Mexicans take over drug trade to US
With Colombian cartels in shambles, Mexican drug lords run the show.
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Chabat says Fox has gone far in fighting the cartels, but not far enough. Fox, says Chabat, is like a "poor guy trying to impress a rich girl" - the US. "He gets a nice car for the evening, but does not have money for flowers." Fox, says Chabat, has arrested some of the top drug lords - but is unable or unwilling to reform the justice or police system enough to finish the job.
US officials claim that the Mexican government's reluctance to extradite top drug criminals - the way Colombia has - is hampering efforts. Colombia has extradited 173 drug suspects since 2002, including many major figures, to the US. Mexico extradited a record 34 in 2004, but no major drug lords.
"I understand the difficulty in extraditing nationals, but left in Mexican jails these people continue to run the show," says Walters.
"And the show," adds Juárez police chief Navarette, "is not a pretty one."
Once controlled by West Coast biker gangs, or rural "cooks" working out of trailers in the US Midwest, the trade in methamphetaminein recent years has been moving south of the border, say officials.
About 65 percent of the drug, known as Crystal, Ice, Glass, Tweak, Zip or just Meth is now either being made in bulk quantities in "super labs" run by Mexican nationals in California, or, increasingly, coming from labs in Mexico, says Doug Coleman, a special agent at the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
Such super labs produce 10 pounds or more of the drug in a 24-hour period, according to DEA statistics. One ounce is considered enough to get 120 people high. The Mexican labs, says Mr. Coleman, mainly produce a crystalline version of the drug. It's not more potent than other forms, but is increasingly popular in the US. "American consumers think 'ice' is like crack cocaine and better, and will pay more for it," he says.
"What we have seen in past 3 years is significant," he says in a phone interview from Washington, DC. "There has been a doubling of seizures of methamphetamine coming in from Mexico...and, we know of a significant shipments of pseudoephedrine [a key ingredient in meth] from factories in Europe, India, and Asia into that country."
Ron Brooks, president of the National Narcotics Officers Association, which represents 60,000 police nationwide, says the Mexicans are filling gaps left by the squeezing of the domestic market, in particular the crackdown on pseudoephedrine.
Under political pressure, US pharmaceutical companies have begun reformulating their cold remedies to avoid using pseudoephedrine and 30 states have restricted pseudoephedrine sales in retail stores. Target, Wal-Mart, Rite-Aid and other retailers have moved nonprescription cold pills behind the pharmacy counter, where meth cooks have a harder time getting at them.
"We have successfully moved to cut off the chemicals used to make meth in the US," says White House drug czar John Walters, "But that success in attacking the problem in one place has pushed it across the border."
"The Mexican cartels were already smuggling in marijuana and heroin and cocaine," says Mr. Brooks. "And they quickly realized the crackdown on meth in the US was an opportunity for them to use their already existing distributions lines and expand the business." By making meth themselves, says Brooks, the cartels didn't have to share the profits, as they do with Colombian suppliers.
• Ms. Harman is Latin America bureau chief for the Monitor and USA Today. Eloise Quintanilla contributed to this report.
