Drugs: War of Words with Mexico

Bad borders make bad neighbors, as the U.S. and Mexico demonstrated again last week. At a Senate hearing guided by North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, U.S. officials unleashed a fusillade of criticism at Mexico for its laxness on drug trafficking. Spokesmen for the Drug Enforcement Administration and + Customs Service charged that 32% of all marijuana, 32% of all heroin and 30% of all cocaine used in the U.S. are supplied from or routed through Mexico. They also charged that Mexican authorities continue to protect powerful "narcotraficantes."

The Mexican government responded sharply. "The comments," said the Foreign Ministry, "distort, with disinformation, what is happening in Mexico." The governor of Sonora, accused at the hearing of being an opium farmer, talked of suing both Helms and the head of the Customs Service.