Happy New Year!

Reflecting on the past year I would have to say we have seen many exciting and positive changes

Reflecting on the past year I would have to say we have seen many exciting and positive changes within C-DATA. We now are affiliated with and/or advertise in seven various Construction/Transportation Trade Associations. We have participated in various Trade Show Events with an impressive booth set-up, we have increased staffing to better service our clients and we now have three full-time Spanish bi-literate representatives and two outside field representatives.

The majority of our staff has been trained and certified in drug and alcohol collections and now offer on-site collections. We have experienced a steady continuous growth with many referrals from enforcement agencies, present clients, brokers, collection facilities and transportation services. In late December, C-DATA surpassed 10,000 enrollees in our testing pools of course none of this could have been accomplished if not for our committed, dedicated C-DATA TEAM and loyal clients.

Remember we encourage and welcome your inquires, if in doubt, we would rather have a situation completed properly than to try to correct it after the fact and risk jeopardizing your compliance.

Best wishes,
Lonnie

MIS Reports – Management Information System

We would like to remind everyone that your annual MIS reports are issued only on request. Per the DOT Regulations §382.403 (a) An employer shall prepare and maintain a summary of the results of its alcohol and controlled substances testing programs performed under this part during the previous calendar year, when requested by the Secretary of Transportation, any DOT agency, or any State or local officials with regulatory authority over the employer or any of its driver. (e) A service agent (C/TPA) may prepare the MIS report on behalf of an employer. However, a company official (DER) must certify the accuracy and completeness of the MIS report, no matter who prepares it.

Note - the Owner-Operator is both the employer and employee/driver for the purposes of drug and alcohols testing, some exceptions apply. Also, if you complete any of your testing (e.g., pre-employment, post-accident, follow up, etc.) outside of C-DATA and do not forward the information to us for reporting reason, a MIS report prepared by C-DATA will not have all of your testing information listed correctly.
Annual and Bi-Annual Statistical Reports

Your company will only receive a statistical report directly from the Lab if there have been more than five tests performed within the reporting period. Our contracted Lab will automatically mail these reports directly to you at the end of every bi-annual period. If you do not receive your report within 30 days following the end of a bi-annual period, or you have not had five tests within the reporting period but you have a request from enforcement, please contact us for assistance.

Contact C-DATA at least 48 hours prior to your DOT or CHP BIT/CSAT Carrier Inspection for your Summary Reports 1-800-820-9314.

Drug Cartels Grip Mexico

The Associated Press

Miguel Aleman, Mexico – Hit men, pistols tucked in their pants and walkie-talkies strapped to their belts, move freely in this city of sorghum farmers and cattle ranchers, dropping off their ostrich-skin boots with shoeshine boys in the city’s plaza and stopping at local bars for a beer.

The openness with which they operate - in Miguel Aleman and countless other towns across Mexico - reflects the drug cartels’ grip on this nation of nearly 100 million people, and the power they have gained as the top supplier for Americans’ $65 billion illegal drug habit.

Mexican gangs also dominate the growing methamphetamine trade, producing 53 percent of the drugs on the market in “superlabs” in Mexico as the U.S. tightens its laws. Much of the rest is made in clandestine labs in California, also run by Mexicans, U.S. officials say.
As has been the case for nearly 100 years, Mexico is the biggest marijuana supplier to the U.S. and produces nearly half the heroin consumed north of the border, behind only Colombia.

The drug trade permeates life in Mexico. In Miguel Aleman, drug traffickers boost the local economy and rule with a combination of fear and awe, threatening or bribing anyone who dares to try to stop them.

Crackdown Fallout
The Mexican rise to power is rooted in the U.S. crackdown on drug trafficking through the Caribbean in the 1980s, which pushed Colombians to use Central America and Mexico as a major transshipment point.

Colombians began paying their Mexican counterparts in cocaine, rather than cash, reducing the need to launder money. That gave Mexican gangs an opening to begin taking over distribution in the United States.

Colombian gangs, facing tough extradition laws at home and stiff penalties in the United States, have largely gone into hiding in Colombia, focusing on production rather than distribution.

Key Cartels
Most Mexican drug gangs are led by former farmers or police officers from the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa, an agricultural area where trafficking in illicit substances dates back to Prohibition.

The country’s two top drug gangs are the Juarez Cartel, based in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, and the Gulf Cartel, based in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Gaining ground is Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, an alleged ally of the Juarez cartel who escaped from a maximum-security prison in 2001 and has been warring for control of smuggling routes along the U.S-Mexico border.

Once mortal enemies, Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cardenas and his Tijuana counterpart, Benjamin Arellano Felix, have united in jail, hoping to keep both ends of the border under their control, said Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico’s top anti-narcotics prosecutor.
After taking office in 2000, Mexican President Vicente Fox launched a crackdown, netting several kingpins, including Arellano Felix and Cardenas.
But the arrests have done nothing to slow the flow north, with seizures in 2004 increasing 25 percent over 2003.

Last year, Mexico seized 27.5 tons of cocaine, and another 24.7 tons were confiscated entering the United States, mainly through Texas, a top DEA intelligence official, Anthony Placido, told U.S. lawmakers.

The U.S. government estimates that Americans spend $65 billion a year on drugs - some $20 billion more than on alcohol.
Mexican traffickers’ profits have allowed them to buy off hundreds of law enforcement officials here, including the head of Mexico’s anti-drug agency, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, fired in 1997 and now jailed.

They also often provide the only steady, high-paying jobs in rural Mexico, and buy popularity by helping renovate a church or outfit youth soccer leagues with uniforms.
Life isn’t always peaceful, however. Recent arrests have sparked a turf battle that forced Mexico to send soldiers and federal agents to many key cities along the 1,900-mile border.
The worst violence this year has been in Nuevo Laredo, 100 miles east of Miguel Aleman.
More than 150 people have died, including a new police chief, gunned down eight hours after taking office in June.

Mexican and U.S. officials say the nation’s top druglords are battling for highly prized smuggling routes in Nuevo Laredo, the busiest commercial border crossing for U.S.-bound Mexican goods. Drugs are often hidden in tractor-trailers driving north.

Taint of Corruption
Soon after taking office in 2000, President Fox reorganized the Attorney General’s Office and tried to make the Federal Agency of Investigation, Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI, more professional.

But Daniel Cabeza de Vaca, Mexico’s federal attorney general, told a Mexican Senate Commission in August that the agency, one of the few trustworthy law enforcement bodies in Mexico, had been corrupted.

U.S. officials privately grumble that Mexico, unlike Colombia, has failed to extradite major druglords to the United States, where most would face long terms in high-security prisons.

Mexico argues the drug leaders must face justice here first. But attempts by Fox to clean up the justice system – Mexico’s most corrupt branch of government - have stalled in a hostile Congress.

Lonnie Johnson
C-DATA Operations Director