POOR COUNTIES REFUSING TO HANDLE U.S. POT CASES

AUSTIN, Texas - Cash-strapped district attorneys along the Texas-Mexico
border will stop prosecuting federal marijuana cases beginning July 1, a
spokesman for the group said Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Justice refers cases in which smugglers are caught
at border checkpoints with 250 pounds or less of marijuana to state courts.
Local officials say they are overwhelmed.

"This partnership has gone one way for too long," said Jaime Esparza,
district attorney for El Paso, Hudspeth and Culberson counties and head of
Southwest Border Prosecutors.

Esparza said his group, which includes district attorneys from Brownsville
to San Diego, has been negotiating for three years for either money or a
policy change.

If there is no response by July 1, "we will assume that the federal
government will then accept the responsibility and prosecute these cases to
the full extent of the law as we do," he said.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Houston said Zapata and
Webb counties have refused marijuana prosecutions for more than a year.

Esparza said a two-year-old study found that counties bordering Mexico from
Texas to California spent between $48.5million and $148.6 million
prosecuting federal drug crimes each year.