STEER CLEAR OF DRUG TRAFFIC

Pot Harvest Increases Flow Of Illegal Drugs

In an area with an economy dependent on agriculture, harvest seasons
generally portend good news. Marijuana harvest season in Mexico is another
story.

Regardless of your personal views on drug use in general or marijuana use
in particular, having cargoes of illegal drugs passing through our
community is cause for concern.

The harvest, which will continue for the next couple of months, will bring
large quantities of marijuana from south of the border through the desert
region en route to Los Angeles and eventual national distribution.

Even when police do make arrests and seize drugs, it doesn't put much of a
dent in the international drug trade. As is common in the Mexican drug
rackets, the ring leaders are well insulated from the trafficking -- or in
the case of methamphetamine labs based in the United States, from the
manufacturing -- of the drugs. The drug runners, or mules, are low-paid,
low-level laborers hired to transport the drugs for distribution in this
country.

So far this year, Border Patrol agents discovered and seized 140 drug
shipments, 101 of which were of marijuana with a street value of $34
million. Law enforcement can only speculate what quantity of drugs gets
through the gaping and inefficient net that is designed more to find
illegal immigrants than drugs.

Once the drugs are across the border, the primary method for finding drug
shipments relies on stops for traffic violations.

The biggest risk to the general public during the distribution undoubtedly
comes from having desperate people on our roads. And of course we have no
way of knowing if the truck or car closing in on us in our rearview mirror
is a drug runner, or if that vehicle broken down on the side of the road is
loaded with marijuana.

If we are fortunate, we can be blissfully unaware of the illicit drug
transit and the lives of our families will not be touched by it. But it
certainly would not hurt to exercise some additional caution on the roads.
A scared or angry mule can have a powerful kick.