DRUG CZAR URGES EFFICIENT BORDER TRADE

MEXICO CITY — U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffery on Monday said the war on
drugs mustn't interfere with growing trade between the United States
and Mexico.

Increasing trade under the North American Free Trade Agreement,
combined with more thorough searches by U.S. Customs officials at U.S.
ports of entry, is creating congestion that's a matter of serious
concern for U.S. policy makers, McCaffery said at a news conference at
the Mexican attorney general's office.

McCaffery is here for a three-day, biannual meeting between U.S. and
Mexican drug enforcement officials.

"High-level meetings between the Justice Department, the Treasury
Department, as well as the Transportation and Commerce departments are
being held on border crossings of commercial goods," McCaffery said.

"We are expecting a White House white paper soon on the subject. It is
our intention on the U.S. southern border that we must enhance and
speed trade along the border," he said.

"I think that there is good news, but first we must make sure the
technology is available."

While the United States is talking about enhancing cross-border
traffic, McCaffery said Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo is planning
ways to seal his country's borders off from the entry or exit of
illegal drugs.

"I can't be specific at this time, but I think there are major
initiatives being formulated (by Zedillo) to seal the borders, not
only the northern border, but the southern (with Central America) and
the Yucatan as well," he said.

The resort city of Cancun, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo
on the Yucatan Peninsula, recently has emerged as an entry and
transshipment point of Colombian cocaine and heroine.

Pressure on Mexican drug-smuggling cartels by both U.S. and Mexican
officials has shifted many drug-trafficking patterns from direct
shipments by air and land across the U.S.-Mexico border back toward
the eastern Caribbean routes abandoned by the Colombian cartels in the
late 1980s, McCaffery said.

About half of the cocaine and heroin arriving in the United States now
comes up the Caribbean sea lanes to Florida and other states on the
eastern and gulf coasts.

"The easy days of the drug-smuggling cargo planes are over," he
said.

A large part of McCaffery's role on his trips is to build the image of
cooperation between U.S. and Mexican officials.

He repeatedly emphasized Mexican successes in drug enforcement, the
corruptibility of U.S. as well as Mexican officials and the role of
U.S. drug consumption in driving the world drug trade.

McCaffery met Monday morning with Mexican foreign minister Rosario
Green, attorney general Jorge Madrazo Cuellar and Mexican drug czar
Mariano Herran Salvatti, and was scheduled to meet with Zedillo and
other Mexican cabinet officials later in the day.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry