Border has become main battleground in drug war

Despite enforcement efforts, tremendous amount of U.S. use drives trafficking trade

By Elizabeth Aguilera
April 9, 2011 at 8:15 p.m.

The US port of entry at San Ysidro is the world's busiest land border crossing, processing millions of people a year through 24 car lanes and a pedestrian processing area.


The southwest border has become the nucleus of the U.S. and Mexican war on drugs.

Thousands of law-enforcement agents, from nearly every three-letter acronym agency, are focused on drug traffickers’ northward push of narcotics and the southbound flow of American guns and cash intended to fund and arm organized crime.

Despite sophisticated intelligence efforts, unprecedented cooperation between the United States and Mexico and billions of U.S. dollars to pay for law-enforcement operations along the border and within Mexico, leaders of both countries are bedeviled by one other part of the equation.

Tremendous U.S. drug use is the fuel that drives the trafficking trade — and with it the murders of more than 35,000 Mexicans since 2007, authorities and researchers said. These experts agree the cycle of crime and violence will continue as long as high consumption persists.

“The U.S. government is acknowledging that the demand for drugs in the U.S. is driving instability and violence in Mexico,â€