BORDER DRUG SEIZURES SURGE

Heightened Security Since Sept. 11 Has Had Unexpected Side-Effect

Heightened security after the Sept. 11 attacks has had a major side effect:
Seizures of illegal drugs along America's borders and at its ports of entry
increased substantially in October and November over the corresponding
period a year ago, law enforcement authorities say.

The greatest increase, 326 per cent, was in seizures from commercial
traffic along the Canadian border.

But the overall figure was also large: The amount of drugs seized from
commercial traffic -- trucks, ships and planes -- at all borders and ports
was up 66 per cent, the Customs Service says.

Experts have no clear evidence that the increased seizures have created a
shortage of drugs on the street or raised their price there.

"There has been a definite unintended consequence of the effort against
terror: We are doing a better job of keeping illegal drugs out of the
United States," Customs Service Commissioner Robert C. Bonner.

Seizures initially dropped after Sept. 11 as drug traffickers slowed
shipments, apparently to gauge what would happen as customs inspectors went
on highest alert.

The decline was short-lived, however. The total amount of drugs seized by
the Customs Service at borders and ports, from commercial traffic and
noncommercial alike, jumped 30 per cent in October from the same month last
year.

At the same time, heightened anti-terrorism patrols forced the U.S. Coast
Guard to pull back most of the ships and planes it had been using for
anti-drug operations in the Caribbean and the Pacific and assign them to
areas closer to the coast, a step that brought a drop in its drug seizures.
From Sept. 11 to Nov. 30, the Coast Guard seized 4,770 kilograms of
cocaine, for example, compared with 13,554 kilograms in the same period a
year ago, and 216 kilograms of marijuana, compared with 3,375 kilograms
last year, a spokesman said.

"We recognize that there is a challenge for us in doing both homeland
security and drug patrols," said the spokesman, Capt. Mike Lapinski, "so
we've started to push the borders back out and interdict the seas again in
the drug transit areas. We're almost back to pre-9/11."

The Coast Guard has been able to do this by putting its own detachments on
Navy ships. In the last few weeks, Lapinski said, these joint patrols have
led to the seizure of two sizable shipments of drugs on vessels off the
Pacific coast of Central America.

Law enforcement officials are uncertain whether the increase in seizures
means only that they are intercepting a larger proportion of the narcotics
being smuggled into the United States, or whether the traffickers are
themselves contributing to the trend by increasing the number or size of
their shipments as a way of overwhelming the tighter security.

"It could be either, or both," said Joe Keefe, chief of operations for the
Drug Enforcement Administration. "It's too early to tell."

Keefe said he had not yet seen any evidence that major drug producers in
Colombia had increased their production since Sept. 11. He also said he had
not heard of any significant shortages of drugs on the street, or of major
changes in prices. But because drug dealers often maintain large
stockpiles, it can take months for a drop in supply from abroad to be
reflected in higher street prices.

Although Afghanistan has been the producer of about 75 per cent of the
world's heroin, most of it going to Western Europe, it is far too early to
determine what effect the war against the Taliban or its outcome will have
on drug supply.