LOCAL OFFICIALS QUESTION DRUG WAR, EMPHASIZE NEED TO CONTINUE FIGHT

McALLEN -- Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino got his start fighting
the drug war in 1974, buying street-level heroin as an undercover
police investigator in Austin.

The war on drugs was young then. Just four years before, President
Richard Nixon launched a new battle against drug abuse in the United
States.

Throughout his career, Trevino worked with various local, state and
federal drug task forces before he took the helm as Hidalgo County's
top cop in 2005.

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"This is something very dear and close to me," the sheriff said this
week. "Having said that ... the law enforcement approach has not been
very successful. We have won some very significant battles, but not
the war."

Forty years after Nixon declared war on illegal drugs, the battles
wage on. A recent story by The Associated Press exposed the $1
trillion that U.S. taxpayers have spent over four decades for programs
that did little to stop the flow of drugs.

U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told the AP the strategy hasn't
worked.

"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske said.
"Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if
anything, magnified, intensified."

While Trevino and other local officials would not call the drug war a
failure, they admit much progress needs to be made in the fight
against drug trafficking and abuse. None said the battle should end.
And those interviewed said they do not favor legalization.

"We can't just pull out," Trevino said. "We must continue fighting
drug gangs. The stakes are way too high and we are in it too deep to
quit."

Need for Treatment

State Rep. Aaron Pena, D-Edinburg, says he gets the same calls every
week.

Last week, a mother called his office worried about her son, who was
stealing from his family to feed his drug habit. She didn't know what
to do.

"It's frustrating because people love them," Pena said. "I hear it
over and over again. It's just very sad."

About 8 percent of the state's adolescents have a drug abuse problem,
and some 18,000 teenagers are in Texas treatment centers each month.
Seven of those facilities are located within 20 miles of Edinburg.

Drug abuse hits close to Pena's heart. His 16-year-old son, John, died
of an overdose nine years ago.

Before losing John in May 2001, Pena believed in locking away drug
addicts in prisons, he said. But since then, he has become an advocate
for drug abuse prevention and rehabilitation.

"They want to get out, but they don't know how," Pena said of drug
addicts. "We need to give them the tools." By May 2011, another local
tool is set to open to the public.

State and county officials broke ground in March on the region's first
outpatient substance abuse and primary care treatment facility.

The $3 million facility will be in north Edinburg and will provide
substance abuse treatment services for up to 150 adolescents on an
outpatient basis.

"It may not be a 100 percent solution, but we provide them a ladder to
get out," Pena said.

Uncertain Punishment

McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez refuses to call the 40-year-old
drug war a failure.

"In that period of time, millions of dollars and millions of tons of
dope have been removed from the streets," he said. "Given what's
happened, I'd rather have what's happened than turn our back on it."

Rodriguez believes inconsistent punishments give drug users and
potential abusers an unclear picture of the potential consequences --
and weakens the deterrence the law can have on drug use.

"You can go into some parts of this state where the smallest amount of
drugs will land you in prison, and you can go to other parts where you
can have tons and end up with probation," Rodriguez said. "There is no
certainty in our system with regards to enforcement."

That absence of certainty on punishment leads to a lack of deterrence
from drug use, the chief said. "It isn't certain that someone will be
punished for drug abuse in our country," he said.

Even with clear penalties and more rehabilitation available, Pena said
the fight against drugs will never end -- like all crime.

"Yeah, the war on drugs has been seen as a failure," he said. "We have
to accept, at least at some levels, because of the flaws in humanity,
that drug usage will always be there. That doesn't mean we give up."

Prevention

At the Palmer Drug Abuse Program in McAllen, Fidencio Mercado said he
hasn't seen much change since high-profile drug violence spread into
northeast Mexico.

Cocaine and prescription medications like Xanax -- an anti-anxiety drug
- -- continue to be the most common addictions for most area patients,
Mercado said.

What has changed in recent years, though, is the age of patients
seeking treatment. Children as young as 10 have gone to Palmer to get
help, typically after smoking marijuana or huffing inhalants.

"We have to put a stronger emphasis on prevention and prevention
efforts so that children aren't experimenting and using drugs at young
ages," Mercado said. "That's the only way we'll be able to fight a war
on drugs."

From Mercado's perspective, prevention will only work when it comes
from all aspects of a child or adolescent's life -- school, home and in
the community.

"It has to be collaboration and it has to be through the support of ...
everybody on the same page working together," he said.

Investing more in programs such as those focusing on prevention and
rehabilitation could help turn the tide and reduce drug use in the
country, Sheriff Trevino believes. But for "police officers to change
their mindset, that's going to be the hardest part."

"With time, experience and an open mind," the sheriff said, "you sit
back and study this and you say, 'What did we do? We just destroyed
ourselves thinking we were doing good when we really weren't.'"

[sidebar]

BY THE NUMBERS

Former President Richard Nixon's first drug-fighting budget was $100
million in 1970. Now it's $15.1 billion, 31 times Nixon's amount even
when adjusted for inflation.

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal
budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, The
Associated Press tracked where that money went and found that the
United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did
little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more
than:

$20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In
Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion,
while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico -- and
the violence along with it.

$33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's
youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the
same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the national
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have
"risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

$49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the
flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort,
swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in
1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

$121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders,
about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show
that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

$450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last
year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences
for drug offenses.