Post by blackcrowheart on Jan 19, 2006 15:41:23 GMT -5
Caught up in the drug trade
Arizona reservation mired in poverty turns to smuggling
By Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times | January 18, 2006
www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/18/caught_up_in_the
_drug_trade/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+National+News
TUCSON -- The door to the warehouse near the Tucson airport swung
open and a musty-mint odor was instantly recognizable: It was pot.
Lots and lots of pot.
Inside, neatly stacked bales of marijuana stood like faceless chess
pieces -- the evidence from a game of extremes played every day along
the Arizona-Mexico border. Anthony Coulson, the US Drug Enforcement
Agency official in charge there, said as much as 20 percent of the
marijuana brought into Arizona last year was discovered in one
location: the Tohono O'odham reservation, where abject poverty and
the opportunity for a fast buck torment the American Indian nation.
In 2000, according to the DEA, 50,800 pounds of marijuana were seized
on Tohono land. By last year, that figure had soared to 192,225
pounds.
Other authorities put the number higher. More and more Tohono
themselves, meanwhile, have been caught up in the drug trade.
''Young Indians," Coulson said, ''carry it over to drop houses" from
which the pot finds its way to the streets.
Indian tribes in other places have hit the jackpot with a lucrative
gaming trade, but the Tohonos' casino in Tucson has generated little
revenue for the reservation's residents, and 50 percent still live in
poverty, more than 40 percent are unemployed, and misery abounds.
Young people see little in their futures.
Not long ago, Jared Antone, 17, was discovered hanging by a rope from
a horse trailer, apparently having committed suicide. In Jared's
bedroom, a candle burned on the floor. ''We took the bed out to let
the spirits escape," his aunt, Verna Enos Outside, said near the
horse trailer.
On a map, the Tohono O'odham Nation sits between Tucson and the
Mexican border. The US-Mexico boundary is a thin 70-odd-mile bracelet.
Near the southeastern corner of the reservation are the twin gulches
of Sasabe, United States, and Sasabe, Mexico. A gasoline station and
a stylish port of entry are the main attractions on the Arizona side.
On the Sonora side, a crucifix towers over a migrant's tiny chapel.
Lighted at night, it's a beacon in the desert for another migration
that ebbs and flows. The border in this area is so flimsy and porous
that it defies belief. No wonder illegal immigrants -- many carrying
drugs in burlap sacks as a means of paying for their passage --
stream across.
One spot, called San Miguel Gate, is a 20-foot-wide cattle grate.
There's no door, no lock, no guard, except, that is, for 66-year-old
Olivario Listo Enos. He patrols by himself in his dirty Dodge pickup.
''At night when my hounds bark, or in the day when dust rises in the
south, I grab my guns, jump in my truck and outsmart 'em," he
said. ''A blast or two over the hood and they stop. When they freeze,
I give 'em a choice: 'Your women, your drugs, or your keys.' ''
Smugglers, he said, always leave the keys. Olivario keeps them in a
plastic bag, and on this day he showed off 11 vehicles.
''When the Border Patrol comes, they knife the tires so the smugglers
won't come steal the cars back," he said. ''When the vehicle
department in Tucson declares my cars 'abandoned,' I sell 'em for hay
to feed my cattle and working horses."
Every family, it seems, has been touched by drugs, including some of
the reservation's elite.
In September, Tohono O'odham police stopped a 1996 Chevrolet Lumina
for speeding and discovered six bales of marijuana under a blanket in
the trunk. The driver, Nicholas C. Juan, 39, was arrested and now
awaits trial. He is the brother of Vivian Juan-Saunders, the Tohono
chairwoman. He was not the first member of the chairwoman's family to
be caught running drugs. Her sister, Mary Juan, was arrested in May
1999 by US Customs officials and convicted after they found 15 bales
of marijuana in her car and on her property. She had once been a
tribal judge.
Mary lives on a parcel that has been in the family for four
generations. Standing outside her house, she withheld her reasons for
smuggling. ''It's better not to bring up the past," she said, wiping
a tear from her eye. ''It makes me think it's happening all over
again."
Arizona reservation mired in poverty turns to smuggling
By Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times | January 18, 2006
www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/18/caught_up_in_the
_drug_trade/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+National+News
TUCSON -- The door to the warehouse near the Tucson airport swung
open and a musty-mint odor was instantly recognizable: It was pot.
Lots and lots of pot.
Inside, neatly stacked bales of marijuana stood like faceless chess
pieces -- the evidence from a game of extremes played every day along
the Arizona-Mexico border. Anthony Coulson, the US Drug Enforcement
Agency official in charge there, said as much as 20 percent of the
marijuana brought into Arizona last year was discovered in one
location: the Tohono O'odham reservation, where abject poverty and
the opportunity for a fast buck torment the American Indian nation.
In 2000, according to the DEA, 50,800 pounds of marijuana were seized
on Tohono land. By last year, that figure had soared to 192,225
pounds.
Other authorities put the number higher. More and more Tohono
themselves, meanwhile, have been caught up in the drug trade.
''Young Indians," Coulson said, ''carry it over to drop houses" from
which the pot finds its way to the streets.
Indian tribes in other places have hit the jackpot with a lucrative
gaming trade, but the Tohonos' casino in Tucson has generated little
revenue for the reservation's residents, and 50 percent still live in
poverty, more than 40 percent are unemployed, and misery abounds.
Young people see little in their futures.
Not long ago, Jared Antone, 17, was discovered hanging by a rope from
a horse trailer, apparently having committed suicide. In Jared's
bedroom, a candle burned on the floor. ''We took the bed out to let
the spirits escape," his aunt, Verna Enos Outside, said near the
horse trailer.
On a map, the Tohono O'odham Nation sits between Tucson and the
Mexican border. The US-Mexico boundary is a thin 70-odd-mile bracelet.
Near the southeastern corner of the reservation are the twin gulches
of Sasabe, United States, and Sasabe, Mexico. A gasoline station and
a stylish port of entry are the main attractions on the Arizona side.
On the Sonora side, a crucifix towers over a migrant's tiny chapel.
Lighted at night, it's a beacon in the desert for another migration
that ebbs and flows. The border in this area is so flimsy and porous
that it defies belief. No wonder illegal immigrants -- many carrying
drugs in burlap sacks as a means of paying for their passage --
stream across.
One spot, called San Miguel Gate, is a 20-foot-wide cattle grate.
There's no door, no lock, no guard, except, that is, for 66-year-old
Olivario Listo Enos. He patrols by himself in his dirty Dodge pickup.
''At night when my hounds bark, or in the day when dust rises in the
south, I grab my guns, jump in my truck and outsmart 'em," he
said. ''A blast or two over the hood and they stop. When they freeze,
I give 'em a choice: 'Your women, your drugs, or your keys.' ''
Smugglers, he said, always leave the keys. Olivario keeps them in a
plastic bag, and on this day he showed off 11 vehicles.
''When the Border Patrol comes, they knife the tires so the smugglers
won't come steal the cars back," he said. ''When the vehicle
department in Tucson declares my cars 'abandoned,' I sell 'em for hay
to feed my cattle and working horses."
Every family, it seems, has been touched by drugs, including some of
the reservation's elite.
In September, Tohono O'odham police stopped a 1996 Chevrolet Lumina
for speeding and discovered six bales of marijuana under a blanket in
the trunk. The driver, Nicholas C. Juan, 39, was arrested and now
awaits trial. He is the brother of Vivian Juan-Saunders, the Tohono
chairwoman. He was not the first member of the chairwoman's family to
be caught running drugs. Her sister, Mary Juan, was arrested in May
1999 by US Customs officials and convicted after they found 15 bales
of marijuana in her car and on her property. She had once been a
tribal judge.
Mary lives on a parcel that has been in the family for four
generations. Standing outside her house, she withheld her reasons for
smuggling. ''It's better not to bring up the past," she said, wiping
a tear from her eye. ''It makes me think it's happening all over
again."