DRUG VIOLENCE

Killings Are In Mexico, But Drugs Go To U.S.

Drug-related killings in Mexico have more than doubled this year over
2007.

The country's attorney general, Eduardo Medina-Mora, predicted that
the carnage is liable to get worse before it gets better.

Some 5,376 people were slain by drug cartels this year through Dec. 2.
That's a 117 percent increase over last year, when 2,477 people had
been killed by drug gangs during the same period.

Most of the gangland killings occurred in the border states of
Chihuahua and Baja California, particularly in Juarez and Tijuana
where turf wars are common. Another hot spot is Sinaloa, home to a
powerful cartel.

Speaking to foreign correspondents in Mexico City earlier this month,
the attorney general said that arrests of drug kingpins and
high-profile seizures had created a power vacuum leading to intense
competition among cartels.

The prosecutor does not take the cartels lightly. "These criminal
organizations don't have limits," he said. "They certainly have an
enormous power of intimidation."

Almost as he spoke, there were more killings, the New York Times
reported - 18 people in two southern states the following Sunday.

Mexican authorities have taken on the cartels this year, but found it
frustrating. Officials say the guns criminals are using come from the
United States, where the traffickers are selling their drugs.

The enormous drug profits are corrupting Mexican institutions. Mr.
Medina-Mora said that several officials in his organized crime unit
were receiving payments from traffickers to warn them about raids.
They were arrested, which he said demonstrated the government's
resolve to fight crime.

It is deeply disturbing to know that these cartels make most of their
money by supplying illegal drug users in the United States. When will
this end?