DRUGS STARTING TO HAUNT MEXICO

CULIACAN, Mexico -- Isidoro Salas has always enjoyed quinces, "Sweet
15" parties, the lavish bashes Mexicans traditionally throw for their
teen-age daughters. But lately, the father of three has been shocked
by a new custom at the festivities.

"When you go into the bathroom, there are two or three kids who hide,"
said Salas, who heads a parents association in the northern state of
Sinaloa.

The youths are using drugs, he said.

After years of being a major source and transit point of narcotics,
Mexico is facing a drug abuse problem of its own. Mexican traffickers
who grow marijuana and transport Colombian cocaine for U.S. users are
now looking to their own back yards, selling drugs in this country's
schools, discos and alleyways.

"This has stopped being just a state that produces drugs," Salas said,
referring to Sinaloa's extensive marijuana and opium fields. "We never
thought it would get to this point."

Mexico has long been a major player in the narcotics trade, but --
thanks in part to the country's conservative, family-oriented culture
- -- few people in the past sampled the drugs heading for the United
States.

Lately, divorce, economic crisis and growing urbanization have taken
their toll on families. At the same time, drugs are becoming more
available -- possibly because it is growing more difficult for
traffickers to get drugs across the U.S. border, experts say. Another
factor is that cartel employees are often being paid in drugs, turning
some of them into dealers too.

A 1997 Health Ministry study, found that cocaine use had quadrupled
among Mexico City teens in six years, with 4 percent saying they had
tried it last year. Marijuana use had almost doubled, to 5 percent.

At the country's main network of drug treatment clinics, the
government-subsidized Centers of Youth Integration, the number of
patients mushroomed from 4,400 to 13,400 between 1990 and 1997. While
marijuana remains the drug most commonly used by new patients, cocaine
shot to No. 2 this year, passing inhalants such as paint thinner.

"The (federal) authorities say drug use is not so big, that Mexico is
a transit point for drugs," said Dr. Armando Barriguete, head of the
drug abuse program for Mexico City's opposition-led government. "I'm
not so sure about that. I think it's alarming, the number of people
who are addicted to cocaine."

The drug is turning up everywhere in the city, from discos to high
schools -- something that "would have been unthinkable five or six
years ago," he said.

Drug pushers appear to be aggressively seeking clients, offering
cut-rate cocaine often mixed with other substances, say rehabilitation
experts and officials.

"Five years ago, there were only a few cases (of cocaine use),
involving rich people," said Salomon Monarrez, a construction
executive in Culiacan. "But now it's everywhere. A shoeshine man will
go to a wedding reception and buy a gram."

Institutions are struggling to respond to the rising use. Police have
stepped up patrols around schools, watching for pushers. Local and
federal officials are organizing talks with parents and students about
drugs. A major television network, TV Azteca, is running a $3.5
million advertising campaign to warn young people about the problem.

People such as Monarrez are also doing their part. The construction
executive began to campaign against drugs after learning that students
were snorting cocaine in the bathroom at his children's high school.
He joined a Culiacan civic group that denounces drugs and reported
dealers to the authorities.

This year, he decided to go further. The sponsor of three trips
through the steamy streets of Culiacan in his construction truck, which
bears a giant sign: "Parents: Denounce Drug Pushers Who Destroy the

Health of Your Children and Enrich Themselves by Ruining Your Home."

"I decided to put this up because of the apathy of the authorities in
charge of fighting drug trafficking," Monarrez said. Although he gets
plenty of puzzled stares, he said most people have responded positively.

Drug abuse is highest along the routes traffickers use in Mexico. The
hardest-hit areas are border cities such as Tijuana, where traffickers
apparently store U.S.-bound drugs and residents are more likely to
share the habits of their neighbors to the north. Heroin and
methamphetamine use have risen sharply in such cities.

But the problem goes well beyond the border. It has even flared in
places such as Merida, a city on Mexico's southern tip with a large
Indian population.

"It's on the drug trafficking route" for Colombian cocaine, said Jesus
Cabrera, head of the government-subsidized rehabilitation clinics.

In the north, Sinaloa is the traditional home to Mexico's biggest drug
lords and has become a stop on the cocaine trail as well. In Culiacan,
men with cowboy hats and cellular phones often can be seen at a shrine
to Jesus Malverde, a turn-of-century outlaw known as the patron saint
of traffickers, offering thanks with a mariachi band for a successful
drug shipment.

Traffickers long have been tolerated in the region, out of admiration
or fear. But that may begin to change now that local youths have begun
to use drugs.

"Having a friendship with a drug trafficker used to be very in, very
well regarded," said Carlos Ramiro, a state legislator for the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party. "Today, there's a rejection of
these people that didn't exist before."

Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"