Border Patrol checkpoints near Yuma nab hordes of pot users headed back from the beach
Phoenix - News - Border Patrol checkpoints near Yuma nab hordes of pot users headed back from the beach
The Border Patrol has used dogs at its checkpoints for at least two decades, mainly for the purpose of detecting human cargo. But … [s]ince late 2005, though, the number of Yuma Sector agents has risen 55 percent — to about 850 agents, up from 550, as of January. Augmenting those agents are hundreds of National Guard soldiers who are part of a 6,000-troop border-protection plan called Operation Jump Start, ordered by President Bush in mid-2006.The number of K9 dogs also has increased, to more than 30, up from four in 1999. The animals are trained to sniff out hidden human beings, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and meth-related drugs such as Ecstasy.
These days, the checkpoints on eastbound Interstate 8 and northbound Arizona 95 near Yuma (a passageway to the I-10 and I-40 corridors linking Arizona and California) are open 24 hours a day. And with the addition of seven times more K9 dogs, they have become the biggest weed traps in the country.
Strictly in terms of quantity, other checkpoints catch more dope. The Border Patrol is allowed to set up roadblocks as far as 100 miles from any national border, and it operates 33 permanent and numerous other “tactical” or movable checkpoints on the Mexican and Canadian frontiers. In the Southwest, checkpoints are typically found on California’s north-south I-5, numerous small highways near Mexico, such as Arizona’s Highway 86, and along I-10 between Tucson and El Paso, Texas. The Border Patrol sometimes puts up movable checkpoints on I-10 between Phoenix and Los Angeles, but it’s rare to encounter one.
Drug-sniffing dogs at some of the checkpoints, especially the ones south of Tucson and through Texas, find literally tons of marijuana being smuggled from Mexico.
But the Border Patrol and other law enforcement officials in the Southwest report that no checkpoints in the United States bust as many small-time marijuana users as the ones near Yuma, on I-8 and Arizona 95.
The Supreme Court ruled that roadside drug checkpoint are unconstitutional, so the prohibitionists are getting around that by using these so-called immigration checkpoints. So now in the United States, if you’re within one hundred miles of the Canadian or Mexican border, you’d better be careful driving around with any weed in your car. Isn’t it good to know that your taxpayer dollars are diverted to placing National Guard and Border Patrol cops on the freeways to stop vacationing tokers with a small baggie of pot?
Tags: Arizona, immigration checkpoints
