MEXICO OPENS HOLLYWOOD DRUG CLINIC

J. REFUGIO SALCIDO, Mexico (AP) - Durango, best known as the dusty
backdrop for Hollywood westerns, has a new Betty Ford-style clinic and
hopes to offer celebrities a refuge from paparazzi amid the same
secluded, mountain desertscape that has lured filmmakers to the
Mexican state for decades.

President Vicente Fox's wife, Martha Sahagun, christened Mision Korian
on Wednesday. It is a privately funded, $2 million walled compound at
the end of a dusty road outside this village of adobe homes where
chickens meander, pecking at the dirt. The state donated the land.

The drug and alcohol treatment center, which will eventually house 42
patients, will charge a maximum $3,000 for five weeks of treatment,
but fees for locals will be as low as $100, depending on income.

Sahagun called the center an alternative "not only for the poor but
also for those who find themselves imprisoned, vulnerable and weak in
the face of addictions."

The center's spokesman, K.B. Forbes, plans to market the clinic to
Hollywood studios, agents and Beverly Hills doctors.

"This offers an intimate setting and privacy for people who want to
get away and not have the National Enquirer snooping around," said
Forbes, a former spokesman for presidential candidates Steve Forbes
and Pat Buchanan. He is not related to his billionaire former boss.

With a bilingual staff and meditation room, Mision Korian will offer
spiritual as well as medical treatment - an approach similar to that
of the world-renowned Betty Ford Center. That clinic, in Rancho
Mirage, Calif., has counted many Hollywood luminaries among its
patients, including Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Minnelli.

Durango has seen its share of famous faces, too. John Wayne, Burt
Lancaster, and Ernest Borgnine worked side-by-side with locals here
for years, acting out barroom brawls and Wild West shootouts in
villages that were turned into faux frontier towns.

"Durango is a place where people respect privacy," Forbes said.
"They take pride in that and just let actors be."

Durango played host to film crews working on scores of movies during
the 1960s and '70s. Filmmakers were attracted by the state's few paved
roads, nonunion work force and sunny skies uncluttered by power lines.

One of the more famous movies shot here was "True Grit," a 1969 film
that won Wayne his only Oscar for his portrayal of an over-the-hill
marshal who helps a 14-year-old track down her father's killer.
Durango was also the backdrop for "The Wild Bunch," filmed the same
year.

But after Wayne's death in 1979 and the subsequent decline of
Hollywood westerns, Durango struggled to keep the spotlight. Now only
about one Hollywood crew shoots here each year.

In 1992, the state opened the Office of Cinematography to lure more
business, but it's been a tough battle as technology makes it easier
and cheaper to create scenes off-location.

Today some towns - which continue to exist alongside the Hollywood
props left by film crews - seem sad and confused.

In nearby Chuapaderos, a livery stable built for John Candy's last
movie, "Wagons East," houses Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Candy,
who played a drunken stagecoach driver in the movie, died of a heart
attack while filming in Durango. The portly comedian was 43.

Many local men who used to work as extras pass their days sitting on
movie set porches, sipping beer and reminiscing while they wait for
work.

With the economic slump, Durango state has seen a rise in addictions,
said Dr. Cesar Franco, a physician for a state family agency that
provided support for the clinic. Many of Durango's youth now migrate
to the United States to work, only to return home with drug problems.

"Mexico is no longer just a place of transit for drugs, it is also a
consumer country," Franco said. "That's been the reality, but
there's not been a place for people to go to get help until now."