DRUGGED
White House report on Mexico is valuable

The frank new White House report on the drug crisis in
Mexico deserves to be looked at with candor and fairness on
both sides of the border. Cooperation is really the only way
progress is ever going to be made in the war on drugs, and
cooperation has to begin with a realistic agreement on the
nature and extent of the problem.

"Corruption, despite Mexican efforts to combat it, remains a
significant impediment to making further headway against
powerful trafficking organizations," although Mexico's
democratic advances offer new hope for accountability and
concrete progress, the report said.

As if to punctuate the report, presented to Congress by U.S.
drug czar Barry McCaffrey, Mexican authorities last week
arrested all 18 members of a special Mexican unit in charge
of intercepting drug flights after the team allegedly used
one of its own planes to smuggle cocaine.

The good news includes:

Drug seizures are up. Mexico seized more cocaine in the
first eight months of 1997 than in all of 1995 or 1996 and
is on pace to eradicate a record amount of homegrown
marijuana.

Mexico has agreed to expand the number of U.S. anti drug
agents in Mexico and provide them diplomatic immunity,
tacitly allowing them to carry guns for their personal
protection.

Mexican legal reforms provide law enforcement with new
weapons, including electronic eavesdropping, undercover
operations, plea bargaining and witness protection. A new
law makes moneylaundering illegal.

The bad news includes corruption (on both sides of the
border), suspicions and turf sensitivities. And always there
is the appetite for drugs in this country.

Just recognizing the problem is a step in the right
direction. McCaffrey said, "Reform has been and will
continue to be painful, dangerous and time consuming."

That's a frank and realistic starting point.