CULIACAN, MEXICO (AP) -- The Mexican army says the drought is so bad in the country's north that even illicit drug growers and their normally well-tended crops of marijuana and opium poppies are being harmed.

Mexico has been shocked in recent weeks by reports of widespread hunger and poverty in the northern mountains caused by the drought.

But Gen. Pedro Gurrola says one effect of the lack of rain is that drug planting has "declined considerably."

He says surveillance flights have detected fewer plantations than in previous years.

(Copyright ©2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)