POLICE SLOW HIGHWAY DRUG FLOW

Kansas law enforcement officers are making a dent -- though perhaps a small
one -- in the amount of drugs flowing across the state's highways.

Since the beginning of 1993, the Kansas Highway Patrol's drug interdiction
efforts have intercepted nearly 64,000 pounds of marijuana, more than 4,200
pounds of cocaine, almost 200 pounds of methamphetamine and about $9 million
in cash.

The Shawnee County Sheriff's Department drug interdiction unit, formed just
more than two years ago, also has shown its ability to take drugs off the
streets. The two officers in the unit have confiscated about 750 pounds of
marijuana, about 20 pounds of methamphetamine and 41/2 pounds of cocaine,
along with nearly $80,000 in cash.

Officers in each agency know their efforts are blocking only a small
percentage of the drugs flowing through Kansas each year. And while it is
difficult to get a handle on how heavy the drug traffic is, officers say
most of it probably gets through unfettered.

"The rule of thumb has been that once law enforcement takes more than 10
percent of the drugs off the street, the drug organizations start getting
worried and become a threat to us," KHP Lt. Kirk Simone said. "I don't think
we're at 10 percent yet. We're getting a small percentage, but we're getting
a lot more than we were 16 to 17 years ago."

The KHP on April 5 made the second-largest seizure in its history when two
troopers stopped a U-Haul van carrying 1,015 pounds of marijuana that had
been bundled and packed in wooden crates hidden beneath furniture and
appliances.

The next day on the Kansas Turnpike, sheriff's department deputies seized 55
pounds of marijuana hidden in a vehicle's gas tank. Papers inside the
vehicle led the deputies to believe the drugs were being transported from
Chihuahua, Mexico.

"That's pretty typical, pretty average for interstate transportation," said
one sheriff's department drug interdiction unit deputy, who didn't want his
name used because of the undercover nature of his work.

"We can't know for sure how much is passing through town, because we're not
on the inside of the drug trade, but 10 percent is probably pretty close,"
he said. "We really have no way of knowing if we're catching one out of 10
or one out of 50, but we do know that it's going down the road every day."

Each sheriff's drug interdiction unit deputy spends about 60 percent of his
time looking for traffic violators and drug smugglers on the
highways--Interstate 70, the turnpike, US-75 and US-40, in addition to the
less traveled city and county roads. When one of the deputies stops a
vehicle for a traffic violation, he usually can tell from a short
conversation if there is reason to think the driver has something to hide.

"Your suspicion either grows or declines," the other interdiction deputy
said. "You just ask more questions. There are people who try to buffalo us,
but we try to keep our skills honed so we can identify deception."

Sheriff's Capt. Rick Hladky said deputies have to look at the whole picture
to conduct a traffic stop. What may be just nervousness in someone who isn't
a criminal may be a cue giving away one who is smuggling a load of drugs.