Mexico as Drug Source
Drug control in Mexico is unique—the reason both for Mexico's paradoxical success as well as for its ongoing difficulty in managing the issue. Believing that destruction at their agricultural source is the most effective way to reduce supplies and halt traf-ficking, Mexico began to spray the OPIUM poppy (PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM) and MARIJUANA plant (CANNABIS SATIVA) in late 1975 with the herbicides paraquat and 2, 4-D. Plants, not people, became the target in the 1970s and 1980s. Until the early 1990s, the drug-eradication program was the centerpiece of Mexico's program. With the 1990s increase in Colombian cocaine transiting Mexico, the Mexican government increased its efforts to work with the United States in halting COCAINE smuggled through Mexico, sharing intelligence, extra-diting non-Mexican nationals, and reducing drug-related corruption. However, by 2000 the govern-ment's efforts remained hampered by corruption in the police and military. Tensions between the United States and Mexico increased as U.S. officials and legislators questioned the ability of Mexico to curb drug trafficking, which had grown dramatically as more enforcement efforts were placed on other South American countries, including Columbia. Several prominent officials were found to have worked with drug traffickers to subvert reform efforts. Finally, the election of Vicente Foxas Mexico's president in 2000 signaled the possibility of political change, as Foxbecame the first president not elected from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the modern era.
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