ZEROING IN ON BORDER POT SMUGGLERS

BLAINE, Whatcom County - From the window of a U.S. Customs Service
helicopter, the man in charge of White House drug policy surveys a section
of the world's longest open border, from the sparkling green waters of
Boundary Bay to the clear-cut ridges of the Cascade foothills.

Marijuana smugglers are increasingly likely to turn to these areas as the
government beefs up its staffing at traditional border crossings as part of
the war on terrorism, he said.

The man, John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control
policy, is making it a priority to stop them.

Marijuana - especially the high-potency pot grown in the hydroponic indoor
gardens of British Columbia - is a far greater danger, and far more
addictive, than most Americans realize, he said.

Walters was in Blaine yesterday, the largest northern point of entry west
of Detroit, for briefings with a bevy of law-enforcement agents, including
some from the U.S. Border Patrol, the Immigration and Nationalization
Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Whatcom County Sheriff's
Office.

Customs has about 190 full-time employees working the border in Washington
and is scheduled to receive 81 more, plus two trained in handling drug dogs.

Drug seizures have increased markedly along the Washington border in recent
years. In fiscal 2001, 7,582 pounds of marijuana were seized at the border
in Blaine - nearly twice as much as the year before.

Walters said he wanted to learn what law-enforcement agencies are doing in
the Northwest and to see from the air the terrain and other obstacles they
face. The helicopter's pilot, Mitch Pribble, was eager to show him.

As the helicopter took off from Bellingham International Airport, Pribble
pointed to scores of boats docked at one of the area's many marinas.
Imagine, he said, trying to determine which are legitimate pleasure craft
and which are being used to run drugs. Banking the chopper and heading
inland, he pointed to Lake Whatcom, where a float plane from Canada had
recently been caught landing with 120 pounds of marijuana.

Farther east, over the foothills of the Cascade Range, smugglers have
started using snowmobiles to ferry drugs across the border, he said.

Still, most of the marijuana coming south and cocaine going north crosses
at regular border crossings - much of it in large commercial trucks often
outfitted with fake floors or walls.

"It used to be unheard of to get a 100-pound load. Now a 500-pound load is
not unheard of," Pribble said.

In the winter, one truck stopped at the border had 34 hockey bags totaling
1,475 pounds of pot mixed in with its legitimate cargo, cases of Foster's
beer, said Roy Hoffman, the agent in charge of Customs in Blaine.

Technology, including X-ray machines and drug-residue swabs, has helped
increase the number of busts, authorities said. Thirty-two cameras have
monitored the border between Washington and Canada for about the last year
and a half, and authorities have also placed motion-sensor devices in
remote areas.

Still, having so many drug busts puts a strain on local law enforcement,
Whatcom County Sheriff Dale Brandland said. "My jail's full," with 220
people in a facility fit for 148, he said, adding the overcrowding was due
to drug prosecutions.

Local judges and politicians are starting to talk about easing up on people
convicted of marijuana charges, the sheriff said. Walters replied: "I
regret to hear that. ... I will tell you that during this administration we
are not going to give up."