The Americas

LOS UNTOUCHABLES

MEXICO CITY -- If political will and courage were enough to win the
war on drugs, Mexico would be well on the way to victory.

That's the conclusion I draw after an hour with Attorney General
Eduardo Medina-Mora at his high-rise office on Avenida Reforma here
in the capital last week.

Since taking office on Dec. 1, President Felipe Calderon has made the
defeat of the drug-trafficking cartels and the return of public
security his No. 1 priority. To head the fight he called on Mr.
Medina-Mora, the country's former chief of public security.

In less than 100 days, using the army, the new attorney general has
stunned Mexico by unleashing an all-out blitz against the narcotics business.

There are no doubts here about this man's determination to prevail.

After my meeting at the Justice Department I remain highly skeptical
about whether the war on drugs is winnable in the face of inelastic
demand for illegal substances. I am also very worried about the high
costs that fighting supply is imposing on the country.

Yet like their counterparts in Colombia, Mexican officials may have
little choice but to go after the organized crime networks that have
blossomed under drug prohibition. In Mr. Medina-Mora's view, to
ignore the problem would be to cede large areas of the country to the
rule of the underworld and to abandon the state's obligation to
protect the public. [Eduardo Medina-Mora]

American demand for narcotics has produced supply from Mexico for
generations. During World War II, Washington asked its southern
neighbor to cultivate poppies to meet the need for morphine on the
battlefields in the European and the Asia-Pacific theaters.

The climate in the Mexican states of Sinoloa, Durango, Chihuahua and
Guerrero proved most hospitable and the business remains today.

The country also has been a traditional source of marijuana for many decades.

Even so, organized crime was held at bay until the 1990s, when the
U.S. cracked down heavily on the cocaine routes from the Andes
through Florida. Once interdiction in the Caribbean pushed up sharply
the cost of shipping product via sea and air, traffickers began
seeking the path of least resistance overland through Central America
and Mexico. The enormous profits captured from selling this
prohibited and therefore high-priced powder strengthened criminal
gangs that had previously made do mostly on income from contraband
alcohol, illegal gaming and smuggled merchandise. This coincided with
the demise of Mexico's one-party system, which for 70 years had
tightly controlled law and order.

By the late 1990s the cartels easily dominated Mexico's weak law
enforcement bureaucracy. The old Mexican saw, "plomo o plata" -- lead
or silver -- describes the choice that local police and judges faced
when confronted by the drug cartels.

Many gave in not only to save their own lives but the lives of their families.

Empowered by robust cash flow, gangs diversified their businesses to
include lucrative kidnapping rackets.

Under the presidency of Vicente Fox from 2000 to 2006, law
enforcement responded by going hard against the country's most
well-known drug kingpins. But decapitating the leadership produced a
power struggle among underlings and caused a further spike in violence.

Mr. Medina-Mora says there were some 1,000 drug-trafficking related
deaths last year. And killings were not limited to the capital, which
has had high crime for more than a decade. Many places formerly known
for their quaint Mexican charm -- Acapulco, Michoacan, Monterrey,
Nuevo Laredo -- became battlegrounds in the war.

Despite the bloodshed, little progress was made. The businesses
flourished as did the organized criminal networks.

Now Mr. Medina-Mora is raising the stakes again. "You have to
overwhelm them and you have to stay long enough to reclaim the space
for the citizens," he told me. There are now 27,000 troops and
federal police dispatched to six states with the goal of restoring order.

The attorney general has also caused a sensation in Mexico by
accelerating the extradition of drug suspects to the U.S. In the
first seven weeks of this year, Mr. Medina-Mora has already sent 39
of them across the border to face U.S. courts, compared with a total
of 53 extraditions in 2005 and 63 last year.

Not surprisingly, the capos are battling back and struggling against
each other for turf. There have been at least 250 drug-cartel related
deaths so far this year. Last week the governor of Tabasco appealed
to the federal government to send help to fight organized crime in his state.

The problem is also spilling over into the U.S. Last week Reuters
quoted the county sheriff in Laredo, Texas saying, "The attacks
against us are becoming more brazen. Drug cartels have instructed
their people to go down fighting, to do whatever is necessary to get
the narcotics through."

Violence is not the only consequence of the effort to quash supply.
According to Mexican officials, the market has responded to
eradication of coca and marijuana crops by coming up with new
varieties that yield 10 times the potency that was produced a decade
ago. The prohibition also has caused a change in the demand for cocaine.

Because "mules" transporting the drugs are paid in kind, they have to
push locally in order to get their cash. Latin America (along with
Europe) is now the growth market for cocaine sales and Brazil has
become the world's second-largest cocaine market.

This means that addiction is growing in countries that have few
resources to treat it.

Meanwhile methamphetamines have become the more fashionable high in
the U.S. The U.S. has its own "meth" labs so an end to supply from
Mexico doesn't suggest an end to supply.

Nevertheless, U.S. demand -- combined with weapons smuggled in from
the north -- is a big part of Mexico's crime problem.

Mr. Medina-Mora says that since these new synthetic drugs depend on
chemical ingredients coming from China, India and Germany, his
strategy will be to keep a close eye on shipments from these countries.

His office also wants Washington to do more to stop bulk shipments of
cash (money laundering) and the smuggling of high-powered rifles,
ammunition and grenades coming from the U.S.

One thing seems sure: Under the guidance of this attorney general, we
are going to find out if force can overpower the market demand for drugs.

It doesn't seem fair that Mexico should have to live this experiment,
but having handed the drug business to criminals through prohibition,
it doesn't have much choice.