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Drug Trade, Once Passing By, Takes Root in Mexico
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
NY Times
Published: October 3, 2007
ZAMORA, Mexico — When she gets her high, Lupita Díaz says she enters a sweet illusion of peace, a respite from her pain and self-loathing. She lies on her back in a meadow on the edge of town here with other addicts, looks up at the stars and plays aimlessly on a battered blue harmonica.
Sunrise brings a crashing sensation. Her joints ache. Her mouth goes dry. She has cold sweats, jumps at shadows, hears voices in her head. She is willing, once again, to prostitute herself to get $5 for another hit of crack cocaine or crystal methamphetamine. She has been an addict for years, and her slight body is nearly worn out. She gave away her two children to others to raise.
“There is nothing nice about being here,” she said, slurring her words and covering her watery eyes with pink sunglasses. “It feels ugly not to be with your children. Feels awful. It’s not what I want. It’s not what I like. But when I have money, I want the drugs.”
Ms. Díaz’s story of addiction is common enough in most of America’s big cities, but until a few years ago it was rare in central Mexico. That has changed. Today, Mexico is no longer just a transit country for drugs bound for the United States. It is a country of drug users as well.
As Mexican drug cartels have grown in power, they have begun to open up local markets for cheap forms of highly addictive drugs like crack and ice, as methamphetamine is known. Now even medium-sized towns like Zamora have large and growing populations of addicts, along with a rise in violent crime.
“Ten or 15 years ago we didn’t even see powdered cocaine, just marijuana,” said Cmdr. Juan Carlos Espinosa of the Zamora police department. “Then about three years ago we started to see a lot of signs of ice, crack and heroin.”
The trend has alarmed Mexican officials. In July, President Felipe Calderón set in motion a program to test all high school students for drugs. The attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, has repeatedly raised a red flag in recent months.
“It’s a phenomenon — one must say clearly — not attended to in recent decades in this country, and now we have to turn to deal with what is a reality: that we are also a country of consumers,” Mr. Medina Mora told the newspaper El Universal.
One measure of the trend is the number of people who have checked into federal drug rehabilitation centers. The number of crack addicts seeking treatment nationwide has tripled since 2001; the number seeking help for methamphetamine addiction has doubled.
The health secretary, José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, acknowledged in July that the government lacked the clinics, hospital beds and resources to deal with the wave of addiction.
About 20,000 beds are available, he said, and only 120 of those are in public clinics.
In Zamora, a town of 170,000 people in Michoacán State, about 80 miles southeast of Guadalajara in western Mexico, the evidence of addiction is everywhere. Ragged people sleep in vacant lots and on the street. Street crime is common. Some streets have become drug bazaars, with crack houses interspersed among corner grocery stores and video arcades.
Private drug rehabilitation centers have sprouted up in nearly every poor neighborhood, a cottage industry of sorts. Most of them are tiny, squalid houses where addicts are locked up for three months and given a short course on the 12-step program developed by Alcoholics Anonymous.
In interviews, addicts in various stages of recovery described how their dependence on methamphetamine or crack cocaine turned them into dealers, prostitutes and thieves. Most of them described a similar fall from grace. Experimenting with the drugs led to insatiable addiction that drove them to sell everything and, eventually, to commit crimes.
Typical of the two dozen private rehabilitation centers in Zamora is La Esperanza, a shelter on Matamoros Street. It is a single-family home that houses more than 30 addicts, who sleep on bunks and share a single malodorous bathroom.
The doors are locked all day, and sheet metal is welded over the windows. Families paid $100 to place their relatives here.
Among the residents was Aurora Victoria Gómez, a 28-year-old woman who ran away, became hooked on methamphetamine and became a prostitute at age 13. She has three children she never sees. “For me it was a lost life, sad, walking the streets, rejected, humiliated,” she said. “Truth is, I never had a happy moment.”
Some older addicts said they hardly recognized their town these days.
Joaquín Antonio Gutiérrez, 39, said he became addicted to methamphetamine in 1988 when he was working illegally as a gardener in San Diego. Soon he took to selling the drug to finance his habit. He spent two stints in California prisons before he was deported. Once back in Zamora, he said, he was surprised to find that methamphetamine and crack had taken root in his hometown.
“When I was a kid, you almost never saw any drugs,” he said. “But now in whatever street you go down, you see people selling.”
Two years ago, Mr. Gutiérrez finally kicked his habit at a federal outpatient clinic here, known as the Center for Juvenile Integration, with the help of anti-depressants and psychotherapy. It is the only federal clinic for addicts in the state.
José Francisco Gil Cerda, a psychologist who runs the clinic, said crack cocaine and methamphetamine addicts tended to be aggressive, violent and paranoid. Most of them start out using the drug as a form of speed, trying to stay awake to work longer. After a short time, however, the drug robs them of sleep, eliminates their appetite and eats away at their organs, including the brain.
Domingo Castro, 33, a street vendor now in the clinic, said he tried to beat his father to death and raped a close friend of his mother’s. Methamphetamine nearly killed him, he said.
“The ice, man, you are like a god,” he said. “Everything is yours. Everything belongs to you. But it destroys your system. You are fooling yourself.”
On the other side of town, a group of 33 cocaine and methamphetamine addicts struggle with their demons in an unassuming green two-story building belonging to Drug Addicts Anonymous. The addicts bake and sell bread to support the center.
Typical of the younger addicts is a 24-year-old who did not want to be identified. He started using methamphetamine as a lark when he was 15 in the town of Apatzingán, the headquarters of the reputed Valencia drug cartel.
Quickly addicted, he left home and lived on the street, stealing money from his relatives. At 18, he tried joining the army to straighten himself out, but found that drug use was rampant among the troops as well.
So he deserted after two years and returned to the street, living in an abandoned house and mugging people. Each dose of the drug cost about $5, and sometimes he had to rob two or three people to get enough. He was rail thin, filthy, with a matted beard.
“There comes a time when you need it and if you don’t get it, you start to sweat and despair,” he said. “You hear things that don’t exist. You can see a shadow and think it’s someone who wants to kill you.”
Finally, on Jan. 1, 2004, his paranoia and fear of the police had grown to the point that he was afraid to leave the ruined building he lived in. He crept back to his father’s house and asked for help. His father took him to a private clinic in Morelia, 125 miles from Apatzingán. Since then, it has been a daily struggle with the silent call of the drug.
“There is a fear,” he said, turning worried eyes toward the street outside the clinic. “Out there in the world, it is easier that temptation will win you over.”
Link!
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
NY Times
Published: October 3, 2007
ZAMORA, Mexico — When she gets her high, Lupita Díaz says she enters a sweet illusion of peace, a respite from her pain and self-loathing. She lies on her back in a meadow on the edge of town here with other addicts, looks up at the stars and plays aimlessly on a battered blue harmonica.
Sunrise brings a crashing sensation. Her joints ache. Her mouth goes dry. She has cold sweats, jumps at shadows, hears voices in her head. She is willing, once again, to prostitute herself to get $5 for another hit of crack cocaine or crystal methamphetamine. She has been an addict for years, and her slight body is nearly worn out. She gave away her two children to others to raise.
“There is nothing nice about being here,” she said, slurring her words and covering her watery eyes with pink sunglasses. “It feels ugly not to be with your children. Feels awful. It’s not what I want. It’s not what I like. But when I have money, I want the drugs.”
Ms. Díaz’s story of addiction is common enough in most of America’s big cities, but until a few years ago it was rare in central Mexico. That has changed. Today, Mexico is no longer just a transit country for drugs bound for the United States. It is a country of drug users as well.
As Mexican drug cartels have grown in power, they have begun to open up local markets for cheap forms of highly addictive drugs like crack and ice, as methamphetamine is known. Now even medium-sized towns like Zamora have large and growing populations of addicts, along with a rise in violent crime.
“Ten or 15 years ago we didn’t even see powdered cocaine, just marijuana,” said Cmdr. Juan Carlos Espinosa of the Zamora police department. “Then about three years ago we started to see a lot of signs of ice, crack and heroin.”
The trend has alarmed Mexican officials. In July, President Felipe Calderón set in motion a program to test all high school students for drugs. The attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, has repeatedly raised a red flag in recent months.
“It’s a phenomenon — one must say clearly — not attended to in recent decades in this country, and now we have to turn to deal with what is a reality: that we are also a country of consumers,” Mr. Medina Mora told the newspaper El Universal.
One measure of the trend is the number of people who have checked into federal drug rehabilitation centers. The number of crack addicts seeking treatment nationwide has tripled since 2001; the number seeking help for methamphetamine addiction has doubled.
The health secretary, José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, acknowledged in July that the government lacked the clinics, hospital beds and resources to deal with the wave of addiction.
About 20,000 beds are available, he said, and only 120 of those are in public clinics.
In Zamora, a town of 170,000 people in Michoacán State, about 80 miles southeast of Guadalajara in western Mexico, the evidence of addiction is everywhere. Ragged people sleep in vacant lots and on the street. Street crime is common. Some streets have become drug bazaars, with crack houses interspersed among corner grocery stores and video arcades.
Private drug rehabilitation centers have sprouted up in nearly every poor neighborhood, a cottage industry of sorts. Most of them are tiny, squalid houses where addicts are locked up for three months and given a short course on the 12-step program developed by Alcoholics Anonymous.
In interviews, addicts in various stages of recovery described how their dependence on methamphetamine or crack cocaine turned them into dealers, prostitutes and thieves. Most of them described a similar fall from grace. Experimenting with the drugs led to insatiable addiction that drove them to sell everything and, eventually, to commit crimes.
Typical of the two dozen private rehabilitation centers in Zamora is La Esperanza, a shelter on Matamoros Street. It is a single-family home that houses more than 30 addicts, who sleep on bunks and share a single malodorous bathroom.
The doors are locked all day, and sheet metal is welded over the windows. Families paid $100 to place their relatives here.
Among the residents was Aurora Victoria Gómez, a 28-year-old woman who ran away, became hooked on methamphetamine and became a prostitute at age 13. She has three children she never sees. “For me it was a lost life, sad, walking the streets, rejected, humiliated,” she said. “Truth is, I never had a happy moment.”
Some older addicts said they hardly recognized their town these days.
Joaquín Antonio Gutiérrez, 39, said he became addicted to methamphetamine in 1988 when he was working illegally as a gardener in San Diego. Soon he took to selling the drug to finance his habit. He spent two stints in California prisons before he was deported. Once back in Zamora, he said, he was surprised to find that methamphetamine and crack had taken root in his hometown.
“When I was a kid, you almost never saw any drugs,” he said. “But now in whatever street you go down, you see people selling.”
Two years ago, Mr. Gutiérrez finally kicked his habit at a federal outpatient clinic here, known as the Center for Juvenile Integration, with the help of anti-depressants and psychotherapy. It is the only federal clinic for addicts in the state.
José Francisco Gil Cerda, a psychologist who runs the clinic, said crack cocaine and methamphetamine addicts tended to be aggressive, violent and paranoid. Most of them start out using the drug as a form of speed, trying to stay awake to work longer. After a short time, however, the drug robs them of sleep, eliminates their appetite and eats away at their organs, including the brain.
Domingo Castro, 33, a street vendor now in the clinic, said he tried to beat his father to death and raped a close friend of his mother’s. Methamphetamine nearly killed him, he said.
“The ice, man, you are like a god,” he said. “Everything is yours. Everything belongs to you. But it destroys your system. You are fooling yourself.”
On the other side of town, a group of 33 cocaine and methamphetamine addicts struggle with their demons in an unassuming green two-story building belonging to Drug Addicts Anonymous. The addicts bake and sell bread to support the center.
Typical of the younger addicts is a 24-year-old who did not want to be identified. He started using methamphetamine as a lark when he was 15 in the town of Apatzingán, the headquarters of the reputed Valencia drug cartel.
Quickly addicted, he left home and lived on the street, stealing money from his relatives. At 18, he tried joining the army to straighten himself out, but found that drug use was rampant among the troops as well.
So he deserted after two years and returned to the street, living in an abandoned house and mugging people. Each dose of the drug cost about $5, and sometimes he had to rob two or three people to get enough. He was rail thin, filthy, with a matted beard.
“There comes a time when you need it and if you don’t get it, you start to sweat and despair,” he said. “You hear things that don’t exist. You can see a shadow and think it’s someone who wants to kill you.”
Finally, on Jan. 1, 2004, his paranoia and fear of the police had grown to the point that he was afraid to leave the ruined building he lived in. He crept back to his father’s house and asked for help. His father took him to a private clinic in Morelia, 125 miles from Apatzingán. Since then, it has been a daily struggle with the silent call of the drug.
“There is a fear,” he said, turning worried eyes toward the street outside the clinic. “Out there in the world, it is easier that temptation will win you over.”
Link!
