Mexico Challenges U.S. to Prove Marijuana Production Has Soared

Mexico, stung by new estimates of massive Mexican marijuana production, has challenged U.S. experts to come into the country and point out the illicit crops that the CIA reported were spotted by surveillance satellites.

The unusual invitation was disclosed Tuesday by Drug Enforcement Administration chief John C. Lawn, who acknowledged that even he is skeptical about the CIA estimates that Mexico is growing 10 times more marijuana than earlier thought.

In an interview, Lawn said that a U.S. team has been invited to travel to Mexico to see if the suspect fields actually are marijuana or are merely legitimate crops such as “alfalfa, corn or wheat.”

The United States has not said whether it will accept the offer. A State Department official said that the agency favors accepting the invitation but that the CIA had not yet given its view.

Lawn said the invitation was passed on by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, John D. Negroponte, whom Lawn characterized as “most supportive” of Mexico’s proposal.

The proposed mission would constitute an unusual test of U.S. intelligence estimates of world drug production, an area of increasing controversy among drug-producing countries. The latest CIA estimates particularly irked the Mexican government, which has launched a $1-million advertising campaign to counter what it views as U.S. misperceptions of its anti-drug efforts.

“We owe the administration (of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari) the right to show us our estimates are incorrect,” Lawn said, noting that Salinas “has made drug enforcement and eradication a priority of his administration.”

The CIA estimate of Mexico’s marijuana production was in a report issued three weeks ago by the State Department. The report increased the government’s projection of Mexico’s 1989 output to 47,590 tons from an earlier estimate of 4,750 tons.

Lawn’s skepticism about the CIA estimates is based on the DEA’s own measurements and on a history of aerial surveys that he said were determined to be off the mark.

Lawn said the CIA’s estimate of a significantly larger Mexican marijuana crop is not reflected in the amount of marijuana being seized domestically.

“We’re not seeing that on the streets,” he said.