ILLEGAL DRUGS GOING NORTH, ILLEGAL GUNS SOUTH, BIG PROBLEMS

Smuggling of both drugs and weapons is increasingly becoming a problem
from Texas to California and appears to be gradually spreading northward.

In Imperial, Calif., 16 were indicted and hundreds of pounds of
Cocaine seized in a sting against the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel
this week.

The drugs were often smuggled to Calexico, Calif., in hidden vehicle
compartments from the sprawling, nearby industrial border city of
Mexicali, Mexico. They were then allegedly distributed in large
shipments throughout the United States and Canada, in cities that
include Atlanta, Chicago and New York. Four persons were in custody
and 12 are still at large.

At the same time California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced the
indictments, he met with his counterpart in Mexico's Baja California
state who reaffirmed concerns that California's budget crunch will
result in the release of prison inmates to Mexico.

California already has 7,600 prisoners in privately run prisons in
four states and is looking at housing more in Michigan's under
employed areas. Michigan is willing to take 2,500 California
prisoners. It costs $45,000 a year to house prisoners in California
and only $32,000 in Michigan.

Tennessee, New Hampshire and Kansas have already closed prisons this
year as states seek to reduce costs. In 2008, states spent $47 billion
from general funds on corrections, four times as much as in 1988.
Nearly 90 percent of corrections budgets were spent on prisons, as
opposed to probation, parole or other programs.

Recently a 24-year-old native of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Jodi
Goodwin, described as a "quiet, super sweet" woman who ultimately
could not resist the promise of easy money for precious little work,
paid the price. She was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison as a
buyer in a gun-trafficking ring that delivered 77 weapons to Mexico's
warring drug cartels.

USA TODAY reported she represents one in a steady stream of women -
grandmothers, single moms and expectant mothers - who cartels are
regularly recruiting to keep weapons flowing from the U.S. to support
their violent operations in Mexico. At least a dozen women have
surfaced in similar situations in the past two years.

As the demand for weapons in Mexico has escalated in the past two
years, trafficking rings have been increasingly recruiting women with
clean criminal records to buy weapons for them.

Because convicted felons cannot legally buy weapons, women with no
criminal history are seen as valuable "straw buyers" who transfer
their purchases to smugglers through relatives, boy friends and
acquaintances. The women often are being paid as little as $100 per
trip to buy high-powered weapons from legitimate U.S. gun dealers from
Houston to the Rio Grande Valley.

Unfortunately, most of these are problems we have brought on
ourselves. Obviously, there is a tremendous market for illegal drugs
in the United States and for illegal weapons in Mexico as the cartels
fight over who will make the money for delivering the illegal drugs
north of the border.