Word: marijuana
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...incident in Quepos provides a hint of the reach of a multitentacled narcotics conspiracy that has grown into one of the hemisphere's most pernicious forces. Capitalizing on the seemingly insatiable appetite for drugs in the U.S., Latin America's cocaine and marijuana czars have extended the scope and volume of their operations well beyond what Southeast and West Asia's more established opium lords ever dreamed of. Greasing palms and, when necessary, using the gun, the drug barons have spawned corruption from Bolivia to the Bahamas, and in more than one country are threatening to supplant elected government...
...years, the Latin American drug business was dominated by Mexican marijuana and heroin dealers. Now cocaine has replaced marijuana as the hemisphere's most troublesome -- and most lucrative -- drug, and the Mexicans, though still flourishing, have been surpassed in wealth and political influence by Colombians. In little more than a decade the Medellin cartel -- a small group of men who operate out of Colombia's second largest city -- has come to dominate the cocaine business, as well as the economies and governments of several countries...
Until recently it was assumed in Mexico that the country's drug problems were not as grave as Colombia's. Local moguls oversaw marijuana and poppy harvests; many made money; no one got hurt. Then on Feb. 1, when 22 suspected narcotics traffickers were arrested in three Mexican states, it became increasingly clear that Mexico had become yet another way station for Medellin cartel business. Six of the detainees were Colombians believed to be midlevel operatives for the cartel. When Mexican federal police inspected a warehouse the Colombians used in Sonora, they found 100 AK-47 assault rifles...
While acknowledging serious problems, officials from President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado on down insist that drug corruption infects only the lower levels of the federal government and the provincial police forces. U.S. investigators disagree. Not only is Mexico the largest exporter of heroin and marijuana to the U.S., they say, but 40% to 75% of the region's cocaine hopscotches its way north to the U.S. through Mexico. "The major traffickers in Mexico can't operate without the assistance of Mexican officials," asserts a senior Customs agent. "So we're focusing on the chief Mexican law- enforcement officials...
Capitalizing on the U. S. appetite for narcotics, the czars of cocaine and marijuana are buying off police, judges, local and national officials in a drive for political power. The conspiracy is so successful that it has superseded leftist insurgencies as the main threat to the region' s fragile democracies. -- An informant tells of bribery, gunrunning, violence and death. See WORLD...