Drugs Cast Shadow On Border Cities

SAN DIEGO -- It's easy to think of San Diego as a sports dreamland. On
the ride from Yuma, Ipassed huge sand duneswhere dune buggies were
cavorting, a mountain peak circled bystrangely out-of-scale hawks that
turned out to be hang gliders and parasails, a gigantic skating park
and finally San Diego Bay itself, stately with sails, busy with small fishing
boats. If you want to be active and outdoors, this city has got to be one
of the great places in America to live.

But a dark shadow looms over San Diego and reaches into every corner
of America. It is from Tijuana and drugs. In the first two months of
the year, according to news reports, 70 people have been killed in
Tijuana, presumed victims in drug turf battles.

TV news is interrupted on the day of my arrival by an announcement
that Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre Marquez was shot to
death on his way to work. Ambushed by assassins with automatic
weapons, his vehicle was hit by at least 100 shots. Fifty-three
bullets were found in his body.

Murder isn't unique to Tijuana. It is increasing along the entire
border. In Juarez, Mayor Gustavo Elizondo has successfully petitioned
the government of Mexico to rename the major drug cartels after their
leaders instead of the city in which they operate. Overnight, the
"Juarez Cartel," disappears from public reporting.

Not surprisingly, the mayor was concerned with the image of his city
after November's highly publicized search for mass graves. While 100
to 300 bodies were sought, "only" nine were found. Since 1993, over
200 people have disappeared in Juarez. Why is this happening?

Drugs. Only the incredible money in illegal drugs can explain the
rising level of violence along the border.

Skeptical?

Then consider this. Just west of Del Rio, after riding over the
Amistad Reservoir Bridge, a single Border Patrol agent, Alex Lopez,
stopped me. Mr. Lopez is part of a Special Response Team in the area.
Officer Lopez was alone in a region that resembles the surface of the
moon.

I commented that he had a tough job.

"Not so bad." He answered. "It gets exciting sometimes."

I asked how it was exciting.

"This is a major area for drug smuggling. A lot of stuff comes through
here, and we're here to stop it."

It's a tough job. You can understand by looking at a map. The
U.S.-Mexico border is 2,000 miles long. Large areas of Texas, New
Mexico and Arizona -- like the area between Del Rio and Langtry -- are
virtually devoid of population. It is easy to cross the river and meet
waiting transportation. And if you want to operate big time, you've
got thousands of square miles of empty land in Texas to scrape out a
airstrip.

Now consider the economics of heroin in the Sierra Madre. According to
Edwin Bustillos and Alan Weisman in The Late Great Mexican Border, an
acre of land can support about 44,000 poppy bulbs, which can produce
at least 13,200 grams of opium gum. That, in turn, will refine down
about 1,320 grams of pure heroin that is valued at $80 to $500 a gram
in the United States.

So do the math.

Depending on productivity and price, an acre of dirt in the Sierra
Madre can produce a heroin crop worth from $105,600 to $2.2 million.
That's a lot more than can be earned from raising cattle, hunting
exotic game, farming pecan groves, citrus groves -- or even renting RV
spaces. What we're talking about here is the ultimate crop, the crop
that displaces (or corrupts) everything.

While most of the border area struggles to leapfrog from a subsistence
agricultural and mining economy to an industrial economy -- one where
manufactured homes displace farmland in McAllen and RVs replace orange
groves in Yuma -- the crop that beats industrialization cold is
heroin. It is an irresistible force.

Our "war on drugs" is a Vietnam:
Whatever we spend to turn the entire
2,000-mile border into an American
version of the Great Wall of China, it
will not be enough to stop the
movement of drugs across the border
or reduce the carnage on both sides.

What to do?

Something radical: eliminate the profit in illegal drug
traffic.

Decriminalize the production, distribution and use of drugs.
Disembowel criminal levels of profitability. Have normal levels of
profitability by conventional companies that produce and distribute
high-quality, low-cost drugs. Use taxes on drugs to support drug
treatment programs for people who want to recover.

Have the guts, as a nation, to realize that we are awash in substance
abuse and that the legality or illegality of substances ranging from
alcohol and prescription tranquilizers to cocaine and heroin are
transitory social conventions that allow criminals to make fortunes,
cost the lives of substance abusers and inflict agony on their loved
ones. Do that and we can enjoy a magnificent decline in the domestic
crime rate. We can build treatment centers instead of prisons. We
might even restore millions of Americans who live in the shadow world
of drugs.

I did not think this way when I left Dallas and headed for Brownsville
on Feb. 5. I was convinced it was the only solution by the time I left
San Diego.