Officials: Meth not prevalent in Valley

HARLINGEN — In an upcoming report, the U.S. Justice Department cites high and increasing levels of methamphetamine in the United States because of increased production of the drug in Mexico.

But local law enforcement officials say meth remains at the bottom of the list of narcotics smuggled and distributed through the Rio Grande Valley, and that most of the meth that travels through the Valley is bound for cities farther north, not for local drug users.

The yet-to-be-released National Methamphetamine Threat Assessment, mentioned in several national news reports and leaked this past week to the New York Times, states that meth levels in the U.S. have rebounded to a 5-year high, despite previous declines of the drug since 2006. In the report, the National Drug Intelligence Center blames the spike primarily on large-scale meth production in Mexico, where it says drug traffickers have largely learned how to bypass the Mexican government’s restrictions on importing chemicals used to manufacture the drug.

The Department of Justice had delayed the report partly due to the tensions between the U.S. and Mexico surrounding border politics and the harsh language contained in the report about Mexican efforts to eradicate drug smuggling, the Times report claimed.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracey Schmaler confirmed that the NDIC is still reviewing the report and that it has yet to be officially released to law enforcement agencies. “The Department is working with NDIC on a review process to ensure that accurate and credible information is provided to the public and law enforcement community while continuing to protect sensitive intelligence,” Schmaler said in a statement.

Despite the report’s findings, the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department remains far more
concerned about the prevalence of drugs such as marijuana and cocaine in the Valley than meth.

“From what we’ve gathered here, we have much more of a problem with coke and especially marijuana,” Sheriff Omar Lucio said. Meth smuggling in the Valley seems to occur on a larger scale further west along the border, like in sparsely populated areas between Rio Grande City and Laredo, Lucio said.

But an anomaly last month raised concerns about meth smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border in this part of the Valley.

At the end of May, Cameron County sheriff’s deputies seized almost 30 pounds of meth near Paloma, said Lt. Rick Perez, a lead investigator with the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office’s special investigations and narcotics unit. Perez gave the drugs, which most likely originated in Mexico, an estimated value of around $2 million.

Lucio called it one of the largest meth busts in the county’s history.
Still, it’s unclear whether the large bust was part of a new trend or due to an increase in county enforcement and narcotics investigators. Perez stated that total drug busts in Cameron County have “gone through the roof” over the past several years — referring mostly to marijuana and cocaine seizures. Again, it’s difficult to determine whether those busts are due to increased production in Mexico or increased law enforcement along the border, Perez said.

Any meth that does make it across the border, Lucio said, will likely move up north, with the Valley acting as a sort of way station for the illicit drug.

“We don’t see it a lot here, you see, because if it makes it across it’s quickly moved north,” he said.

Willacy County Sheriff Larry Spence said that while his department has experienced a slight increase in meth cases, “We haven’t really seen any major jump.” Marijuana and cocaine arrests are more than double the amount of meth cases in Willacy County, Spence said. “We still haven’t experienced large numbers of those kinds of arrests,” Spence said.

Harlingen Police Sgt. Mike Garcia, head of the department’s special investigations and narcotics unit, also said, “We haven’t seen much meth moving here though Harlingen.”
Joe Treviño, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, said that in looking at 2009 narcotics seizures made by Valley Border Patrol agents, meth levels pale in comparison to cocaine and marijuana. While Valley Border Patrol agents seized more than 4,600 pounds of cocaine and more than 85,000 pounds of marijuana in 2009, roughly 400 pounds of meth were seized during that same time.

“I would say it’s at the bottom of the barrel,” he said. “It’s probably one of the ones that we see least.”