Pubdate: Sun, 16 Dec 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: National
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
un, 16 Dec 2001
Source: The New York Times
Author: Fox Butterfield

DRUG SEIZURES HAVE SURGED AT THE BORDERS

Heightened security after the Sept. 11 attacks has had a major side effect: 
seizures of illegal drugs along the nation's borders and at its ports of 
entry increased substantially in October and November over the 
corresponding period a year ago, law enforcement authorities say.

The greatest increase, 326 percent, was in seizures from commercial traffic 
along the Canadian border. But the overall figure was also large: the 
amount of drugs seized from commercial traffic -- that is, from trucks, 
ships and planes -- at all borders and ports was up 66 percent, the Customs 
Service says.

Experts have no clear evidence that the increased seizures have created a 
shortage of drugs on the street or raised their price there.

And although Afghanistan has been the producer of about 75 percent of the 
world's heroin, most of it going to Western Europe, it is far too early to 
determine what effect the war against the Taliban or its outcome will have 
on drug supply.

But the commissioner of the Customs Service, Robert C. Bonner, said, "There 
has been a definite unintended consequence of the effort against terror: we 
are doing a better job of keeping illegal drugs out of the United States."

Seizures initially dropped after Sept. 11 as drug traffickers slowed 
shipments, apparently to gauge what would happen as customs inspectors went 
on highest alert. The decline was very short-lived, however. The total 
amount of drugs seized by the Customs Service at borders and ports, from 
commercial traffic and noncommercial alike, jumped 30 percent in October 
from the same month last year.

At the same time, heightened antiterrorism patrols forced the Coast Guard 
to pull back most of the ships and planes it had been using for antidrug 
operations in the Caribbean and the Pacific and assign them to areas closer 
to the coast, a step that brought a drop in its drug seizures. From Sept. 
11 to Nov. 30, the Coast Guard seized 10,600 pounds of cocaine, for 
example, compared with 30,122 pounds in the same period a year ago, and 480 
pounds of marijuana, compared with 7,500 pounds, a spokesman said.

"We recognize that there is a challenge for us in doing both homeland 
security and drug patrols," said the spokesman, Capt. Mike Lapinski, "so 
we've started to push the borders back out and interdict the seas again in 
the drug transit areas. We're almost back to pre-9/11."

The Coast Guard has been able to do this by putting its own detachments on 
Navy ships. In the last few weeks, Captain Lapinski said, these joint 
patrols have led to the seizure of two sizable shipments of drugs on 
vessels off the Pacific coast of Central America.

In New York, meanwhile, seizures of narcotics and of drug money are both 
up, said Bridget G. Brennan, the city's special narcotics prosecutor.

Given tighter security at airports and increased scrutiny of money 
laundering since Sept. 11, drug traffickers "haven't been able to move 
money in bulk or do it by wire transfers as easily," Ms. Brennan said.

As a result, she said, "our money seizures in connection with drug 
trafficking are really up," to $4.2 million for Sept. 11 to Dec. 10, 
compared with $600,000 in the corresponding three months last year.

As for the drugs themselves, Ms. Brennan said she had initially believed 
that heightened security would make traffickers reluctant to bring them 
into New York. But "that hasn't been true," she said. From Sept. 11 to Dec. 
10, her office seized 1,679 pounds of cocaine, up from 1,082 pounds in the 
corresponding period last year; 725 pounds of marijuana, compared with a 
pound and a half; and 302,000 Ecstasy pills, compared with 1,011.

Law enforcement officials are uncertain whether the increase in seizures 
means only that they are intercepting a larger proportion of the narcotics 
being smuggled into the United States, or whether the traffickers are 
themselves contributing to the trend by increasing the number or size of 
their shipments as a way of overwhelming the tighter security.

"It could be either, or both," said Joe Keefe, chief of operations for the 
Drug Enforcement Administration. "It's too early to tell."

Mr. Keefe said he had not yet seen any evidence that major drug producers 
in Colombia had increased their production since Sept. 11. He also said he 
had not heard of any significant shortages of drugs on the street, or of 
major changes in prices. But because drug dealers often maintain large 
stockpiles, it can take months for a drop in supply from abroad to be 
reflected in higher street prices.

Two academic experts who study drug dealing and drug use agreed that street 
prices had not changed. They are Rick Curtis, chairman of the anthropology 
department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in New York, and Mike 
Agar, a senior research scientist with Friends Research International, of 
Baltimore.

Agreement came as well from Gil Kerlikowske, the police chief in Seattle. 
Chief Kerlikowske said the steady prices in his city, at a time when 
tighter security along the nearby Canadian border had resulted in increased 
seizures of drugs, suggested to him that "estimates of what is coming into 
the country may have been wrong and that far more drugs were coming in than 
we were aware of."

Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy studies at the University of 
California at Los Angeles, said there were so many conflicting factors 
resulting from the Sept. 11 attacks that "I don't think anyone can guess 
what the long-term effect will be" on drugs.

While the Customs Service has increased its searches at the borders, for 
example, police officers in many cities have been diverted from antidrug 
operations to helping the F.B.I.'s push against terrorism.
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MAP posted-by: Beth