What Drugs Have Wrought

From Juarez, just across the river from El Paso, Texas:

At least once or twice a day, sirens blare here as firefighters in this violent border city speed to the latest store or restaurant that gangsters have firebombed for ignoring extortion demands.

Boarded up businesses and abandoned restaurants give parts of the city a ghostly look as organized crime strangles economic activity.

Now as Christmas approaches, mobsters have chosen a new target, turning their sights on humble schoolteachers.

Painted threats scrawled outside numerous public schools demand that teachers hand over their Christmas bonuses or face the possibility of an armed attack on the teachers — and even the children.

Wow. Threatening schoolkids and teachers.