Why is cannabis dominating drug seizures along the US border?
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According to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in early June, three-quarters of U.S. Border Patrol drug seizures involved marijuana alone.
Analysis of Border Patrol data from 2016 to 2020 found that officers arrested about 35,700 “potentially removable individuals in about 17,500 checkpoint events.”
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“GAO found that most drug seizure cases involved only US citizens (91%), of whom 75% involved seizures of marijuana and no other drugs,” the report states.
Interestingly, half of all marijuana seizures (8,098 out of 16,315) included “marijuana for personal use and no other drugs.”
Meanwhile, the analysis also revealed inconsistencies in the documentation of traces of marijuana seizures, including marijuana residue found on paraphernalia.
The agency’s guidance suggested placing marijuana in a different category from paraphernalia containing small pieces of cannabis. However, GAO found that “1,973 items seized with traces of marijuana” were “misdocumented.”
“Officials at Border Patrol Police Headquarters told us that they typically focus their monitoring of drug seizure data on relatively large seizures, such as 100-pound marijuana seizures at the southwestern border,” the report continues. “As a result, officials acknowledged that false documentation of small amounts of marijuana, such as trace amounts, would likely go undetected by headquarters.”
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On the other hand, the report also showed a significant 56% drop in marijuana seizures at checkpoints over four years, consistent with more states legalizing the plant.
US prosecutors in their sectors do not prosecute those caught with amounts of cannabis for personal use. “In such cases, individuals who have had marijuana seized may (1) be referred to state or local authorities for criminal investigation, or (2) be released,” Border Patrol told GAO.
This article originally appeared on Benzinga and has been republished with permission.
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