Border Dispatch: Drugs go south

A Tijuana treatment center fights to save youths from a plague of addiction

By Minerva Canto

The Orange County Register

May 18, 2002

TIJUANA, MEXICO — They come at all hours, especially in the early morning. That's when Marisol Valdez Daniel hears the comings and goings of the visitors at her neighbor's house in Colonia El Pipil. The 17-year-old has never seen cash or drugs change hands, but she knows the reason for the frequent visits.

"The drugs are everywhere in our neighborhood. Police don't really come by," she says. "I've heard that they get paid off not to come by."

Low-level drug vendors, called tienditas, or "little shops," abound in nearly every neighborhood in this border city, long known as a drug trafficking corridor anchored by a major cartel, the violent Arellano Felix organization.

The abundance of drugs combined with the stresses of life in an area with high migration, scarce government resources and proximity to the United States — with its own drug-culture influence — has turned the city into the drug-use capital of Mexico. Nearly 15 percent of the population reports having tried drugs at least once, about three times the national average.

What is most alarming to many is that the drugs are reaching those who are most susceptible: the youth of Tijuana. An epidemic that once was largely confined within the borders of its northern neighbor now has spread south with a vengeance.

Leading the battle to halt this trend is the Center for Youth Integration, an anti- drug-abuse organization that offers treatment and prevention programs. It's a center whose unique programs attracted a visit this week by U.S. drug czar John P. Walters.

The goal of the center is to prevent more youths from falling into the kind of predicament faced by Jorge Reyna.

Reyna was 14 when he started taking drugs. He began smoking, then drinking. Soon, he moved on to marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine.

"My family always lived by the seat of their pants, waiting, always waiting to see whether something would happen," says Reyna, now 22. "Maybe I'd get caught by the police. Maybe I'd take something from the house. It was always something. Until one day I finally had enough. I didn't want to live like that, and I didn't want them to live like that either."

Reyna has been off drugs for five months. After a rough start at another facility, he'll soon complete 10 weeks as an inpatient at the Center for Youth Integration.

Reforming drug addicts like Reyna is tough, expensive and time-consuming. Like their U.S. counterparts, Mexico's drug-abuse specialists have discovered the problem is best tackled by prevention rather than cure.

Staff psychologists at the Center for Youth Integration set out each day, their briefcases bulging with anti-drug pamphlets and bookmarkers as they visit schools in neighborhoods they've identified as high risk. Their work is guided by a wall-size map in a hallway of the center that ranks many of the city's more than 700 colonias, or neighborhoods, for their levels of risk for drug abuse.

"We're attacking the problem at its root, trying to reach the kids before they become addicts," says Guillermo Rangel, one of three directors at the center. "Because once they are addicts, it becomes a problem that is very costly for everyone. And the consequences are pretty serious."

With nearly 40 percent of the city's 1.1 million residents 19 years old or younger, Rangel and others view drug abuse as threatening the very future of the city.

Driving through the streets of Tijuana, he points to the young men standing near intersections with dirty rags and spray bottles, offering to clean motorists' windshields.

"The majority of those are drug users. This is what they do to feed their habit," he says, waving away a young man. "When they get enough cash to buy a hit, they go into the bushes or other place nearby to shoot up."

Today, government officials on both sides of the border talk openly about a Mexico that is not just a producer of drugs, but also a consumer. Current drug users in Mexico are less than 1 percent of the population nationally, compared with 6.3 percent in the United States, but the percentage and the number of drug users in Mexico has more than doubled in the past 10 years, according to U.S. and Mexican government agencies.

Most who are familiar with the dynamics of drug abuse in Mexico cite the U.S. influence as a key factor in the rise of drug abuse.

"The border allows things to pass through on both sides," says Dr. Jose Hector Acosta, who heads the treatment facility at the Center for Youth Integration.

Among other factors, drug-abuse experts point to the high rate of alcohol and marijuana use in San Diego. They also note the mirror effect of trends in drug use years after they occur in the United States. Cocaine, which hit its peak in the United States in 1985, is rising dramatically in Mexico. A more recent trend that's traveled south is the rising use of "ice," or crystal methamphetamine.

Last year, a wide range of anti-drug abuse organizations in San Diego and Tijuana formed the Drug-Free Border Coalition to develop binational solutions and share strategies to combat what they see as a regional problem.

Little by little, they do what they can.

"How many of you know someone who takes drugs?" asks psychologist Teofilo Garzon Gatica of the Center for Youth Integration during a recent visit to Technical High School No. 237.

Not one hand goes up. Garzon waits patiently. A hand goes up. Then another and another. Soon, nearly half the students in the classroom have a hand up.

"Why would someone want to take drugs?" Garzon asks. Students reel off their responses: Ignorance about the dangers. Low self- esteem. Peer influence. Craving attention. Looking for an easy way out of their problems. Dysfunctional family. Lack of interest in school.

Carlos Cortez Ricario, 18, a student in the class, says he's had the opportunity to try drugs, mainly at parties with other friends.

"I say no. I don't want to do drugs," Cortez says. "That's not what I want for my life. I've seen what addictions can do. I see it in my neighborhood. There's drug addicts stealing to feed their habit. They even do it in the daytime. They don't wait for darkness anymore."

Garzon finishes his one-hour talk with one request. "The only thing we ask of you today," he says, "is not to take drugs."

There are more than 50 drug treatment centers in Tijuana, but most are staffed by reformed addicts and others who aren't fully trained, says Acosta, the director of the treatment facility.

Center for Youth Integration is the only one staffed by professional doctors, psychologists and other trained staff who offer medication, therapy and rehabilitative activities, Acosta says.

The nonprofit organization is part of a nationwide chain that receives most of its funds from the federal government.

In Tijuana, the center houses a maximum of 24 patients, accepting only those who voluntarily agree to inpatient treatment and whose families are involved in rehabilitation. "Family participation is very, very important. It is key to the patient's success," Acosta says.

Fees are based on a sliding scale depending on family income. Wealthier families may pay up to $133 and poorer families pay as little as nothing.

Increasingly, the facility is seeing patients from the United States who are eager to find a cheaper or more anonymous alternative to U.S. facilities. The latest survey conducted by the facility found that nearly 40 percent of the outpatient clients treated at the clinic have lived north of the border.

"South Central L.A.!" a young man at the clinic yelled out as he washed his clothes by hand.

Beginning with a strict 7 a.m. wake-up call, patients must follow many rules during their 10-week stay. A few can get them kicked out before the 10-week program ends. No drugs. No fighting. No sex.

About 30 percent of the patients fail to stay off drugs when they leave, Acosta says.

"I like it here," Reyna says. "It's a very good environment for us. We do sports, get therapy, do reading analysis. It's all voluntary so we can leave anytime we want, but we don't."

Before going to the Center for Youth Integration, Reyna spent two months at another drug treatment facility, where he says he was treated like an inmate, forced to do hard labor and threatened with beatings if he didn't comply with the rules.

Reyna is pleased at the progress he's made. He's making plans to enroll in school in the fall after he "graduates" from the facility.

"I'm not sure if I want to leave. Here, everything has been going well," Reyna says, "But out there, it's a completely different world, with different influences.”