#1 Mexico's growing drug habit.
Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 7:33 pm
Economist
[quote]Increasingly, the country is not just a distributor of drugs but a user too
MEXICAN government officials rarely miss a chance to point to America’s demand for illegal drugs as the cause of their violent struggle with traffickers. But the notion of the country as an innocent victim of geography is increasingly outdated. Although Mexico is still a middleman between Colombian growers and American consumers, it is fast becoming a destination for narcotics in its own right. In the past six years drug use is reckoned to have risen by nearly 30%, and the trend shows no signs of abating. President Felipe Calderón has mainly treated drugs as a national-security issue, but the consequences for public health may be almost as severe.
Mexican consumption began to take off in the mid-1990s. Tight economic conditions and increased government scrutiny of large financial transactions prompted the cartels to shift to payments in kind. Instead of giving cash to local operators on trafficking routes, they would allot them a share of the shipment. The glut of drugs in the country grew further after the September 11th 2001 attacks, when the United States redoubled its border controls.
Regional gangs then began a marketing campaign to unload large quantities of drugs. Narcotics have a formidable capacity to create their own demand: the greater the supply, the more people are exposed and become addicted. Thus small-time dealers—now thought to number 35,000— started offering free doses to young people outside schools and at parties, aiming to produce a new generation of customers. Consumption by women has grown particularly quickly in recent years, as men press their girlfriends and wives to join them in their use.
Prisons proved to be another lucrative market. Guillermo Zepeda of CIDAC, a think-tank, says four out of five inmates who did not use drugs before their incarceration now start once in jail. “For the wardens, allowing drug use is often the price of peace,â€
[quote]Increasingly, the country is not just a distributor of drugs but a user too
MEXICAN government officials rarely miss a chance to point to America’s demand for illegal drugs as the cause of their violent struggle with traffickers. But the notion of the country as an innocent victim of geography is increasingly outdated. Although Mexico is still a middleman between Colombian growers and American consumers, it is fast becoming a destination for narcotics in its own right. In the past six years drug use is reckoned to have risen by nearly 30%, and the trend shows no signs of abating. President Felipe Calderón has mainly treated drugs as a national-security issue, but the consequences for public health may be almost as severe.
Mexican consumption began to take off in the mid-1990s. Tight economic conditions and increased government scrutiny of large financial transactions prompted the cartels to shift to payments in kind. Instead of giving cash to local operators on trafficking routes, they would allot them a share of the shipment. The glut of drugs in the country grew further after the September 11th 2001 attacks, when the United States redoubled its border controls.
Regional gangs then began a marketing campaign to unload large quantities of drugs. Narcotics have a formidable capacity to create their own demand: the greater the supply, the more people are exposed and become addicted. Thus small-time dealers—now thought to number 35,000— started offering free doses to young people outside schools and at parties, aiming to produce a new generation of customers. Consumption by women has grown particularly quickly in recent years, as men press their girlfriends and wives to join them in their use.
Prisons proved to be another lucrative market. Guillermo Zepeda of CIDAC, a think-tank, says four out of five inmates who did not use drugs before their incarceration now start once in jail. “For the wardens, allowing drug use is often the price of peace,â€