to opium poppies, and by 1991 local farmers already had some 3000 acres blossoming in the cloud forests.^[37] Meanwhile the production wing of the Cali cartel imported the best Asian chemists money could buy, and within a couple of years they were flooding the market with heroin so clean and cheap that a whole new generation of unsuspecting users began walking into the jaws of addiction wondering what the hell happened.  The Colombian product turned out to be an astonishing 95 percent pure—practically pharmaceutical grade—and it was dropped into a market that was used to 95 percent garbage.  You didn’t have to inject this stuff. It was so powerful you could sprinkle it on cigarette tobacco, and two tokes later... not a care in the world. Since there were no ugly needles involved, kids got the impression it wasn’t dangerous.  Of course the opposite was true, but once again the well-intentioned scare tactics of the prohibitionists backfired. Cool Gen-Xers knew from experience that government claims about marijuana were exaggerated, so they assumed the grownups were lying about heroin as well. This time, for a change, the grownups were telling the truth. According to the State Department, the U.S. addict population—stable for twenty years—suddenly jumped 20 percent.^[38] The number of heroin-related emergency episodes doubled from 1990 to 1995.^[39]

But it is the downstream effect of this tidal wave of catastrophe that is perhaps the most unsettling. The river of money that has washed away law and order and submerged one Latin country after another is still rising, and the crest of the flood is nowhere in sight. The U.S. border with Mexico is no more impervious to the tide of corruption than it was to killer bees. So if the drug lords are spending as much as $100 million a week^[40] on their friends in government south of the border, how much are they spending in the north?

CHAPTER SEVEN—ENDNOTES

 1. New York Times, May 5, 91,I:11

2. Fortune Magazine, Sep 4, 95, p100

3. The Washington Post, Natl Weekly Edition, Mar 20-26, 95, p10 — His predecessor, Miguel de la Madrid, enabled major drug-trafficking cartels to escape prosecution for the 1985 torture-killing of DEA agent Enrique Camerena. The killing of Camarena by members of the Guadalajara drug cartel, with the complicity of high-ranking Mexican government officials, created a firestorm in bilateral relations.

4. New York Times, Nov 29, 91, A,I:3

5. New York Times, May 25, 93 A,1

6. New York Times, May 26, 93 A,1

7. Gov Ernesto Ruffo Appel Los Angeles Times, Oct 4 96 A30

8. The Nation, Jul 10,95, 50

9. New York Times, May 26, 93, A,1:6

10. Los Angeles Times, Jun 16, 95, A1]

11. Los Angeles Times, Jan 11, 96, A18; Jun 16, 95, A21

12. Los Angeles Times, Mar 7, 94, A1

13. Los Angeles Times, Mar 5, 94, A1; Mar 7, 94, A1; Jun 16, 95, A21; Sep 16, 96, A,1 “Crusade to Avenge Friend Perished With Baja Official;” Oct 4, 96, A1. 14. The Wall Street Journal, Feb 27, 95, A9 15. The Washington Post, Natl. Weekly Edition, Mar 20-26, 95, 10

16. Los Angeles Times, Aug 20, 96, “Another Mexican Oficial Is Slain;” Aug 21, 96, A10

17. Los Angeles Times, Sept 15, 96, A1, “Baja Police Chief Slain After Vowing Shake-Up”

18. The Washington Post, Natl. Weekly Edition, Mar 20-26, 95, 10; New York Times, Mar 11, 95, I,3

19. New York Times, Nov 12, 96, “Mexican Aide’s Millions: US Charges Drug Link;” Mar 11, 95, I,3 — “Mexican officials Charged deputy attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu of trying to thwart an investigation into his brother’s assassination last year, and also engaged in the embezzlement of more than $750,000 in government money. They say he hid about $10 million. Riuz Massieu was charged on Monday with intimidating witnesses and falsifying evidence in the investigation he led last fall into his borother’s death in order to protect Raul Salinas de Gortari. Salinas was arrested last week and has been charged with ordering the killing and paying of governing party congressman, Manuel Munoz Rocha, to have it carried out.

20. Los Angeles Times, Feb 17, 97, “Ex-Officials in Mexico Tied to Drug Lord, Report Asserts;” Mar 13, 97, A1, “Testimony Ties Former Top Mexican Officials to Cartels.”

21. Fortune, Sep 4, 95, 100, “Juan Garcia Abrego boasts a net worth of some $15 billion from his control of the northeastern Mexican cocaine routes.”

22. Newsweek, Jun 12, 95, 37

23. Los Angeles Times, Jun 15, 95, A17 — Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, former commander of elite federal anti-drug squads — also named in last year’s Texas trial as a protector of the Gulf

cartel — told investigators that he had personally delivered to Raul recordings of telephone wiretaps of opposition politicians. Said one investigator, “He said he was aware of the relationship between Gulf cartel chief Juan Garcia Abrego and Raul. He said Raul had meetings

with Abrego and that Raul served as a front for Abrego through his companies.” Newsweek, Jun 12, 95, p37 — According to one well-placed US investigator, Garcia dipped into his till to fund a

campaign of intimidations and wiretapping that Raul Salinas allegedly conducted in the run-up to Carlos Salinas’s fraud-tainted elections. New York Times, Feb 23, 97, A,4: U.S. intelligence officials also reported on meetings where other traffickers gave cash to Raul Salinas, who parcelled it out to various senior politicians in the room.

24. Los Angeles Time, Feb 17, 97, A4

25. Los Angeles Times Jun 25, 95, Op-ed, “Army shouldn’t Fight War Against Drug Lords,” by Andrew A. Reding.

26. Los Angeles Times, Dec 12, 96, A,17; New York Times, Feb 19, 97 “Mexican Drug Chief Ousted on Bribe Charge”

27. Los Angeles Times, Feb 19, 97, A1

28. Juan Matta Belestros, Carlos Lehder, Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, Pablo Escobar, Fabio Ochoa, Jorge Luis Ochoa, Miguel Angel Rodriguez Orejuela, Gilberto Orjuela, Angel Felix Gallardo, Joaquin Guzman, Hector Luis Palma, Javier Arrellano Felix, Benjamin Arrellano Felix, Juan Garcia Abrego, Amado Carrillo Fuentes...

29. The Dallas Morning News, Oct 12, 96, 1A

30. New York Times, 30, 95, A,8

31. New York Times, Jul 30, 95, A,1.

32. The Washington Post, Feb 19, 1997, A1,A22

33. Peter Lupscha, Univ. of New Mexico, KPFK interview with Ian Masters, Mar 2, 97 Houston Chronicle, Aug 18, 95, op-ed, Javier Rodriguez 34. New York Times, Feb 20, 97 “Mexico’s Jailed Drug Chief Had Full Briefings in U.S.”

35. New York Times, Feb 21, 97, “Clinton Says Mexico’s Firmness Is Bright Side of Drug Scandal.”

36. U.S. Dept. of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1996, “Coca and Cocaine”

37. U.S. Dept. of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1996, “Estimated Wordwide Potential Illicit Drug Net Production, 1986-1995 38. U.S. Dept. of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1996, “Status of Worldwide Production.”

39. NCADI: 1996 DAWN Survey, “Annual Trends in Heroin-Related Episodes.

40. Professor Peter Lupscha, University of New Mexico, Interview with Ian Masters, KPFK Radio, March 2, 1997. According to Lupscha, the DEA estimates the Mexican cocaine trade at $10 billion anually, the Defense Intelligence Agency says it’s closer to $17 billion, and Mexican authorities put it as high as $30 billion. If, as some authorities claim, 60 percent goes for bribes, that would put the payoff in the range of $6 to $18 billion