MEXICO FINDS U.S. DRUG WOES SPREADING SOUTH

TIJUANA, Mexico -- Sergio Hernandez, a 33-year-old heroin addict, was
standing along a garbage-strewn path near a pedestrian bridge that
connects the U.S. and Mexico. As Alfredo Magallanes, who runs a
makeshift drug rehabilitation center, offered his help, Hernandez
wouldn't even look up.

His eyes were lost in the dark liquid he was swirling in the crushed
soda can in his hand. Using a syringe, he would draw in the liquid,
squeeze it out, and draw it in again. He wanted to make sure he
wouldn't miss a drop.

Before long, Hernandez extended his left arm and, with vein
protruding, inserted the needle, injecting a $4 dose of heroin. "I do
not want to do it anymore," Hernandez, not convincingly, told Magallanes.

"It has been my disgrace," he added.

Every year, when the White House decides which countries to certify as
allies in the drug war, Mexico bristles at the process and describes
it as hypocritical because Americans are among the world's biggest
consumers of illegal drugs.

But increasingly, Mexico is facing a drug problem of its own,
especially along the U.S.-Mexico border, in places like Tijuana, a
lawless city of 1.2 million people where drug rehabilitation centers,
largely unregulated, have sprouted in recent years.

"They no longer say to us, `It's just a U.S. problem,'" said an
American official on the front lines of the drug war. "It's a Mexican
problem."

As is often the case in the delicate U.S.-Mexico relationship,
however, the problem affects both sides. Oftentimes, officials say,
the Mexican cartels use people infected with HIV or other illnesses to
transport drugs into the U.S. If arrested, they must undergo medical
treatment. In the end, Uncle Sam picks up the tab.

Compared with U.S. numbers, drug use in Mexico is minuscule. Its
number of users is estimated in the hundreds of thousands, not in the
tens of millions.

Still, according to a 1998 survey by the Ministry of Health, overall
drug use in Mexico rose 58 percent between 1988 and 1998.

Authorities estimate that more than half the cocaine smuggled into the
U.S. passes through Mexico, as well as much of the heroin and
marijuana. The nation's most powerful drug cartel, the Arellano-Felix
organization, is based in Tijuana.

For that reason, Mexico's burgeoning drug problem does not surprise
such authorities as Charles LaBella, the former acting U.S. attorney
for the Southern District of California, in nearby San Diego. "Sooner
or later, they were going to start using," he said.

Dr. Maria Elena Medina-Mora, director of Mexico's Psychiatric
Institute, was in charge of the Health Ministry study. Among reasons
for the nation's growing drug problem, she cited social, economic and
psychological factors.

A drop in mortality rates, she said, has created what she
characterized as a "vulnerable population"--adolescents and young adults.

"Because of globalization, which has made drug use appear to be the
norm, youngsters do not associate drug use with risk," she wrote, "and
they think that using drugs, in particular marijuana, is common.

"The lifestyles of Mexican youth have become more worldly, and
consumption, which includes drugs, is a value that becomes more important."

Medina-Mora also pointed to "circular migration"--travel between
Mexico and the U.S.--as another reason.

"International migration and, above all else, the type of circular
migration that is practiced by many Mexicans, has brought an increase
in drug use to the communities [in Mexico] of high migration," she
wrote.

A recurring economic crisis in Mexico, she said, has contributed to
the problem, as more women are forced to join the labor force, leaving
children home alone. The children invariably come into contact with
drugs on the street.

In recent years, she said, Mexican streets have become saturated with
drugs. Emotional problems, desperation and lack of opportunity play an
important role in drug use in Mexico, she said.

The closer to the U.S.-Mexico border, the higher the drug use,
according to the National Survey of Addictions.

Medina-Mora noted that drug use in Mexican border cities is nothing
new, because illegal drugs historically have been available and
because of the influence of American culture.

"Indeed, a while ago," Medina-Mora wrote, "an important proportion of
students who had tried drugs did it first in the United States."

U.S. officials, drug counselors in Mexico and users themselves give
other reasons for higher rates of drug use in Mexican border cities.
Some blame NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

They say the proliferation of maquiladoras, or manufacturing plants,
along the border in the wake of the agreement has given people more
money to spend on drugs.

William D. Gore, agent in charge of the San Diego office of the FBI,
sees something more sinister behind rising drug use in Mexico.

He blames the cartels. "You control people by bribing them. You
control them with intimidation, fear. You control them with supplying
them," he said.

In its research, the Health Ministry found that marijuana was the most
popular drug, but cocaine use was increasing, even among the poor.

In Mexico City, for example, 40 of every 1,000 youths used cocaine in
1997, up from 15 of every 1,000 in 1993.

In border cities, the survey said, heroin use is on the rise, Ecstasy
use is flourishing, and crystal methamphetamine is especially popular
among teenage girls. But in general, men use drugs more than women
do.

In recent months, U.S. Customs officers have noticed the proliferation
of yet another drug, ketamine, an animal painkiller.

"There's no end to this," said Robert Tine, associate agent in charge
of the Office of Investigations for the U.S. Customs Service in San
Ysidro, Calif., which links Mexico and the U.S. "No matter how much
you do, you can control but not eliminate it. Until people choose not
to use, we do what we can to keep it from getting out of hand totally."

In Tijuana, it seems too late. This is Mexico's drug-consuming
capital, with 14.7 percent of the population having tried an illegal
drug once--triple the national average.

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, or "El Bordo," as the locals call it,
junkies such as Hernandez inject themselves in the open, as traffic
zips by.

Others visit shooting galleries, or picaderos, in abandoned homes or
buildings. In some shooting galleries, addicts simply pay for a fix,
put their arm through a window and get injected.

Jesus Blancornelas, the editor of the newspaper Zeta, said the city's
former police chief, Alfredo de la Torre, had compiled a list of 5,000
picaderos in Tijuana. By the time de la Torre was gunned down in late
February--apparently the victim of a drug war--he had managed to shut
down only 500 of them.

Blancornelas, who has written extensively about the drug trade in
Tijuana, was the victim of an assassination attempt a few years ago.
He attributed the city's horrific crime rate to the drug problem.

Last year, he said, the city recorded about 500 drug-related
murders.

"Here, you have the shooting galleries and the stores that sell
drugs," Blancornelas said. "It has created a group of addicts who
steal to keep up their habit."

Other cities where drug use is rampant include Ciudad Juarez, across
the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, and home to the notorious Juarez
drug cartel; Guadalajara in central Mexico, and Mexico City.

Maria Eugenia Mallorga, 43, has a 15-year-old daughter at Casa
Recuperacion, or Recuperation House, the drug rehabilitation center
operated by Magallanes. She said her daughter, Evelyn, started using
methamphetamine when she was 14.

"It is a very heavy social problem," she said. "It is
everywhere."

Because the government has lagged in addressing the problem, people
such as Magallanes have stepped in to fill the void.

Observers say that in the past six years, the number of rehab centers
in the city has gone from a handful to more than 50.

But many of them are run by recovering addicts such as Magallanes, not
by medical doctors. Magallanes got his license by sending the state an
ID and a letter outlining his plans.

In some of the centers, people have died. As a result, the government
is looking to tighten regulations.

Magallanes, one of eight children, started using heroin in his early
20s. He is now 36. He had been in and out of rehab for years. In 1998,
with a renewed belief in God, he went clean. "For the longest time, I
thought I was not worth anything," he said.

"Now I know that I am worth something."

Magallanes, whose brother died as a result of heroin abuse, opened
Casa Recuperacion last August. He borrowed the place from a friend and
has furnished it with donations.

Today, 50 people live there. The youngest is a 12-year-old girl hooked
on methamphetamine. The oldest is a 69-year-old alcoholic.

The program is based on Magallanes' experiences.

When people first come to the center, they are placed in a cell-like
room that holds eight people. The door to the room is marked "Detox."
New residents stay there for a week, until they beat the first few
days of heroin withdrawal.

They sleep on soiled mattresses on the floor and share one
bathroom.

The room is locked with a thick chain.

Trustees make sure nobody escapes--even when they beg to be let
out.

To some people, the whole setup might seem barbaric, but Magallanes
explains that without Casa Recuperacion, the junkies would have
nowhere to go.

He asks residents for an $80 donation to help pay for their
prescriptions during recovery. But in the end, he does not turn
anybody away. The place survives mostly on the income from odd jobs
residents do around town. "The only requirement," Magallanes said, "is
to have a drive to change your life."

Every couple of days, Magallanes visits El Bordo, the feces-infested
area along the U.S.-Mexico border where the junkies shoot up. He makes
his pitch, promising people he can get them healthy and make them fat.

On a recent chilly and cloudy Saturday morning, Magallanes left his
cellular telephone number with Hernandez, the addict who told him he
wanted to quit. Hernandez promised to call Magallanes later in the day
to get help.

He never did.