STOP SIGN

Drug dealers in Mexico apparently are taking full advantage of a
United States program that's supposed to speed passage at border
checkpoints. The program, called the Custom-Trade Partnership Against
Terrorism, maintains a registry of trucking companies that agree to do
background checks on employees, fence in their facilities, track their
trucks and deal with vendors who are likewise certified.

In exchange for agreeing to these guidelines, reports the Associated
Press, most of the trucks with these registered companies roll over
the border in about 20 seconds, avoiding inspection delays.

The problem is, it isn't working. Among the 10 percent of the trucks
that are checked, authorities have found lots of contraband, including
in one week in April, eight tons of marijuana. Mexican companies have
accounted for half of the 71 security violations over the last two
years, though they make up 6 percent of the registered trucking firms.

Truck drivers are under the gun, literally. Drug smugglers offer them
bribes, and if they don't accept, they might be killed. That's an easy
choice.

This program doesn't need revision. It needs abolition. The companies
that agree to extra scrutiny and to play by the rules may mean well,
but their executives and their lobbyists aren't behind the wheel. They
don't have guns pointed at their heads.

Delay is a small price for the companies to pay in exchange for
protecting drivers, and the extra time and trouble involved is well
worth it to the United States, which is being infiltrated every day by
illicit drugs that destroy lives. Searches of all trucks should be the
order of the day, every day.