DRUG CARRIERS DON'T FIT EASY STEREOTYPES, AGENTS SAY

BLAINE, Wash. - The main drag running to the east from this border town
tracks straight as a chalk line for a few miles.

It's actually two roads.

On one side of a shallow ditch is Boundary Road, where drivers obey a speed
limit set in miles per hour.

On the other side is 0 (as in zero) Avenue, where the speed limit is set in
kilometers.

Boundary Road is in the United States; 0 Avenue is in British Columbia. The
ditch marks the border, and even a child could step across it with ease.

Drug smugglers do so with increasing frequency, popping across into the
berry fields of the Nooksack River valley or trekking through the heavy
woods where the land hasn't been cleared.

"All this land is prime, prime smuggling country," said U.S. Border Patrol
special agent David Keller.

The Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have
been hard-pressed to slow - much less stop - the increasing flow of a
particularly potent form of marijuana called "B.C. Bud" from Canada to the
United States.

There are a couple of reasons.

One is the ease of crossing what is the world's longest unguarded border,
both by land and by sea.

Peace Arch State Park in Blaine, for example, is separated from British
Columbia by a residential street. Canadians rather routinely cross the
street to gambol in the park, even though that's technically illegal.

The other barrier to more effective enforcement are the "mules," the folks
who transport dope for the owners.

There's simply no profile that would help agents at border crossings
identify them.

"They're not normal-looking drug smugglers, if there is such a thing,"
Keller said, wheeling his SUV into a cul-de-sac that ends in the woods 20
feet from the unmarked border.

"There's the whole spectrum of social class, ethnicity, sex."

They include the elderly white couple, both in their 70s, who hid the dope
in their trailer. Then there was a 58-year-old white male arrested when
agents discovered B.C. Bud hidden in the water tank of his recreational
vehicle.

There were two women, age 57 and 32, with $113,700 hidden in a propane tank
of their pickup truck.

Another woman arrested turned out to be a Seattle school principal.

"Some people have kids along. They're props, more or less," Keller said.

The drugs seized weren't for the personal use of the people arrested.

"This is a commercial enterprise," he said. "They're paid to deliver."

Maybe they're ignorant of what they're carrying? Nah.

"Everybody knows something's up," said Keller.

The frustrating part, for the enforcement team, is that something isn't
always up.

A few days ago, the team followed a pair of Asian men who drove south
through the Blaine border crossing, then began moving - seemingly at random
- - around the area.

First, they stopped in a parking lot, walked through a nearby building,
then took off in a different car.

Agents followed, using a half-dozen different vehicles so the suspects
wouldn't keep seeing the same car in their rearview mirrors. Both sides ran
red lights, varied their speed and generally acted the parts seen in
cops-and-robbers movies.

After more than three hours, the suspects returned - legally - to Canada.

Other operations are more successful.

An East Indian with dope once tried to jump into the back seat of Keller's
car as it was parked along a stretch of Boundary Road.

"I think he thought we were his contact," he said.

Plainclothes officers continually patrol the border near Blaine, also an
area where illegal immigrants often cross.

"We've got guys out in the field all the time looking for trails," Keller said.

Motion sensors are also monitored. Even residents can be sources of
information.

"If you're out here at 2 in the morning, you stick out," he said. "We've
got good relations with the (residents). They don't like people smuggling
through their back yards."

Pleasure boats are also a prime mode of transportation.

The U.S. Coast Guard rather routinely makes seizures from power boats or
sailboats that have crossed the three straits - Juan de Fuca, Georgia and
Haro - that separate Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland from the U.S.
San Juans and landing spots like Port Townsend.

But on a sunny August day while Keller drove a reporter and photographer to
areas where smuggling is common, there was no action.

"Weather like this is too nice to smuggle," he said with a grin. "They'd
rather be at the beach."