AMERICA'S DRUG HABIT, MEXICO'S DRUG WAR

The dope flows north; the guns and cash flow south. Drug trafficking
produces billions of dollars in profits for the Mexican drug cartels.
Indeed one cartel kingpin - they call him Shorty - made the Forbes
2009 billionaires list. The Justice Department has declared the drug
cartels "the biggest organized crime threat in the United States."
President Barack Obama announced last week that he would send 450
federal agents, new crime-fighting hardware and drug-sniffing dog
teams to the Mexican border to fight the two-way flow of drugs and
guns. These are the challenges facing U.S. and Mexican authorities:

Ninety percent of the cocaine in the U.S. moves through Mexico.

About 2,000 weapons a day are smuggled into Mexico from the U.S.

Those weapons are used in 95 per-cent of all killings in Mexico.

Drug cartels make about $10 billion in annual profits from U.S. drug sales.

Drug killings in Mexico totaled 6,290 in 2008; 1,600 occurred in Ciudad Juarez.

Drug-related kidnappings in Phoenix rose from 160 in 1999 to 368 last year.

What's A Drug Cartel?

"Cartel" comes from the Latin "carta," which means paper. (Magna
Carta, for example, means Great Paper.) In the 1500s it took the
meaning of a written agreement. In later centuries, cartel came to
characterize a business relationship in which parties cooperated so
they could monopolize a certain kind of trade. OPEC is such a cartel.
Mexican drug cartels compete violently with one another for market
share; sometimes, however, certain cartels confederate, extending the
power and reach of each. Some authorities say "cartel" is a misnomer
because Mexican drug gangs do not set prices as cartels normally do.
They prefer "DTO" --- drug trafficking organization.

The Sinaloa Cartel

Named for the region in which it operates, including the Pacific
coast Sinaloa state and Baja California. Police scored a coup this
month when they arrested Vicente Zambada, reputed to be operations
chief of Sinaloa.

The Gulf Cartel

With Sinaloa, one of the two most powerful cartels. Controls part of
the Texas border. On March 20 the army arrested Sigifrido Najera
Talamantes, a Gulf soldier suspected in an attack on a U.S. consulate.

The Juarez Cartel

Operates in one of the most violent zones of the drug war. Ciudad
Juarez, scene of hundreds of killings last year, is separated from El
Paso, Texas, by the Rio Grande. There were 18 suspected drug killings
in El Paso in 2008.

The Atlanta Connection

The leading drug cartels in Mexico aren't just operating in their
home country. They've turned Atlanta into the principal cocaine
distribution center for the eastern U.S., authorities say. "The same
folks who are rolling heads in the streets of Ciudad Juarez are in
Atlanta. Here they are just better behaved," said Jack Killorin, who
heads a federal drug task force in Atlanta. Last year, federal agents
seized more drug cash in Atlanta - $70 million - than any other U.S. city.

El Chapo

Joaquin Guzman, 51, is the most wanted druglord in Mexico. Guzman is
5-foot-6, earning him the nickname El Chapo, or Shorty. The head of
the Sinaloa cartel, for whom the U.S. has posted a $5 million reward,
made the Forbes billionaires list this year at No. 701. He has proven
to be the most elusive and perhaps the most mythologized of cartel
chieftains. Tales of sightings abound, including a story of armed men
walking into a restaurant and demanding diners' cellphones. Then El
Chapo strides in, shakes hands all around, orders a steak and picks
up everybody's check.

Extreme Violence

American citizen George N. Harrison, 38 when he died, opened a
pizza-delivery business in Tijuana in 2007. Harrison prospered,
largely because of the low costs of operating in Mexico. Early last
month, three armed men kidnapped him from the pizzeria. Mexican
authorities suggested Harrison was involved in the drug business,
though his family denies that. His abductors wrung two ransom
payments from Harrison's family. Then they beheaded and dismembered him.

WHO's Responsible?

"How can you explain a drug market so large in the U.S. - the largest
in the world - without the corruption of certain U.S. authorities?"

. Mexican President FELIPE CALDERON in an angry response to American
officials' assertions that Mexico has lost control over parts of its
territory to the drug cartels

"Clearly what we've been doing has not worked. Our insatiable demand
for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent
weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border ... causes
the deaths of police, of soldiers and civilians."

. Secretary of State HILLARY CLINTON on her visit to Mexico last
week, striking a conciliatory tone

Advertising for Help

The cartels are so brazen that they publicly advertise for recruits,
USA Today reported in 2008. A 10-foot banner on a bridge in Nuevo
Laredo coaxed soldiers to join the Zetas, the Gulf cartel's hit
squad: "We offer you a good salary, food and attention for your
family. Don't suffer hunger and abuse any more." A Gulf cartel banner
in Tampico declared: "We offer benefits, life insurance, a house for
your family and children. Stop living in the slums and riding the
bus. A new car or truck, your choice."

Sources for this report: Congressional Research Service, Los Angeles
Times, Federation of American Scientists (fas.org) The Associated
Press, Reuters News Service, AJC files.