Madrid area resident Sylvia Stanley says Region III officers intimidated her in order to gain consent to search her home.
Credits: Alexa Schirtzinger
Marijuana seizures across New Mexico have declined by approximately 18 percent since 2007, according to the DOJ survey, largely due to violence in northern Mexico, which has stunted the flow of narcotics through major border crossings such as Ciudad Juárez. But in Santa Fe County—despite a hefty chunk of stimulus funding for the Region III Task Force—they dropped by a whopping 90 percent.
That figure may illustrate a focus on what the DOJ considers Santa Fe County’s greatest drug threat: cocaine. According to Santa Fe Police Chief Aric Wheeler, most of the city’s major narcotics cases involve cocaine, not marijuana.
But Martinez says marijuana is still a priority—particularly in Madrid.
“There’s quite a few grows out there,” Martinez says. “Attribute it to the demographics or the culture out there, but marijuana is illegal.”
And as Santa Fe County Sheriff Robert Garcia sees it, law enforcement has an obligation to enforce that reality.
“We have to enforce it at every encounter,” Garcia says. “We just can’t pay attention to what’s coming in from Mexico or California. If it’s happening here, we have to address it.”
To achieve that, he says, Region III’s expertise is crucial.
“If we had to do it on our own, internally—what is done with other agencies in the operations of the Region—we wouldn’t be able to make a dent on the illegal drug problem,” Garcia tells SFR.
Since a federal indictment of its two main narcotics officers in 2007 and the subsequent dissolution of its Narcotics Division, the city, too, has relied on Region III for expertise, Wheeler says—and not just in narcotics cases.
“These catalytic converters that we’ve been having problems with,” Wheeler says, referring to a spate of property crimes in which catalytic converters were stolen out of parked cars. “What’s the whole purpose of stealing these catalytic converters? It’s the value that they bring when you go and sell them. What is that money being used for? I think it’s pretty clear to all of us that there’s a substance abuse problem,” Wheeler says.
But Region III provides more than investigative support, he says. It also comes with deep-pocketed federal grant programs.
“When we start talking about, ‘Why are you a member of the Region?’—there’s a lot of federal funding that’s provided to us to deal with narcotics trafficking that we wouldn’t be privy to if we weren’t a member of the Region,” Wheeler says.
But to Tracy Velázquez, the executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank dedicated to promoting prevention and treatment instead of incarceration, the benefits of that funding are dubious.
Forty percent of the stimulus funding for one of the two major grants that funds Region III, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne-JAG, for short) went to law enforcement programs, Velázquez notes.
Comparatively little—approximately 16 percent—went to prevention and treatment programs.
“With crime being down, as it has been for a number of years, additional law enforcement resources means that law enforcement has to spend time on lower-level offendants and really [look] for ways to spend the money,” Velázquez says. “It’s a matter of, ‘We have all these resources; we have to find ways to use them.’”
The upshot, Velázquez says, is that more people end up in the criminal justice system. According to the New Mexico Army National Guard, drug-related arrests in missions on which the Guard cooperated have almost doubled statewide, from 442 in fiscal year 2006 to 880 in 2010.
Madrid residents say the helicopter flyovers frighten livestock and pets—as well as their owners. Note the helicopter in the backround of this shot of a horse burying its head in a tree.
Credits: Photo Courtesy of Marianna Hatten
Academic reports support her assertion.
A 2006 study by researchers at the Indiana University Center for Urban Policy and the Environment, for instance, found that Byrne-JAG programs dedicated to prevention and treatment generally did more to improve public safety than did gang and drug task forces such as Region III.
Velázquez says states have considerable flexibility in choosing how to allocate their Byrne-JAG grants—and though Wheeler says he believes Region III has done “an extremely effective job” of reducing narcotics crime, he’s open to the idea of using those resources for proven prevention and treatment programs.
“Prevention, education, rehabilitation makes our job easier in the long run,” Wheeler says. “I have no problem with us evaluating what that funding is going to go towards. But I want to make sure that I’m going to dedicate it into a fund that’s going to show me some results from the law enforcement perspective.”
He stops short of undermining his own livelihood.
“If you don’t have the Region out there identifying who the drug users, who the drug sellers are,” Wheeler says, “then you can never get to the next phase of rehabilitation.”
Region III’s recipients have plenty to say about the value of the task force, and they are supposed to keep records of their missions. These records are either sparse, incomplete or, in some cases, nonexistent.
I also was harassed by the men in black. They approached me saying that the helicopter had spotted "marijuana plants growing taller than my house roof". An absurd statement. I invited them up to see. There was nothing. They said "it must have been new sage growth". I think that the probable cause helicopter sightings were scripted before the choppers even arrived in Madrid! That's just wrong!!!
These helipcopters flew ALL DAY at unsafe low levels throughout the area, scaring residents and scaring off tourists, the primary source of revenue for the area (it is the Scenic Turquoise Trail, after all). I had a pilot look at one of the photos I took and he estimated that these helicopters were only about 150 feet or less above the ground - often near power lines and in canyons. None of the helicopters were marked with identifying information - which is required by the FAA - I was later told from the FAA that they had no jurisdiction over the public safety issue if it was a government maneuver! This seems to amount to a blanket search and seizure approach for all residents in the area - not to mention detroying our quiet enjoyment and privacy of our private propeerty - just to yield a few pot plants and no arrests or convictions. This blanket search and seizure does not seem legal and I wish there was a way to challenge it. Thank you for publishing this article.
It asks "How many pot plants does it take to justify a war on drugs"? From my perspective ONE.It is illegal by the law...does it need to be a war? well,no but if you let one go then it is two,three etc. They just need to legalize it and be done with this. Probably put the drug cartels out of business to.
Actually, Carol, there are many NM residents who can, quite legally, grow cannabis plants- medical cannabis patients with proiper State clearance.
What the task force observers aqre looking for is a color, a shape, an area cleared for cultivation- try spotting that from 400 feet above the ground in a moving aircraft. At the Montessori school, tomato plants were mistaken for cannabis. Other than the embarrasment of the poor sap who made the mistake, the kids on the ground were arguably endangered by the flyover- helicopters have extreme difficulty surviving engine failure at the low airspeed/ altitude in these operations- if an engine failure occurred, the ship would "land" in an area approximately below it's location, usually catastrophically, potentially very messy with thrown parts, rotor blades, etc.
Yes, illegal cultivation is -illegal, but under New Mexico LAW, potentially 3200 people can grow cannabis legally. The use of dangerous aircraft flyovers to check out plats with similar color or shape, from 400 feet above ground, and maybe catch someone illegally growing, while bothering those on the ground, begs a risk/ "reward" question-
is it worth endangering the lives of those on the ground who are going about their lives to maybe arrest someone illegally growing what can be LEGALLY GROWN UNDER NEW MEXICO LAW?????
And kicking in doors, bullying consent to search, tresspassing because they saw a familiar color, the way you really want to live? I'd rather see my TAX MONEY go to education or treatment rather than dangerous, noisy flyovers that have mixed results, trample Fourth Amendment RIGHTS of citizens, and endanger the cops, residents and harrass law abiding citizens.
In case you're wondering, I spent over 20 years in the War on Drugs, 25 years flying drug eradication and interdiction missions, have spotted cannabis growing- one plant in a Louisiana swamp, more in other places, and lost three- friends in drug- war aircraft crashed the year I retired.
It isn't worth it- we've militarized law enforcement and spent (wasted) billions of dollars- cannabis is legal for qualified medical users in 15 states. The War on Drugs has failed. It has, however, disenfranchised millions of voters for something that someone with a bit more money can fight, thereby preserving their college loan eligibilty, job prospects, future professional licensing, .......... while those who cannot fight the drug charge get jailed, have their future employability wrecked, all for the same thing- simple posession.
IF you want to live in a country whose growth industry is private prisons, who jails 10% of Black males, and insists on maintaining this immoral, dual system where the wealthy wink and get their wrists slapped for powder cocaine possession while the less fortunate use crack and get 10x the sentence, and do the time, and make sure minorities can't vote since they did time, the War on Drugs is ready- made for you. If you like drug testing because it makes you feel good, think about all the folks who are still half- drunk at work, or impaired, hungover. Be honest with yourselves, and decide which one is more dangerous in the workplace. I've been run into many times by drunk drivers; cigarettes killed one of my parents, who as a retired state employee, taxpayers covered the medical bills.
No one has ever overdosed on cannabis and the social costs are nil except for those caught up in the legal system. The biggest risk to the rest of us is the lack of tax revenue from street sales.
If cannabis were regulated for adults over 21, and taxed, the benefit to the State would be enormous. The "best" argument the Governor and prohibition advocates have is that cannabis is a "gateway drug", a tenuous claim that lacks scientific merit- it is anecdotal and not backed up by scientific proof. Cannabis remains DEA- scheduled out of a last- gasp effort to keep the money to law enforcement and related cottage industires - drug testing, prisons, etc. and keep Big Pharma happy.
The "Welcome To Madrid" article provided a very extensive accounting of the money and manpower spent to police Santa Fe County in the effort to eradicate marijuana. This is not news. This is the never ending War On Drugs, a very old story, and you didn't tell anybody anything new. The one question that should be asked is, "WHY is marijuana illegal?" This is why...
Congress voted for the illegality of marijuana in 1937 because it would have injured the profits of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper baron. Invented in 1935, the Decorticator, was the scientific breakthrough that would cheaply process hemp into paper. The devise was unveiled on the front cover of the June 1935 issue of Modern Invention as the "miracle machine" and hemp was forecast as "America's first billion dollar crop." In over 70 years since the criminalization of marijuana most people are entirely unaware that hemp was once an integral commodity that helped build this nation. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are penned upon hemp paper. The sails of ships, the ropes that hoisted them into place, and the canvas of the covered wagons were made of hemp. The first Levis were woven from this fiber, which was the major crop grown by Washington, Jefferson, and every other farmer who planted this basic staple of existence. However, William Randolph Hearst produced newspapers and was heavily invested in the sulfuric-pulp process that makes trees into paper. He owned forests, too. He supplied his own businesses with paper and sold paper to other companies across the country. This invention had him very worried so he personally began writing propaganda essays in his papers decrying marijuana as a public health menace that turns normal people into ax-wielding mass murderers. Andrew Mellon, much wealthier than Hearst and also an investor in the sulfuric-pulp paper industry, was the Secretary of the Treasury at the time. Mellon was also chairman of the Mellon Bank, which was the main source of finance for DuPont Chemical, which held the patent on the sulfuric acid wood-pulping process. And DuPont had just invented nylon and rayon and they never wanted to see another rope made from hemp ever again. Mellon was instrumental in creating a new government agency called the Bureau of Narcotics and he placed Harry Anslinger, married to Mellon's niece, as its first director. Anslinger testified before Congress, reading actual Hearst-written articles, about how this dangerous weed drives people insane and turns them into violent animals. Doctors and scientist's testimony contradicted Anslinger's when they provided proven studies that marijuana actually causes users to become quite serene and contemplative. Anslinger then reversed his angle of attack completely and said, "Marijuana causes its users to become so peaceful and pacifistic that in the future American boys will not want to fight in our wars." Congress voted and marijuana has been illegal ever since. The former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, once said... "If you're smoking pot the only thing you're likely to attack is a bag of potato chips." In over 80% of violent crimes, alcohol abuse is a primary ingredient. And here's a bit more info regarding this pulp-sulfide paper making process.... the amount of fiber harvested from one acre of hemp, which takes only one season to grow, is equal to the amount harvested from five acres of trees that take 50 or more years to grow. The sulfide-pulp process is one of the leading contributors to our green-house atmosphere and acid rain problems, while the Decorticator hemp-process adds nothing at all. It is long past time that we legalize hemp, we legalize marijuana, and get over this ridiculous policy that has created half the population of our jails. More than half of the people jailed in America are there because of non-violent drug use and/or sales.
As a local to the Madrid/Cerrillos area, one of the things that has surprised me the most regarding these yearly missions is what appears to be a complete lack of continuity in "intellegence" from year to year. I live in a tiny cabin where nothing ever changes, yet every year the helicopters buzz back and forth totalling probably a half hour each year spent hovering or passing over my residence, often flying so low that I could hit them with a rock. Neighboring proximity to anything that has ever happened near me should not deem me as a yearly suspect, but that seems to be the case.
In regards to law enforcement statements that they do not enter property illegally or without probable cause, during 2006's mission I woke to a helicopter circling my cabin, literally shaking the whole structure. It would fly away for a few minutes and come back and at one point I stepped out onto the porch, made eye contact with a passenger and waved. I watched the copter land on a piece of property some distance from mine, and 15 minutes later had three armed and tactical gear wearing individuals come marching down my driveway. I stepped out, told them good morning, and got absolutely no response or acknowledgement from them. They marched right past me, briefly examined a dilapilated shed filled with junk left by previous occupants that sits behind my cabin, and off they marched. I assume they considered my shed probable cause to approach like they did even though it's door was already wide open and hanging from one hinge, and should have been obvious as junk from their hovering altitude as the individuals in the helicopter were to me from the ground. Two years ago I removed the roof of the shed to make the junk plain as day, but that seems to only have succeeded in assuring good money has been spent each year since hovering over a completely obvious pile of junk.