In Tijuana, rehab sites growing because heroin is cheap, easy

By RICARDO SANDOVAL / The Dallas Morning News

TIJUANA, Mexico – At the top of a dark flight of stairs, "Miguel" is tasting freedom for the first time since he was paroled from a California state prison.

For the convicted thief from Tijuana, who demurred from giving his real name, the flavor of liberty is methadone, the prophylactic, legal drug that experts say is one of
the best ways to withdraw from heroin addiction.

In Tijuana today there are more and more "Miguels." They're showing up at rehabilitation clinics and methadone treatment centers such as Professionals Contra la Adiccion – Professionals Against Addiction – run by the San Diego Health Alliance, a private firm that is expanding into Mexico's largest cities.

Drugs always have been problematic for Mexico, but substances such as cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and designer drugs like "ecstasy," have traditionally passed through Mexico en route to the streets of major U.S. cities and the greatest drug-consumer market on the planet.

Perhaps, say addiction experts in both countries, living in the shadow of drug-happy America, Mexico has traditionally paid little heed to warnings that it, too, was becoming a user nation.

"It seems there is no longer a distinction" between user, producer and transit nations, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson said on a recent visit to Mexico City.

Mexico was once solidly in the category of "transit" nations. But in the last decade, the country's robust drug industry has found a growing consumer market in its
own back yard.

And this untamed border city, already infamous for drug trafficking and violent narco-kingpins, is winning a new tag as Mexico's epicenter for drug use and addiction.
A recent government survey found that 14 percent of Tijuana's population of more than 2 million has tried an illegal drug.

For years government health officials scoffed at the notion that drug abuse presented much of a threat to Mexican society, which they characterized as strong on
family values and averse to illegal drugs. Alcohol, and perhaps tobacco, were the real problems, they said.

While those drugs continue to kill thousands of Mexicans each year, physicians are increasingly recognizing the country's increasing drug habit.

And no event sharpened Mexico's focus on its internal drug problem more than last fall's terrorist attacks in the United States.

Immediately after the strikes, U.S. authorities shut down the Mexican border as a defense against new terrorist incursions. For weeks, drug traffickers could not ship
their goods north. Illicit drugs backed up in border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez.

As a consequence, the price of heroin dropped to around $25 a gram in Ciudad Juárez and $40 on the streets of Tijuana. By comparison, on the streets of San
Diego, heroin costs $60 to $80 a gram, according to clinic workers. This makes it tough for addicts to swallow the more expensive methadone and stay away from
"picadores" – ad hoc shooting houses that dot Tijuana's hardscrabble suburbs.

In these dens, users are seeing drugs diluted with impure ingredients, and that has led to increasing reports of infections among addicts.

"We're fooling ourselves if we think this is not a problem here in Mexico," said Miguel in a contrite whisper, his shaved head bowed and eyes staring at the stark tiles
on the clinic floor. He's a young father, and he's anxious about restarting his life after prison, using methadone as a leg up. His family does not approve, he said.
They'd rather he depend on willpower and prayer.

"Heroin is cheap and easy here in Tijuana," Miguel said. "I know of dealers here who don't want to risk smuggling anymore and are willing to take less selling here."

Traffickers, pressured to keep up payments to South American suppliers, are now trying to resume normal smuggling business along the border. Only now they're
splitting drug shipments into a greater number of small loads hidden in vehicles queued up to cross into the United States. They're also making greater use of remote
sea lanes far out in the Pacific Ocean and across the chain of islands in the Caribbean.

It's all straining U.S. Customs Service and Coast Guard officials who are also now on the highest alert for terrorists.

American border guards are indeed confiscating more and more drugs, and that has addiction-treatment experts anticipating a blow-back of drugs onto Mexican
streets.

"These men are not dumb. They will avoid risk if they can, and we Mexicans are giving them more options for sales," said Carlos Hernandez, a 46-year-old former
dealer who's done time in Mexican jails for trafficking everything from cocaine to methamphetamines. He's now a counselor for a couple of halfway houses run by the
Center for Integration and Recovery for Alcoholics and Drug Addicts – CIRAD – a nonprofit religious group that combines 12-step methods with job training for its
treatment programs.

In 1988, health officials conducted their first major drug-use survey across Mexico. They were comforted that for every nine addicts in the United States there was
but one hooked Mexican. Today, however, experts say the ratio is down to one Mexican addict for every four in the United States.

The most recent survey indicated that around 5 million Mexicans have used an illegal drug, up from under 3 million in 1988. Cocaine seems most popular, with about
1.5 million people saying they've used it at least once. . More startling are the numbers in Mexico's northern states, where nearly 2 percent of the population is
recorded as "strong" users, admitting to have taken more than 50 doses..

"We're not in the league of the United States, but it is alarming for our society," said Dr. Guido Belsasso, whom President Vicente Fox has made point man in a new
campaign against drug abuse. "We cannot deny our problem, or it will overtake us."

Since Mr. Fox became president, he has redirected some health department funding for wider education campaigns against drug use. Dr. Belsasso also commends
the president for being Mexico's first to openly acknowledge that Mexico is on the cusp of an addiction epidemic.

In recent months, Mexican authorities have also eased restrictions against things such as methadone imports and have made it easier for qualified physicians to open
treatment centers. The president and his wife recently attended the high-profile inauguration of an addiction clinic in Durango state.

"We're glad to see them on board," said Pastora Maytorena, a registered nurse who serves as clinic director for the San Diego Health Alliance, whose network of
methadone treatment centers is expanding with the approval of Mexican officials such as Dr. Belsasso. "Americans can't understand how difficult it has been for us to
destigmatize drug addiction in Mexico, and educate the families and then the politicians, that methadone is not an evil way for the weak to continue their addictions."

The Mexican government is even taking some steps the United States has recently balked at, like allowing experiments with French drugs designed to curb the use of
"episodic" drug users.

At one of three houses in Tijuana run by Mr. Hernandez and CIRAD, there are 180 men living in crowded, but clean, barracks-like structures. They're segregated by
their level of recovery, with recent arrivals in a secluded section of the complex.

Mr. Hernandez, the drug-abuse counselor, showed off the silk screens and tapestries he's recently produced for some Tijuana gift shops. It's a craft he learned after
four years in jail, he said, insisting that he's channeled that experience into an income that will keep him busy and clean. He says prayer and work have kept him
drug-free for two years.

In the complex's busy yard, other men play handball. In one corner, cooks turn donated vegetables and grain into dinner. In the recreation corner, amid weights and
punching bags, another man practices ballads for a wedding at which the CIRAD band will perform. And off to one side, a line of men wait quietly for a buzz haircut
– the "prison cut" popular among young Latinos in California.

"I've been clean 20 days now because they keep me busy here and don't put up with any bull. You're off drugs, or you're out. I don't want to go back to that life,"
said Marcelino Morales, a 16-year-old Tijuana resident sent to the center by his family, in what he described as a last-chance to avoid jail and getting hooked on the
crack cocaine and ecstasy he was selling on the streets.

"I was good at school, I loved my parents – everything a young Mexican should be," Mr. Morales said, flipping back and forth from Spanish and the English he said
he learned from his buyers – the young Californians who each weekend flock to Tijuana for underage drinking and illicit drugs. "But I was throwing it away because I
loved the money I was making off drugs. Then I saw I was spending more on drugs for myself than for selling, and I knew I was in trouble."