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Mexican army invades pot plantations
Updated 12/21/2006 8:45 PM ET
By Sara Miller Llana, USA TODAY
LAZARO CARDENAS, Mexico — Thirty-five soldiers jump off two helicopters and fan out across a marijuana field tucked deep into the mountains of Mexico's western state of Michoacan.
The choppers secure the perimeter as soldiers yank out plants growing in neat lines. Two hours later, most of the marijuana smolders in a bonfire.

This is one of 38 marijuana fields identified in a remote area, 25 miles from Aguililla, the nearest town. Rooting out — literally — marijuana plantations is a major component in Mexico's latest war on drugs, announced last week by President Felipe CalderoŽn.

Mexico has long been under pressure from the United States to crack down on the drug trade and end violence between drug gangs. According to the U.S. State Department, 70%-90% of drugs coming to the USA from Latin America enter through Mexico. Mexico is one of the main producers of marijuana and heroin destined for the USA.

U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza has repeatedly expressed concern about the rising violence, most of it drug-related.

The week-old Operation Michoacan, CalderoŽn's first major initiative since he took office Dec. 1, is the biggest anti-drug effort taken on by the Mexican government, says Army Gen. Manuel Garcia Ruiz, who heads the operation.

The purpose is to "end the impunity of the criminals that puts at risk the tranquility of all Mexicans, especially our families," Interior Secretary Francisco Javier Ramirez Acuna said at a news conference in Mexico City on Monday.

It also is a high-profile effort by the new president to follow through on his campaign vow to improve security in Mexico.

"CalderoŽn came in as a law-and-order president and wants to show he is capable of reasserting state authority to convince the Mexican people, as well as the U.S., that he is, in fact, in charge," says Bruce Bagley, a drug specialist at the University of Miami.

Mexico's drug wars claimed about 2,000 lives in 2006, according to the Associated Press, and have been marked by increasing violence as drug lords battle for control of what the State Department says is a multibillion-dollar industry. In September, gunmen stormed a nightclub and hurled five heads onto a dance floor in Uruapan in Michoacan, the president's home state. Juan Antonio Magana, the state's attorney general, told the AP more than 200 homicides here this year were drug-related.

Last week, CalderoŽn sent 7,000 military and federal officers into Michoacan to burn drug fields and arrest suspects. "This is a very difficult battle," Garcia Ruiz says. "It will last as long as it is necessary."

About 50 people suspected of drug trafficking, including suspected drug lord Elias Valencia, have been arrested. The soldiers and federal officers have seized about 100 firearms, bulletproof vests, antennas and telephones, officials announced at Monday's news conference. They estimated the raids could cost the cartels as much as $626 million, which includes future profits from the plants and opium seeds.

The first goal, Garcia Ruiz says, is to disrupt the drug gangs' source of income and their ability to communicate. Over the past week, military and police have identified 1,795 marijuana fields covering 585 acres throughout the state.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina says the government will expand the new offensive by sending soldiers and police to several states simultaneously to prevent traffickers from fleeing between regions. The idea is to wrest income and turf from drug traffickers. "The focus is on territory, recovering geographical space for the public," Medina says.

Tuesday, journalists witnessed a raid on a marijuana plantation in Michoacan. The field where the two helicopters landed was ringed with lime trees and an irrigation system: thousands of yards of tubing fed by a nearby rushing creek. Footpaths led to at least two other fields, a 15-minute trek away, and a recently abandoned shack. Half-eaten tamales, corncobs and crushed pepper littered wooden benches.

The type of marijuana growing here illustrates how hard the battle against drugs has become. It's a genetically modified variety resistant to pesticides; it can be killed only if it's pulled out with the roots. It also grows year-round, Garcia Ruiz says.

He says the plants, which mature in two months, are primarily exported to the USA.

Residents in Michoacan hope the operation will tamp down the violence. Rosalba Sanchez, 32, and her mother, Nicolasa Diez, 65, live in Patzcuaro, west of the state capital Morelia. They say that even though the main targets are people who produce and distribute drugs, the violence has affected their quality of life.

A drug-gang-related shootout two weeks ago in the city killed a store owner, they say. "When you leave your house, anything could happen," Sanchez says. "Hopefully with more security, they will be more afraid."