Pubdate: Sat, 21 Dec 2002
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post

HIGH SEASON FOR DOPE SMUGGLERS

Border Patrol Snags Over A Ton A Day

Falfurrias, Texas -- As a steady stream of traffic pulled through the U.S. 
Border Patrol checkpoint here, Agent Johnny did not look twice at the 
gravel trucks, the 18- wheelers or even the powder-blue Cadillac. But he 
knew instantly that the green Dodge pickup was carrying more than firewood.

Johnny, a dope-sniffing Belgian Malinois dog, started barking like mad, 
pawing and pressing his snout against the driver's door. When agents got 
into the truck and pulled out the seat, there it was: a half-pound or so of 
marijuana, bundled in plastic, in a cab doused with air freshener to hide 
the smell.

It is dope time again in the southland. Every year from October to January, 
marijuana smuggling into the United States skyrockets as farmers from 
Mexico to Colombia rush to get their harvest to market.

"A lot of these guys are trying to buy Christmas presents, so they want to 
sell what they have, then get home to spend time with their families," said 
Will Glaspy, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Since Oct. 1, Border Patrol and U.S. Customs Service agents working in the 
southernmost tip of Texas, from Laredo to Brownsville on the Gulf of 
Mexico, have seized more than 93 tons of marijuana, with an estimated 
street value exceeding $150 million.

That haul, which officials said marks a slight increase over last year's, 
represents an average of more than a ton a day. It floods in stashed behind 
truck seats, mixed in with loads of tomatoes, stuffed into hollowed-out 
floor beams of flat-bed trucks and, in one case, shoved underneath a 
disabled grandmother sitting in the front seat of a car.

Other drugs -- including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine -- are less 
bulky and easier to conceal. Agents at this checkpoint, 60 miles north of 
the border crossing at McAllen, Texas, found 12,000 ecstasy tablets hidden 
in the clothing of a bus passenger on Sunday.

Smuggling of these potent drugs usually grabs headlines. But here, along 
one of the busiest drug corridors in North America, officials say smugglers 
are bringing in staggering amounts of marijuana from Mexico, taking chances 
with bigger, heftier loads because economics are on their side.

U.S. teenagers use marijuana more than any other drug, according to the 
federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. That 
agency's 2001 Household Survey of drug use found that nearly 20 percent of 
youths ages 12 to 17 reported using marijuana at least once. That compared 
with about 3 percent who reported using ecstasy and just over 2 percent who 
reported using cocaine.

Glaspy, the DEA spokesman, said marijuana prices vary widely by quality and 
by where it is sold, so it is impossible to estimate the total value of 
U.S. sales. But he said marijuana smokers are the front-line consumers in a 
multibillion-dollar industry.

The front door of that business is at a highway checkpoint on Route 281, a 
corridor of asphalt through endless fields of board-flat scrublands. 
Officials said this tip of southern Texas is popular with smugglers because 
it is the shortest route to the United States from fields in southern 
Mexico and South America. The major border crossings from Ciudad Juarez 
into El Paso, Texas, or Tijuana into San Diego, are farther north, adding 
distance and danger of being caught to each trip, the officials said.

Route 281 is the main route from McAllen north to San Antonio, where major 
highways branch out toward huge markets in Houston, Austin, Dallas and 
beyond. Every few miles, police can be seen searching cars. And the Border 
Patrol keeps a sky-watch unit along the roadside, a sort of cherry picker 
from which agents with infrared sensing devices look out over the brush for 
drug-smugglers and illegal immigrants.

In the last few miles leading up to the Border Patrol checkpoint, signs 
advertising shotgun shells and watermelons are replaced by those for 
Castaqedas Bail Bonds and Mireles Bail Bonds.

Steve Rose, the Border Patrol agent in charge of the checkpoint just south 
of Falfurrias, said an average of 31,000 cars and trucks a day pass 
through. Agents with trained dogs check each vehicle, looking for smuggled 
drugs or people. He said they discover someone trying to smuggle drugs as 
many as 10 times a day, especially in this busy time of the year.

"You can't stop everything," Rose said. "But I haven't been here yet in a 
24-hour period where we haven't caught something."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom