U.S. APPETITE FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS IS INSATIABLE

The Mexican drug cartels battling viciously to expand and survive have
a powerful financial incentive: Across the border to the north is a
market for illegal drugs unsurpassed for its wealth, diversity and
voraciousness.

Homeless heroin addicts in big cities, "meth heads" in Midwest trailer
parks, pop culture and sports stars, teens smoking marijuana with
their Baby Boomer parents in Vermont - in all, 46 percent of Americans
12 and older have indulged in the often destructive national pastime
of illicit drug use.

This array of consumers is providing a vast, recession-proof,
apparently unending market for the Mexican gangs locked in a drug war
that has killed more than 10,780 people since December 2006. No matter
how much law enforcement or financial help the U.S. government
provides Mexico, the basics of supply and demand prevent it from doing
much good.

"The damage done by our insatiable demand for drugs is truly
astounding," said Lloyd Johnston, a University of Michigan researcher
who oversees annual drug-use surveys.

The latest federal figures show that 114 million Americans have used
illegal drugs at some point - and 20 million are current users.

Marijuana is by far the No. 1 drug, sampled by 100 million Americans,
including nearly half of high school seniors. But more than 35 million
Americans have used cocaine at some point and 34 million have taken
LSD or other hallucinogens.

"It's a drug dealer's dream - sell it in a place where he can make the
most money for the risk taken," said Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of
the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment.

"There's a tremendous amount of denial until you're face to face with
it," Clark added. "A substance abuser can be anybody. Everybody is at
risk."

The Mexican cartels are eager to feed this ravenous appetite. Once
used mostly to transship drugs from South America, Mexico is now a
major producer and distributor; its gangs control cocaine networks in
many U.S. cities and covertly grow marijuana on U.S. public lands.

For now, the Mexican government is fighting the cartels and working
with U.S. authorities who have promised to stop the southbound flow of
weapons and cash - but all parties are aware of the role played by the
U.S. market.

"When the U.S. government turns up the pressure a lot, then is when
you see a return to the old formula of saying (to Americans), 'You
also have corruption, you consume the drugs, you're the biggest drug
consumer in the world,' " said Jose Luis Pineyro, a sociologist at
Mexico's Autonomous Metropolitan University.

Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief recently appointed by
President Obama to be U.S. drug czar, said the Mexicans "make an
excellent point."

"Our drug abuse causes problems elsewhere - our per capita consumption
is very high," said Kerlikowske, who argues that reducing demand
through education and treatment is as vital as border interdictions in
quelling Mexico's drug violence.

Country of origin didn't matter much to David Hart. Hart, 49, said he
started using drugs at 14 and didn't stop until he entered a one-year
recovery program in January at the Springs Rescue Mission in Colorado
Springs, Colo.

The son of an alcoholic father, Hart moved from Arizona to Colorado in
1993. A promised construction job didn't materialize, and since then
he's mixed part-time work with stints of homelessness, panhandling to
pay for hits of crack, marijuana and speed.

"When you're depressed about your lot in life, and angry about the way
you've been treated, drugs are a perfect way out. You smoke that crack
and your problems just go away. You know they're going to come back,
but for that brief moment you don't have to deal with it."

He's grateful to his supporters at the recovery program, but unsure
what lies ahead.

"It's been a part of my life for so long," he said. "It's going to be
a challenge for the rest of my life to stay clean."

Yet Hart is, in some respects, lucky. Federal figures indicate that
roughly 7.5 million Americans needed treatment for illegal drug abuse
in 2007, and only about 1.3 million received it.

The Rescue Mission's CEO, the Rev. Joe Vazquez, said Hart is part of a
wave of drug-abusing transients who've settled into the netherworld of
an outwardly prosperous region.

"There's this whole segment of our community living well below what
their creator created them for - these men coming with a toolbelt and
backpack, living in little rundown motels, struggling with addiction,"
Vazquez said.

Federal surveys reveal cyclical trends in drug abuse - but the number
of lifetime users keeps growing. Overall abuse rates were highest in
the 1970s, declined through the early '90s, went back up and now seem
to have stabilized over the past six years.

Studies of youth drug use in Western Europe show a few countries with
serious problems, but overall a far lower portion of young people
there are abusing drugs than in America. Elsewhere around the world,
drug use also is widespread, though data is generally not as thorough
as in the United States.

"There's no escaping the fact that we have the highest drug rates in
the world," said Craig Reinarman, a sociologist at the University of
California, Santa Cruz.

U.S. authorities were encouraged that drug use among
12-to-17-year-olds declined by about 25 percent between 2002 and 2007.
But Johnston, the University of Michigan researcher, says his latest
student survey suggests the decline halted in 2008, and he is
concerned by data showing that fewer students view smoking marijuana
as a serious risk.

There was no similar recent drop-off of drug abuse among the biggest
demographic category - young adults aged 18-25. Illicit drug use also
has surged among those aged 55 to 59 - baby boomers whose young
adulthood coincided with the drug culture's heyday. And there is deep
concern about increasing abuse of prescription medicines among all age
groups.

Survey after survey shows the vast scope of illegal drug use -
deep-rooted in all regions, among all races and socio-economic groups.
Big cities indeed have severe problems, but the states with the
highest overall abuse rates include Rhode Island, Vermont, Montana and
Alaska.

"There's this assumption that drug abuse is more common in racial
minorities, especially blacks," said Dr. Wilson Compton, a division
director at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "It's not true.
Either the rates are lower or at least no higher."

Reinarman reflected on the recent methamphetamine outbreak across the
American heartland - Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and elsewhere.

"Here they live in crummy little houses, in towns that are dying ...
and along comes a drug that provides a great rush," he said. "You
can't separate drug problems from the broader matrix of social and
personal problems. You can't have a drug policy that works unless it's
part of a much broader social policy."

For those concerned about marijuana, Vermont is an active front line,
with the nation's highest rates of pot usage. It's one of several
regions where joints may now be more prevalent among teens than cigarettes.

"People say, 'It's easier for me to get pot than to buy a beer,' "
said Barbara Cimaglio, deputy commissioner of the state Health
Department's Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs.

Annie Ramniceanu, clinical director at Spectrum Youth and Family
Services in Burlington, Vt., says many of the 350 youths her agency
counsels annually started smoking pot before their teens.

"They just get high all the time," she said. "They never learned how
to have fun without smoking pot, never learned how to deal with
conflict, how to focus on anything."

In both blue-collar and affluent families, she sees multigenerational
problems.

"It's become the cultural norm for these families, where drug use is
absolutely no big deal," she said. "The kids smoke with their parents,
or know their parents use other drugs."

Another drug counselor, Yolanda Morales of New York City, is
cautiously upbeat about the attitudes she observes among young people.

Now 55, Morales lapsed into a cocaine habit and a 15-year addiction
while trying to juggle graduate school and a job. She spent five years
in federal prison for trafficking, got out in 2003, and now works for
the Fortune Society in New York, counseling other ex-offenders.

She has shared her story candidly with her college-bound
daughter.

"When I was in school in New York, people stood on the corner selling
drugs - no one gave a damn," Morales said. "The consequences of that
era has the younger generation a little more scared. I don't see them
doing the hard drugs like we were. They're more informed - there's
more wariness about trying different stuff."