EL PAPEL DE MEXICO EN EL GRAN PROBLEMA DE ABUSO DE DROGAS EN EE.UU.

Escribí este artículo en inglés pensando en que lo publique algún diario estadunidese (noten que no digo "americano" ni "norteamericano" porque los mexicanos somos ambas cosas también. Siento que algunos de mis pocos pero habituales lectores no le entenderán, pero es un breve repaso de la historia de las drogas en México, cultivadas a petición estaduninese en tiempos de le Segunda Guerra Mundial, porque su cliente habitual, que era el gran país de Turquía, estaba muy cerca de caer en manos de los nazis cuando tuvieron sus batallas en el Norte de África. Ellos trayeron y enseñaron a los agricultores mexicanos a cultivar la amapola, de la que se derivan los opiaceos y ellos la compraron. Lo malo fue en que después de acabar la Guerra, volvieron pero ya convertidos en traficantes, ya pesar de que el gobierno de México ya había retirado el permiso para cultivar la amapola, ellos siguieron comrándola a precios excesivamente altos, haciendo que los mismos agricultores prefirieran seguir con su cultivo en vez de hacerlo con cultivos tradicionales. La fértil tierra de la sierra que sirve de frontera a tres estados: Sinaloa, Durango y Chihuahua se presta perfectamente (como ahora sabemos todos) para ese cultivo. De ahí nacieron los carteles. Ojalá les parezca aleccionador y nos permita establecer que no somos sino el trampolihn que trafica drogas. Y donde hay un trampolín es que seguramete hay una alberca... THE ROLE OF MEXICO IN THA USA´S MASSIVE DRUG PROBLEM. Drug problems have affected humankind since the dawn of time. However, in this article I will be referring to the issues that began in the late 60´s of the past Centuty, specifically in the US. I do remember, even though I was just a kid in Mexico City, when in a meeting between the Presidents of the US and Mexico, the American President, asking for help, told the President of Mexico that “Mexico was a springboard of drugs that affected the US”. The Mexican President answered very cunningly “that when there´s a springboard, is always because there´s a pool”. And that´s a crude truth. The pool is the US, of course. This present-day drug problem in the US won´t be solved unless its structural issues remain. In this particular case is the demand of drugs by our American friends BRIEF HISTORY. Even though in Mexico mariguana use comes back from centuries back, it was used mostly by poor people, low income social clases, mainly soldiers and policemen. And let´s not fortget it has valuable medicinal uses too. During World War II, the US asked Mexico for permission to grow poppies flowers in the State of Sinaloa, because the climate was ideal and the Army needed a safe haven to have an ensured and abundant supply of Morphine for the wounded soldiers. Because in those times their main supplier was Turkey and the Nazi wermacht was very close by. Although in the Second World War many GI´s were using morphine, and brought their addiction back to the US. Most casualties of war were treated with Morphine as a powerful pain-killer, a cousin of Heroin, and so they got hooked, bringing to the US the need for more of opiaceous drugs. Even so, it was until the Vietnam War that its use was a main problem in the US because it was in the late 60´s that the use and abuse of drugs rapidly became a fashion among the young people in the US. Those students, hippies got hooked up by drugs plus the soldiers that got addicted in Southeast Asia, became such a health problem that forced the Johnson government to declare a “war on drugs”. I´m told Government men, of some shady Agency flew down to the State of Sinaloa in the northwest of Mexico and trained the farmers, —mainly corn and weath growers— to cultivate poppies, from which the Heroin is extracted in its elementary form: opium—which produces many derivatives. This men “would pay well”, they said, acording to common knowledge in Mexico. Well, the war finished and thank God the Allies won it (Mexico had a smal part in that triumph in the Phillipines) and no more Morphine was needed, But, alas, the same guys who had come the first time as govenmental Agents, now came as drug dealers even though the Mexican Government had lifted the permission to grow poppies. This dealers offered the farmers more money if they continued growing poppies and marijuana, —much more than what would be paid for more common grains— but only if they, the farmers, agreed to sell their produce to this guys. Of course, even though the danger was a major issue, the farmers —the founders of the now famous Cartels— accepted the deal because money was , and still is, money. This “money” was estimated, several years ago, in about $121,600 millions of US Dollars a year; that is a about $333,150,684 and a few cents US Dolars a day! Hence the beggining of Mexico´s introduction to the hard drug production. Eventually, all the northern Mexican States bordering the Pacific Ocean were involved, not just Sinaloa. And it was in Sinaloa that a very powerful place developed called “the Golden Triangle”, with the small town of Badiguarato as its center. It is in the junction of three Mexican States: Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango. When the Mexican government started making war on the leaders of the drug growers, many of them moved down to Guadalajara, where the infamous first Mexican Cartel was formed as the “Guadalajara Cartel”. So I think the war on drugs should be called “the drugs of war”. Cocaine came later from Colombia in South America, mainly during the development of the low level war against the “revolutionaries” that took place from 1974-1990. That´s when the Cali Cartel, began, with Pablo Escobar as its main boss. He was killed by the Colombian army in December 2, 1993. We have to bear in mind that when a Cartel leader dies, the cartel explodes in many more small cartels that are organized as an enterprise should and its leaders are almost always worst than the ones who died. So you dissappear one leader, and many more take their place. Same thing happens in Mexico. But the Colombian cartels were too weak to face the Mexican ones, and the latter won that battle. Now, cocaine and its derivatives should be ordered, payed for and transported from Colombia to México, and from there to all corners of the world. It is said that some Mexican cartels have influence in Russia, Italy and the Balcans, not to mention western and Eastern Europe. They go as far as Africa and some countries in Southeast Asia. Coca, tha plant from which cocaine is extracted by chemical means, only grows in those latitudes. It is my way of thinking that when scientists in the US get to grow it there, the US will be the world´s main supplier, as has happened with marijuana. As the old saying goes: “You reap what you sow”, only this time the US reaped in Mexico, with all the problems that this could bring, including corruption and the start of the Mexican Cartels. It started what is known in Mexico as “Plata o plomo”, which translates as “if you don´t accept money (plata), you´ll receive lead (bullets)”. It could be you or someone in your immediate family. THE DRUG´S PROPAGANDA You can seldom watch a Hollywood or European movie nowadays without having to watch one or some of the actors dealing with or inhaling Coke or Crack or smoking Marijuana. Phentanyl is the now drug, approximately 100 times stronger tan Morphine and at least 50 time as strong as Heroin.. It is of a different source. That is a way to “normalize” an aberration. To world wide movie viewers, it would seem that “doing” drugs is a normal condition, and it shouldn´t be so. In Mexico, many American Young people can get a fix of either drug in the time it takes them to get from the airport to their hotels. In normal life at middle class neighborhoods in Mexico City its very difficult to watch junkies or people affected by drugs. Or maybe we just don´t notice it anymore. Not so in places like the mentioned States and especially the towns that line the border with the US. However, its not the same as what you see when you visit several neighborhoods in Omaha, Wichita, Minneapolis, the Bronx or San Francisco. And so it happens in many cities in Europe and Russia. Remember: You reap what you sow. IT´S A BUSINESS… A DEADLY ONE. As in any business, you have to hand over something in order to get another. In this case, the Cartels ask for firearms and weapons with their respective unlimited rounds. That´s why the Mexican government recently sued the firearms sellers in the states of the US that have a border with Mexico. It was a lost battle, everyone knew, but it was made to turn on red lights on his kind of business Firearms dealers that surely know who they are selling weapons to, even though Mexicans are not allowed to buy firearms in the US or even in their own Country. Every time an American lights up a cigarrete of maryjuana or crack, each time somebody inhales a line of coke, or shoots up heroin or fentanyl in a vein, a Mexican soldier or policeman dies along with all those that were surrounding him. No wonder that in the last six years 198,700 Mexicans had a violent death. True: many of them were members of Cartels, but many more were innocent bystanders which the Mexican authorities call euphemisitically “collateral damage”. And this casualties, dead or wounded, are what makes Mexico hit the news all over the world. Long story short: drugs from the South have until now only two ways of being transported illegally to the US. By land is forcefully through Mexico; by sea to the West and East coasts. Although someday, it will be through Canada. As long as American citizens demand them by the bulk, drugs will keep finding ways (and people) to enter the US borders. Egotistically we could say that´s not our problem. Drugs are not only a health problema for the US. Way down they are the telltale signs of deep sociological problems. Can the US authorities cope with both ussues? We really hope they can… and will.