In interview, Mrs. Obama says jobs, education will help keep young people away from drug trade

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Mrs. Obama: Drug problem needs more than ’say no’

MEXICO CITY — First lady Michelle Obama said Wednesday that reducing the demand for illegal drugs needs an approach much broader than just warning young people to stay away from them.

“If young people don’t have an alternative in their lives, whatever country they’re in, they’re going to choose drugs, they’re going to choose (the) drug trade. That’s the way they make money,” Mrs. Obama told reporters from six U.S. media outlets after a speech to several thousand young people during her first international trip as first lady.

But she left the issue out of her public remarks in a country wracked by drug violence.

Nearly 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon sent tens of thousands of troops and federal police to combat drug cartels, according to government figures.

Mrs. Obama said she did not mention Mexico’s drug woes, which are affecting towns and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border, because she wanted to use her two-day trip “to remind us in the U.S. and our partners in Mexico that there is more that connects us than the violence and the drugs.”

“Drug violence exists on the South side of Chicago, in L.A.,” said Mrs. Obama, who came to Mexico to launch an international effort to encourage young people everywhere to step up and help solve the world’s problems.

“You name any urban and rural environment. It’s there,” she said. Mrs. Obama said jobs, opportunities for education and other alternatives to the drug trade will help reduce the demand.

“My experience shows that young people will make different decisions if they have better opportunities,” she said.

Mrs. Obama also discussed the issue earlier Wednesday during a private, 45-minute meeting with her counterpart, Margarita Zavala, at the presidential residence Los Pinos. She said she learned about hundreds of new comprehensive drug treatment centers Mexico has created using money seized in drug raids.

Mrs. Obama also said the two countries are working closely together to tackle the problem.

In the speech to invited high school and college students gathered in a sunny, outdoor plaza at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mrs. Obama urged young people to help governments and world leaders like her husband solve everything from poverty and hunger to climate change and extremism.

Nearly half of Mexico’s population, for example, is younger than 25. Around the world, people ages 15-24 make up 20 percent of the population.

“The fact is that responsibility for meeting the defining challenges of our time will soon fall to all of you,” she said. “Soon the world will be looking to your generation to make the discoveries and build the industries that will fuel our prosperity and ensure our well-being for decades to come.”

Mrs. Obama’s entire speech was immediately translated and broadcast live throughout Mexico.

The first lady also held up herself and President Barack Obama as proof that “potential can be found in some of the most unlikely places.” Neither Obama is a product of privilege; both came from humble circumstances. Her parents weren’t wealthy or college-educated. He never really knew his father and was raised by his mother.

“Back when we were young, no one could have predicted that we would one day become the president and first lady of the United States of America,” she said, crediting their rise to hard work, luck and blessings.

Before the speech, Mrs. Obama visited a public elementary school in one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods and was greeted with screams, cheers and squeals of delight the moment she stepped from her black SUV.

Groups of 6- to 12-year-olds who study at the Escuela Siete de Enero danced, did calisthenics and serenaded the visiting first lady. At one point, she clasped hands with a group that had formed a circle and sang along.

“That was beautiful, everything you did,” said Mrs. Obama, whose visit ends Thursday. “I loved the singing. I loved the dancing. I loved to see you all moving and exercising.”

She told them she loves get to meet smart, bright young people when she travels outside the U.S., and asked for hugs before departing. She then waded into the crowd, an act that produced a striking image of the very tall first lady bending at the waist to embrace the pint-sized kids.

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