WELCOME TO THE HEARTLAND OF DRUG TRAFFIC

States Like Iowa, Wyoming And Kansas Are At The Crossroads Of The Nation's
Top Smuggling Corridors.

Cheyenne, Wyo. Here in the land of wideopen spaces and clean living, as
well as in other communities across the midsection of America, Mexican drug
cartels are opening new and lucrative markets for contraband brought from
beyond the Rio Grande.

Eager to create ambitious distribution points, the cartels are successfully
targeting traditional Godfearing communities like Cheyenne and Casper in
Wyoming and other cities in such states as Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.
They are bringing with them the drugs that long have plagued larger urban
centers across the country.

Some years back, gangs brought driveby shootings and drug dealing to the
American heartland. But "our greatest problem today is illegal aliens and
drugs," said Tom Pagel, director of the state Department of Criminal
Investigation in Cheyenne. "The vast majority of this is being transported
up from Mexico, and we're getting our butts kicked over it."

Smuggling vast quantities of methamphetamine and hustling their standard
cocaine shipments, the Mexican drug criminals are aggressively trying to
outmarket the Colombia cartels they have replaced.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, a key drugpipeline state, calls it
"absolutely critical" that Mexico clean up its side of the border.

International Impact

Taking over the drug routes once run by Columbians, the Mexicans' influence
and the level of public corruption in Mexico have become major sources of
friction between that country and the United States.

In October, the U.S. government reported that more than 40 percent of the
illegal immigrants who were deported to Mexico last year had first been
convicted of drug charges in U.S. courts.

Those numbers fit an overall pattern of an increase in crimes committed by
illegal immigrants.

Never Seen Before

The offenses are often occurring in cities and towns where, in the past,
the worst crime was likely to be transporting stolen cattle. The situation
has fueled a sharp increase in teenage narcotics use, and the courts and
drug treatment centers are seeing more kids more strung out than ever before.

Kathleen Sloan, a drug treatment specialist here, is surprised at the
number of kids and how young they are, some just 14 who pass through
her doors these days.

"It began about two years ago," she said. "What was really noticeable was
that it wasn't experimental drug use any more. In the last eight months
it's gotten to where it seems out of control."

The upsurge in drugs also has prompted a keen awareness in places like
Cheyenne that law enforcement must act decisively to reverse the trend.
Already, police here are taking Spanishlanguage training, and federal
prosecutors have recently put away a Mexican national working as a major
drug "primo" in Wyoming.

In Washington, officials have been saying for some months that Middle
America is no longer an outpost garrisoned off from the drug menace. They
warn that as long as there is a demand, even in places as small and distant
as Cheyenne, there someday will come a supplier.

White House Drug Policy Director Barry McCaffrey said recently, "Colorado,
Utah, and Wyoming, the Rocky Mountain heartland of America, are
increasingly becoming populated with Mexican drug trafficking organizations
and violent gangs using this major transportation crossroads as a
transshipment center."

Federal drug enforcement officials say that Interstate 25 is a historic
smuggling route north out of El Paso, Texas, and that the nation's main
eastwest corridors, Interstate 70 and Interstate 80 which runs through
Iowa are increasingly becoming drug pipelines.

Cheyenne is located at the cloverleaf of Interstates 25 and 80. The drugs
move north and east; the money flows west and south.

Sen. Charles Grassley, RIa., head of the Senate Caucus on International
Narcotics Control, said it was "absolutely critical" to pressure Mexico to
clean up its side of the border.

In Des Moines, Polk County District Associate Judge Carol Egly has noticed
in the past four years an increase in the number of drug users. "We're
getting many that are totally whacked out and crazy," she said.

She also has seen a growing number of Mexican nationals appearing on
drugpushing charges in her courtroom, unable to speak English or
understand the charges against them. And yet, she said, they realize that
even if they go to prison and then are deported to Mexico, it will not keep
them from returning.

"Why Des Moines? Why Iowa?" Egly asks herself. "I still don't know the
answer."

Meth's Long Reach

Here in Wyoming, one of the least populated states in the country, police
chalked up 18 arrests on drug, illegalimmigrant and firearms charges in
just one 12day span in October. Thirteen of the suspects were Mexican
nationals.

At the same time, drug use had climbed steeply, primarily for
methaphetamine, the most common narcotic from Mexico that teenagers and
young adults across the Plains are smoking or shooting into their arms.
The drug is particularly popular because it gives a fast and lasting high,
and sharply curbs one's appetite.

In 1993, "meth" accounted for on 18 percent of Wyoming's drugrelated
arrests. So far this year, the figure is 46 percent.

Not Safe Anymore

Iowa Judge Egly's sentiments why us? why here? are being echoed all
across Middle America, the part of America that, for a time, thought is was
safe.

Said Stephen Miller, deputy director of Wyoming's Division of Criminal
Investigation: "This is hitting us all in the face all at once. Good Lord,
what is happening here in Wyoming?"