The hills on the Arizona border with Mexico are steep and rough as Paul Estrada rides along the fence, watching for drug and human traffickers. In just a months time, Estrada and his associates on the border could face a new hurdle: legal marijuana. Five states will vote Nov. 8 on whether to permit recreational marijuana, including Arizona and California, the first two border states to consider the idea. In cities such as Nogales, traffickers are seen almost on a daily basis prowling the border with backpacks full of marijuana.
Carlos Alfaro, the deputy managing the campaign for Proposition 205, has said that legalization in other states has already led to a decline in marijuana seizures by the Border Patrol. In the Tucson sector, at one point was, in fact, the busiest trafficking passage in the nation, seizures dropped by 28 percent, according to Border Patrol statistics. The Border Patrol apprehended close to 800,000 pounds this past fiscal year in the state. Another 120,000 pounds was seized when someone tried to cross the border within the Tucson sector. Customs officers confiscated more than 4,100 pounds of meth and 863 pounds of heroin at Tucson sector border crossings this past fiscal year.
As marijuana becomes legal in more places, the cartels “are seeking to increase market share in other controlled substances, notably heroin, and methamphetamine,” Tucson Sector Chief Paul Beeson said in a written statement. For now, marijuana remains the primary drug seized on the border, Beeson said. All around the border, cartels hire lookouts who sit atop hills and mountains, watching for law enforcement activity. Most recently, smugglers have turned to homemade cannons to launch giant loads of marijuana over the border fence.
A few weeks ago, authorities near the border found a 6-foot plastic-wrapped cylinder filled with 110 pounds of pot after hearing a loud boom, Milstead said. The areas roads and highways are also protected with Border Patrol checkpoints, where agents look for drugs and traffickers. Border Patrol agents at checkpoints would seize marijuana from anyone who had it regardless of its legal status in the state, a spokesman said.
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