen sharply in border
desert regions of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, said Luis
Barker, chief agent for the Border Patrol's El Paso sector.

Barker testified that smugglers are increasingly paying undocumented
immigrants to carry small quantities of illegal drugs into the U.S.,
where they are turned over to distributors.

The officials also testified Friday that:

- -- An estimated 50 percent of all cocaine now being distributed in the
United States is smuggled into Southern California from Mexico.

- -- Methamphetamine labs in California, operated and supplied by
Mexican drug gangs, produce 85 percent of the nation's supply.

- -- Those meth labs, called "super labs" for their huge output, stretch
from San Diego to Sacramento along the I-5 corridor.

- -- A flood of Mexican heroin has lowered street prices for a 1
milligram dose to $1 on average nationwide, compared to $3.90 in 1980.

- -- Mexican black-tar heroin is now much more addictive and potent --
41.6 percent pure compared to 3.6 percent in 1980. Users can now snort
heroin or take it in pill form and need not inject the drug.

- -- The border region stretching from San Diego to El Paso is the major
smuggling zone for Mexican and Colombian marijuana.