Tucson -- The door to the warehouse near the Tucson airport swings open and a musty-mint odor is instantly recognizable: It's pot. Lots and lots of pot.

Inside, neatly stacked bales of marijuana stand like faceless chess pieces -- the evidence from a game of extremes played every day along the nearby Arizona-Mexico border. Anthony Coulson, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency official in charge there, says that as much as 20 percent of the marijuana brought into Arizona last year was discovered in one location: the Tohono O'odham reservation, where abject poverty and the opportunity for a fast buck torment the American Indian nation.

[continues 760 words]

But It Fails To Iift Veil Of Poverty

The door to the warehouse near the Tucson airport swings open and a musty-mint odor is instantly recognizable: It's pot. Lots and lots of pot. Inside, neatly stacked bales of marijuana stand like faceless chess pieces -- the evidence from a game of extremes played every day along the nearby Arizona-Mexico border. Anthony Coulson, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency official in charge there, says that as much as 20 percent of the marijuana brought into Arizona last year was discovered in one location: the Tohono O'odham reservation, where abject poverty and the opportunity for a fast buck torment the American Indian nation.

[continues 717 words]

Arizona's Tohono O'odham Indians are dirt poor. Some thought smuggling marijuana was the way to strike it rich. Yet it's only adding to the misery.

The door to the giant warehouse near the Tucson airport swings open, and a musty-mint blast slaps me in the face like a big, soft mitten. The odor is instantly recognizable: It's pot. Lots and lots of pot.

Inside, neatly stacked bales of marijuana stand like faceless chessmen--the evidence from a game of extremes played out every day along the nearby Arizona-Mexico border. Anthony Coulson, the Drug Enforcement Agency official in charge there, says that as much as 20% of the marijuana brought into the state of Arizona during the last year has been discovered in one location: the Tohono O'odham reservation, where a confluence of abject poverty and the opportunity for a fast buck have come to torment the Indian nation.

[continues 785 words]