FOR MEXICAN CARTELS, MARIJUANA IS STILL GOLD

CORRE COYOTE, Mexico -- Times are good for the dope growers of the
western Sierra Madre. The army eradication squads that once hacked at
the illicit marijuana fields have been diverted by the drug war
that's raging elsewhere in Mexico.

The military's retreat has delighted farmers who are sowing and
reaping marijuana. Cultivation in Mexico soared 35 percent last year
and is now higher than at any time in nearly two decades, the State
Department says.

It's also been a boon for Mexico's powerful organized-crime groups.

Marijuana is perishable, bulky and less profitable than their other
exports -- heroin, cocaine and crystal meth -- but drug-trafficking
experts say that every major trafficking organization in Mexico reaps
significant income from marijuana, drawing on cross-border criminal
networks that carry cannabis to scores of U.S. cities.

"They tend to be a cash cow for the drug-trafficking organizations,"
David Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for international
narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said during a visit to Mexico last week.

An aerial tour deep into the Sierra Madres at the side of a Mexican
army general and a small army eradication unit -- one of a handful
that are still actively working -- shows marijuana crops flourishing
in valley after valley of the rugged, pine-covered region. The
mountain slopes and valleys in the part of southern Chihuahua state
that's hugged by Sinaloa and Durango states are sometimes called
Mexico's Golden Triangle -- after the opium-producing Golden Triangle
of Southeast Asia -- because of their productivity. Illicit crops
include not only marijuana but also poppy, the flowering plant that
provides the white gummy latex that's later processed into opium and heroin.

It's a dangerous area. Even the poorest farmers tote weapons. A third
of the region's population is thought to earn its living from the
illicit drug industry.

Peasant farms need little to grow small fields of marijuana: bags of
seeds, some fertilizer, lengths of hose for primitive irrigation
systems and a few months for the crop to mature into 10-foot-tall plants.

According to State Department estimates, the areas of harvestable
marijuana fields in Mexico grew from 10,130 acres in 2001 to 29,652
acres in 2009. During the same period, the area of eradication dropped by half.

Farmers see little stigma -- or risk -- in growing cannabis.

"It's always been said that poppy is controlled by organized crime,
and marijuana is for the people. Growing it is like growing corn,"
said the general.

The biggest competition for Mexican cartels comes from domestic
marijuana growers in the United States. A document produced by local,
state and federal law enforcement officials in California's Central
Valley says that California's 2009 marijuana harvest alone surpassed
the annual estimated harvest of nearly 32,000 tons in Mexico. It put
overall U.S. marijuana production at 76,380 tons.

"Mexicans sometimes tell me that they think we are self-sufficient in
marijuana," Johnson said.