MEXICAN GOVERNMENT GIVES UPBEAT ASSESSMENT OF FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS

MEXICO CITY - Citing improvements in technology, strategy and coordination,
top Mexican officials gave an upbeat evaluation Wednesday of their fight
against drug smuggling and said they were more than doubling their spending
on the battle.

But it was unclear what effect their struggle has had on the availability
of drugs.

For the first time in years, Mexico doesn't have to worry much about
winning "certification" in the United States' annual evaluation of
countries' cooperation in combatting drugs. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright said this month that cooperation has been "at a very good level."

So in the Mexican government's annual report on the progress of anti-drug
efforts, officials delivered a barrage of figures and plans they said
showed they have come far in 1999.

"We can't declare victory, but without a doubt the results that we are
evaluating today show the seriousness of our institutional resolve," said
Interior Secretary Diodoro Carrasco.

Carrasco said the overall budget for the fight against drugs - those funds
split among the attorney general's office, the interior secretariat, the
army and the navy - increased 167 percent in the 2000 budget, from $172
million to $462 million.

It wasn't clear whether the increase represented a one-time spending spree
for new equipment, or whether Mexico's drug budget is simply skyrocketing.

In a separate meeting with a small group of foreign correspondents,
Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor said an ambitious plan announced a year
ago to buy high-tech equipment and improve coordination between government
agencies fighting drugs - principally judicial and military forces - has
been a success.

Officials said drug seizures rose from 1998 to 1999: 7 percent for cocaine,
47 percent for marijuana, 82 percent for heroin and 418 percent for opium
gum, which is the raw material for heroin.

There was an 8 percent drop in eradication of heroin-poppy fields, but
Mariano Herran Salvatti, who leads the anti-drug operations of the attorney
general's office, attributed that to a shift in growing patterns.

He said farmers have begun to use genetically engineered poppy plants that
grow many bulbs, rather than the traditional single-bulb plants, and are
therefore able to produce much more opium gum on the same acreage.

Officials offered no estimates of how much drugs were making their way to
the market, making their true success hard to gauge.