By Alistair Bell
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his family have received threats for launching a war against drug cartels, a fight that will drag on for years, he said on Thursday.
Calderon said the battle against the drug gangs would last beyond his six-year term in office, fueled by U.S. consumers' hunger for cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamines.
Since taking office in December, Calderon has sent thousands of troops to fight the feuding gangs and has extradited Osiel Cardenas, head of the infamous Gulf Cartel, to face trial in the United States.
"We have received a lot of threats and will no doubt receive more," he told the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit.
"We don't know if they are real or false but obviously they're not going to change our decision to carry out our job of fighting crime and those poisoning our children and youth."
Calderon has won glowing praise from Washington for clamping down on the cartels but he said there would be no easy victory and that U.S. demand was keeping the gangs in business.
"I'm a realist and I know this will be a long battle. We won't be able to proclaim victory or say it's over, not while consumption is so strong on the other side of the border," he said. "I probably won't see the end of it while I'm president."
He gave no details on the threats he and his family had received, but said he would not back down. Continued...
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