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  White House Says Counterterrorism Aiding Drug War
Posted by FoM on March 06, 2002 at 07:19:09 PT
By Wayne Washington & Anne E. Kornblut 
Source: Boston Globe 

justice Bush administration officials have concluded that the same walls erected to keep terrorists out of the country and off commercial airplanes could also stem the steady flow of illegal drugs into the United States.

In the weeks after Sept. 11, concern was expressed in the capital that the nation's fitful war on drugs would be overlooked or forgotten as the government focused on preventing terrorism.

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Asa Hutchinson, said in November that the FBI had shifted agents from drug investigations to counterterrorism.

More recently, some administration officials have come to believe that beefed-up border patrols and airport security measures can have the side benefits of catching more drug shipments or deterring traffickers.

''As tragic as Sept. 11 was, at the end of the day, we will forge partnerships and reexamine the way in which we do things to benefit both venues: terrorism and drug control,'' said Kurt Schmid, a senior drug policy analyst at the White House.

''We try to put up a net at the border,'' said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the US Customs Service. ''Whatever type of criminal falls into that net - a terrorist, a drug trafficker, someone trying to smuggle in illegal wildlife - we're happy to take them. When you enhance your inspections, it's pretty much a given that you're going to catch more of all.''

So far, the evidence on whether more drugs have been falling into the tightened counterterrorism net is mixed.

Both the Customs Service and the US Border Patrol reported that they seized more marijuana between September 2001 and the end of December compared with the same four months a year before. Customs agents seized nearly 20 percent more, and border guards, 15 percent more.

Customs agents also confiscated more than twice as much heroin and almost 60 percent more cocaine, but the Border Patrol seized about two-thirds less heroin and a quarter less cocaine.

Updated information about street prices, which could be affected by diminished supplies of drugs, is not available. But anecdotal evidence from casual users of marijuana suggests at least that the drug has become scarcer and more expensive in New York and Boston.

Along the border with Mexico, federal, state, and local officials reported a sharp drop in the amount of cocaine seized and smaller declines in the heroin and marijuana intercepted during the same period.

Federal drug policy specialists say those decreases may be because traffickers were wary of attempting to have drugs smuggled into the United States immediately after Sept. 11. Traffickers knew they had enough drugs in the US market to allow them to wait out the expected increase in border security, the specialists say.

But as traffickers have run out of patience - and as the amount of their product in the United States has dwindled - seizures have begun to rise, federal officials say.

''Our seizure numbers... exceed previous rates,'' Boyd said last month. Traffickers ''have people they need to pay; at some point, they've got to start moving their product again.''

With the attention being paid to the southwest border, New England could see an increase in drug trafficking, federal officials say.

'' As narcotics traffickers view obstructions to their patterns, they will take other avenues, and a part of that includes perhaps shipping it across the borders to less restrictive areas. And that's one potential danger to New England,'' Schmid said.

The North Atlantic Customs Management Center, which covers New England, reported that customs officials made three cocaine seizures during the first quarter of this fiscal year. That's one more than was made in the first quarter last year. There were three more hashish seizures and nine more marijuana seizures.

Not all administration officials agree that trying to stop drugs at the border is the best strategy. John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, dissents.

''The most important thing in this area is intelligence and information-sharing with other governments and within US agencies,'' Walters said. ''If you stand on the border and try to stop drugs, ... it's like trying to hit a baseball with a bat when you're blindfolded. You may hit it once in a while, but it's going to be lucky. The key is to see the structures that are bringing the resources toward you and to be able to exploit their vulnerabilities over that course.''

This story ran on page A17 of the Boston Globe on 3/6/2002.

Note: Traffickers may seek N.E. routes, analysts caution.

Complete Title: White House Says Counterterrorism Tactics Aiding Drug War

Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Author: Wayne Washington and Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff
Published: March 6, 2002
Copyright: 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
Contact: letter@globe.com
Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/

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http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12163.shtml

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http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11645.shtml


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Comment #3 posted by SoberStoner on March 06, 2002 at 21:13:27 PT:

Sigh..
Yeah yeah..counterterrorism..like those colombian children we spray with roundup so we can get rid of yet another vile plant of God's creation? Or wait..what that an anti-drug op? Hell i get so confused anymore, why dont you just tell us stupid little american's what to think and we'll smile and say we dont care, as long as it's not happening to us.

What happened to this country?

It used to be people spoke out about the lies we see everyday. Now people just expect it. I stated reading 1984 for the first time a few days ago...i get more scared with each page because i see passages that make me think of things i see happening all around me today. Orwell wasnt wrong, he was just off by 20 years.

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Comment #2 posted by freddybigbee on March 06, 2002 at 09:52:46 PT:

Interdiction
What a waste of money. Tax money. Our money. Money that could be spent on roads, bridges, parks, etc etc.

How does a bouncing baby boy go on to become a narc or a drug-warrier politician? I guess school-yard bullies need jobs too.

What a cultural wasteland the US has become, to foster such sick evil people.

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Comment #1 posted by MikeEEEEE on March 06, 2002 at 08:04:01 PT
Getting around walls
Expect more tunnels.

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