The Dallas Morning News

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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

11A

PATH OF DESTRUCTION | THE FALLOUT AT HOME

U.S. hoping to dent demand for drugs

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Courtney Perry/Staff Photographer

Participants in a womens drug court program in Dallas overseen by Magistrate Judge Lela Mays embrace one another at the end of each weekly session. To stay in the program, participants must hold a job or be looking for one.

Cartels customers struggle

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chief. In the last decade, drugs really havent been much of a focus. We need to put it back on the front burner. Two-thirds of the $15.5 billion federal drug control policy still goes to law enforcement and border control efforts. With U.S. help, Colombia has regained a semblance of law and order. Mexicos cartels are fighting savagely among themselves and with the Mexican government, while U.S. officials help with intelligence and training. Many top international drug dealers have been extradited to face trial in U.S. courts and are serving long sentences in U.S. prisons. The seven Mexican cartels, meanwhile, have swept across the U.S. to become the most formidable organized crime network in the nation. Theyre like La Cosa Nostra on steroids, said David Gaddis, deputy chief of global operations with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Drug use up
Illicit drug use went up 9 percent in 2009, the last year for which statistics are available. In the last decade, its gone up by a third. Nearly 22 million Americans said they had used marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens or inhalants, or had illegally consumed prescription medications within the last 30 days, according to the 2009 household survey done for the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. As long as you have this demand in the U.S., theyre going to find ways to meet that demand, said Scott Stewart, a drug cartel specialist with the Austin private intelligence group Stratfor. Its like a raging river. You try to stick a sandbag here or a rock there, and it diverts the water, but we cant really stop the flow at this point. On the plus side, Kerlikowske said, cocaine use has fallen sharply, along with cocaine production in Colombia. Our hunger for cocaine in the United States has decreased, he said. The number of Americans age 12 and older who are current users of cocaine has dropped by 21 percent since 2007, from an estimated 2.1million users in 2007 to an estimated 1.6 million users in 2009. In the 1980s, cocaine use soared in the U.S. Colombia was torn by violence as drug traffickers fought the government. After several drug kingpins were killed or extradited to the U.S., guerrillas and paramilitary forces took control of Colombias cocaine trafficking. For the last decade, Colombian governments under three presidents have pressed the fight to reclaim the country. The U.S. government has spent billions of dollars on training and equipment for Colombias armed forces and police. It has shared intelligence with the Colombians. U.S. and Colombian air and naval forces watch drug routes across the Caribbean and the Pacific. The U.S. gave Colombia trade preferences and encouraged farmers to shift from coca to other crops. Colombia now supplies threefourths of the cut flowers sold in the U.S. They have blown their boulders into pebbles, Gaddis said of the Colombians. They no longer have the significant national security threat they were looking at in the 80s and 90s.

ing for her 4-year-old son, Nathan, doubly difficult. Rachel must check in with her probation officer and come to this fifth-floor courtroom once a week, attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting three times a week, and do community service that can include weeding along county roads or painting public buildings. Two to three times a week, shell urinate in a cup under supervision an undignified chore that assures shes drugfree and that the urine is her own. She says jail would be easier. That was in May. In June, she slips up. Shes ordered to wear a narcotics patch for missing required meetings with her sponsor and getting behind in restitution payments.

Series of excuses
At a later session, Rachel is called near Judge Mays oak podium perched at the diagonal for the best range of vision in this beige courtroom. Rachel swears the missing drug patch fell off. The 47-year-old judge is soft-featured, favors hoop earrings and is about Rachels height. Her presence leaves no doubt she commands this theater. Did you do community service? Mays asks. A stream of fast-paced, crisp excuses spills out. No maam. My mom is out of town and I had to work my second job. I had to work all weekend. I can do it next weekend. Zero tolerance. That includes two weeks in a minimum-security jail for not wearing the narcotics patch. Another womans case is worse. How did that drug patch get positive? the judge asks. I dont know, comes the answer. The other addicts roll eyes at each other, as if on cue. Peer pressure plays a big role in the courts choreography of treatment. You tested positive for cocaine and amphetamines. No? Mays sighs and looks unhappy. This is the second person today who said, I didnt use. Yall cut that stuff out. It doesnt work. And thats why so many days, Mays asks the women to check in with their higher power a force affirming their path to redemption. For some, that power seems to flow from spirituality, or inner confidence or the judge herself. She can spot a suspicious bruise at 20 feet, knuckle-bump when a struggling addict experiences success, and spin a drug user into lockup in such honeyed tones you barely grasp whats happened until the beefy bailiff nears.

Uphill battle
Behind the courtroom, in

her private chambers, Mays, a single mother of two, tells of visiting Ciudad Jurez. The Mexican city, across the border from El Paso, has the worst violence in Mexico. Cartels and youth gangs that assist them there were largely behind some 3,000 deaths in 2010. A fifth of all narcotics-related murders in Mexico took place there, according to the Mexican newspaper chain Grupo Reforma. People get caught up in the wave of violence, Mays says. If people knew there was a way out, they could do something positive with their lives. Repairing lives tied to drugs is difficult. To stay in the program that Mays supervises in Dallas, participants must hold a job or be searching for one. Living situations are scrutinized. Law enforcement checks are extensive. Her courtroom stays filled. Although many regulars are end users of drugs from Mexico and Colombia, theres been steady growth in prescription drug abuse. That mirrors federal surveys showing growth in nonmedicinal use of legal drugs over the last decade. Some offenders who face Mays have drug offenses. Others have nondrug offenses. Federal surveys suggest a link. In 2009, 56 percent to 82 percent of those arrested and tested with urine analysis had used some type of drug substance, in 10 cities surveyed by the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program run by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The data is well-regarded; its based on physical evidence rather than question responses. People say: I want to be tough on crime. I want to put people away, the judge says. If you dont deal with the drug problem, they come right back. They educate themselves to be a better criminal. Treatment is harder than incarceration, she says. Its really easier to do three hots and a cot. But this holds you accountable. The Dallas County drug treatment courts handle more than 400 cases at any given time in five court sessions a week. Such courts have been in operation about two decades. Nationwide, there are about 600 drug courts for adult offenders. But they see only a small portion of offenders; about 5 percent of drug-involved arrestees enter a drug court each year, said John Roman, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute, a think tank. Drug courts average a 10 to 20 percent reduction in re-offending, Roman said, adding that they provide $2.21 in benefits for every $1 in costs. Drug treatment courts arent a silver bullet, Roman said. But it is an important tool for the criminal justice system to use and probably to use more than we do. Crucial to success is a judge who stays connected to the struggle of the addict, he said. At the Washington Office

on Latin America, another think tank, senior associate John Walsh calls for more attention to drug treatment. But the heart of our policy remains arrest and incarcerate, he says. Drug courts address the problem, but with eligibility requirements that tend to accept those who have no violent crimes on their records yet, Walsh says. They weed out the more serious offenders for whom the experience of a drug court could be beneficial. The Dallas program will take those with violence on their record on a case-by-case basis.

U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement resources have taken up positions along Texas and other U.S. border states to intercept drug shipments and disrupt the flow of money and guns going south. The U.S. Border Patrol now has 22,000 agents deployed across from Mexico. Unmanned surveillance drones fly the border. Military radar balloons monitor the air. Every rail car crossing the border is swept by scanners. License plate readers watch traffic while computers in El Paso and suburban Washington, D.C., scan the numbers for suspicious border-crossing patterns. Over the last two years, this counternarcotics effort along the Southwest border has resulted in seizures of more than $282 million in illegal currency, more than 7 million pounds of drugs, and more than 6,800 weapons. Mexican authorities, meanwhile, have captured or killed at least 20 of the 37 mostwanted drug traffickers and hundreds of their hired killers. The U.S. anti-drug effort along the border, and in cooperation with Mexico, has to be more circumspect than it was in Colombia, said Stratfors Stewart. We cant just go in and drop a 500-pound bomb on Chapo Guzmns house, he said, referring to one of Mexicos most notorious traffickers. Mexican authorities have pressed Washington to do more to stop the flow of money and guns. The seizure of $282 million in cash, for example, seems impressive until you compare it with the estimated revenues of the Mexican cartels from their U.S. criminal operations $18 billion to $39 billion a year. Theres a whole financial layer here that I think can be attacked and is vulnerable to attack. You just dont handle and launder that much cash in cash hand to hand, Stewart said.

Curbing demand
The great challenge in stemming this crime wave remains curbing demand. Kerlikowske said polling over the last few years has shown a declining sense of the risks involved with using illicit drugs. He blamed some of that on the campaign to legalize marijuana. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the medical use of marijuana. A California ballot initiative on outright legalization was defeated in November, but supporters say theyll try again. Kerlikowske said the Obama administration will continue to oppose such ballot initiatives and does not agree with the arguments in favor of allowing patients to use marijuana. Prevention is focused on teenagers, but Kerlikowske said he doesnt think scaring them is a particularly effective approach. Look at the way young people are drawn to extreme sports. For some, the riskier the activity, the greater the attraction, he said. Research suggests focusing on keeping control of your own life skills is the most proven message. Treatment for substance abuse is the other focus of demand reduction. The nation spends $35 billion a year on drug treatment programs. The 2009 household survey on drug abuse found that 7.8 million Americans over the age of 12 needed treatment to deal with illicit drug dependence, but only 1.5 million were receiving it. Some of the administrations critics say this treatment disparity reflects a policy still weighted too heavily on criminalizing drug use rather than dealing with it as a health concern. Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, praised the administration for working with Congress to change the law covering mandatory sentencing for the possession of crack and powdered cocaine, and for encouraging needle exchanges to prevent the spread of HIV. But, Nadelmann said, U.S. drug policy continues to be a costly disaster for, among other things, its refusal to embrace a scientific debate about marijuana and the consequences of its prohibition.
SEE VIDEO with experts explaining the challenges of fighting the war on drugs and explore reports that detail narcotics control strategies. EXPLORE the Zetas path of destruction from South America to Dallas in a series of interactive maps. www.dallas news.com/ pathofdestruction/

Failures and phases

It was an odd courtroom moment. An aging addict named Carla singles out the youthful Rachel for her support. Rachel glows like a candle. Someone pats her on the back. Carla could have been her grandmother. Shes tall, bigboned, 60-plus years of age with a face that looks strained, perhaps by half a life spent in combat with cocaine. Carla says she feels stupid, depressed and is tired of being sick. The judge tells her: You have 35 years of addiction. You need to put in 35 years of recovery. Weeks later, Carla disappears from the Monday courtroom. She calls Rachel. Rachel, I have been smoking crack again, she says. As the weeks go by, there will be other failures. In February, Rachel lands in jail for violating probation. Mays, ever vigilant about affirmation, asks a certain addict at one session if she remembers a certain song with the lyric that goes something like, We fall down. The thin woman in a bubble-gum pink T-shirt and jeans eases out a melody fused with memory, lyrics that match her life. We fall down, but we get up. You can turn it around. For a saint is just a sinner who fell down and got up. This woman, too, will disappear in the weeks ahead. For those who keep coming for Monday sessions in the courtroom, there will be applause when they move through phases in the treatment program. Theres applause when they land jobs. Theres applause when they celebrate an anniversary off drugs. Sometimes, its so noisy that other judges send bailiffs to quiet Mays fifth-floor courtroom. And each session ends with communal affirmation. I believe in myself, says Mays as the chorus follows. I can do anything. I am worth the good things in life. I deserve every good thing that happens to me.

Mexican traffickers
The DEA says Mexican traffickers then became the dominant suppliers of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines used in the U.S. When he was inaugurated in December 2006, President Felipe Caldern sent his military forces to battle the traffickers on Mexicos borders. Former President George W. Bush offered Caldern assistance in his fight under a program called the Mrida Initiative. So far, $1.4 billion has been approved for helping Mexico with training, intelligence sharing and some military gear.

Rising tide
Cocaine use is dropping, but the demand for marijuana and hashish is rising. Estimated numbers of past-year users of illicit drugs among people 12 or older in the U.S. In millions
30

25

20 Marijuana and hashish Cocaine Crack Methamphetamine 10

15

0 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Troy Oxford/Staff Artist

A11 03-15-2011 Set: 22:36:17 Sent by: rstumpf@dallasnews.com News

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