We have an escalating illegal foreign national problenm and an escalatiing drug problem. Are we importing more users and fueling the drug problems here? After all, it is legal in Mexico and people like what they are accustomed to.

ALL of these "kids" could become new DREAMERS and with half of the population of Mexico under 30 - interesting that is the age for the DREAM Act. Would we be importing more of Mexico's undesirables and non producers?

Drug cartels' young foot soldiers
A boy who said he was "12 years old -- no, 14 years old," inhales plastic pipe-cleaning solvent from a wad of toilet paper soaked in the chemical as another young street addict has his head shaved at the curbside hangout in Mexico City.


Near a small statue of “Santo Muerte” -- Saint Death -- a girl who says she's 17 breathes fumes from a solvent. Dozens of young people at the encampment begged motorists for food and money.

A young man sleeps at the base of a neglected monument to 19th century Latin American hero Simon Bolivar in Mexico City. Dozens of young men and women have turned the monument into a squatter's camp where they buy, sell and inhale chemical solvent to stay high.


Marijuana and crack cocaine are the drug of choice among Mexico's youth, but the poor sometimes turn to highly toxic solvents like paint thinner. One user said that type of drug "makes you see things and hear voices.”


A young man lies nearly unconscious in downtown Mexico City, clutching a can of plastic pipe-cleaning solvent.


Youths openly smoke marijuana in a park on Paseo de la Reforma in the heart of Mexico City. "It's legal here and only costs $2.50," one of the teens said.


Jose Andres Mendoza, 15, clutches his most treasured possession, a statue of St. Jude Thaddeus, the saint of desperate causes. It was given to him by a girlfriend two weeks before she was shot dead at a party in November. With the help of his parents, drug counselors and mentors, he's trying to abandon his history of robbery, drug use and addiction.


Youths hang out in a northeast Mexico City neighborhood where you can buy drugs “like a stick of gum,” dealers with shaved heads fight for corners, and gunfire punctuates the night.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-12/58353056.jpg
Jose Andres Mendoza, a.k.a. Tulo, 15, watches another teen smoking marijuana as he cruises through Mexico City. "We’d pistol-whip the guys on buses to get their money. I like money. I like the clothes. I like having good tennis shoes. The name brands," Tulo said of his criminal past.



In a quaint Jiutepec plaza, Jibran Barrera and Yamilett Gil, both 17, say their high school friends can make $500 a night selling drugs.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... otogallery