Along the 350-mile, mostly inhospitable Arizona/Mexico border, border agents and social workers struggle against the long-time war on drugs. 

“Our primary problem is meth and marijuana,” said Tombstone Marshal Merlin Jay Smith.  

Methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana are the dominant drugs passing through the southern border.  According to the Drug Enforcement Agency website, in 2007 there were 4,842 pounds of cocaine, 732 pounds of methamphetamine and about 945 million pounds of marijuana seized by federal agents.

“We just had an arrest yesterday afternoon,” Smith said. 

One of the deputies pulled over a vehicle with 53 bundles of marijuana, he said. The deputy then called Border Patrol to bring a canine unit to sniff out the drugs.

The Tucson Border Patrol has seen a slight decrease in the flow of drugs and drug smugglers in Southern Arizona. 

This year, the Tucson sector seized 816,402 pounds of marijuana— an 8 percent decrease from last year, said Mike Scioli, Tucson Border Patrol public affairs agent. 

This small decrease is inconsistent with the steady increase seen in the state of Arizona. From 2006 to 2007 the influx of marijuana increased about 21 percent, according to DEA data.

The reduction is due to deputies concentrating on the people they know are involved with drugs, Smith said. 

Marijuana is easily grown in the warm Mexican climate, making the border a hotspot for drug smugglers, Scioli said. 

Temporary checkpoints, like the one on Highway 80 north of town, have aided in Border Patrol efforts in catching drug smugglers.  

This year the Tucson Sector arrested more than 200 U.S. citizens through checkpoints, many for drug smuggling or previous warrants. 

The I-19 checkpoint is one of the busiest for Border Patrol, and accounts for all of the cocaine and methamphetamine seized for the Tucson sector. This year, there were 266 pounds of cocaine and 24 pounds of methamphetamine seized.

“That’s a big bite of the sandwich right there,” Scioli said.

The checkpoint is placed in the main route running north to south from Mexico for drug smugglers, Scioli said.

The most common type of meth smuggled through the southern Arizona border is the Mexican produced meth, according to the U.S. Federal-Wide Drug Seizure System (FDSS). 

In 1994, Mexican drug trafficking began to take over the production and distribution of meth domestically. The operation of super-labs, which were laboratories capable of producing 10 pounds of meth in a 24-hour period, were the catalyst in the popularization of Mexican produced meth. 

Although the number of meth lab incidents has slowly decreased from 119 labs in 2003 to just eight in 2007 in Arizona, it has left space for more meth labs to be located across the border. 

Cocaine is another major drug playing a large part in border drug smuggling.

Roughly 65 percent of cocaine smuggled into the United States crosses the southwest border, according to the DEA.

The major portions of cocaine are received from Columbia by air, land and sea to controlled regions in Mexico. The Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas are major transshipment points for cocaine distribution.