The report says that Mexican military forces are so overburdened dealing with big city cartel violence in places like Juarez, Monterrey, Acapulco and Veracruz that there is little time for the "slash and burn" policies of several years ago. U.S. officials told the Post that they regard the lack of an eradication plan as a "major weakness" in Mexico's anti-drug strategy. Virtually 100% of the rural crops are destined for export to the United States. Government officials told the Post that as the destruction of marijuana and opium poppy fields has fallen in recent years, the amount of those drugs finding their way to the U.S. border has increased significantly.
"The Calderón administration has steadily, and quietly, moved away from Mexico’s decades-long zeal for eradicating drug crops in the field, a practice that was once at the heart of Mexican and U.S. anti-drug strategy," says the report.
A Mexican drug trafficking and security expert at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) defended the approach, arguing that cocaine seizures by the Mexican military cost the cartels far more. He also pointed out that marijuana is raised in many areas of the United States, particularly in jurisdictions which have medical marijuana laws.
Opium is processed chemically to make heroin. The Post quoted a recent U.S. Justice Dept. report which concluded that “the availability of heroin in the United States — and the number of markets in which it is available — is increasing as a result of increased production in Mexico, even as Colombian production declines.”
Footnotes:
Obama administration plans to get tough on medical marijuana distributors: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/10/obama-is-listening-to-calderon-feds.html.
U.S. congressional report says that Americans are 9% stoned: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/09/united-states-is-9-stoned-say-two-us.html
