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Drug Availability in High Schools in a Border Town: A Case Study Pertinent to Federal Drug Interdiction and Border Security Operations

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Abstract

Over the past couple of decades, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars on the “war on drugs”, with a sizeable portion of the funds going to interdiction efforts along the U.S.–Mexico border. The focus on interdiction is based on the thesis that one of the best means of curbing illegal drug use is to prevent illegal drugs from entering the country. As a means of examining the efficacy of drug interdiction operations, this paper provides an analysis of data on the availability of drugs in high schools in a border town; data which were gathered from a survey of high school students who reside in one of the most heavily fortified regions along the U.S.–Mexico border. The majority of students reported that it is easy to purchase marijuana, cocaine, and rohypnol in the schools; findings which suggest the escalation of interdiction efforts along the border has failed to halt the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S.

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Notes

  1. A point which may be of interest to readers interested in law enforcement history, the Border Guard division of the Bureau of Immigration (the predecessor to the Immigration and Naturalization Service) established a station in Brownsville in 1918; more than half a decade before the Border Patrol was created. Once the Border Patrol was created in 1924, the officers of the Border Guard became Border Patrol agents.

  2. For readers interested in border security, it is important to note that, in much the same manner as the U.S. government has established secondary checkpoints roughly 100 miles north of the Rio Grande River, the Mexican government has established secondary checkpoints located approximately 100 miles south of the Rio Grande River (or Rio Bravo as it is commonly known in Mexico) along the major highways to check for immigration papers and assorted contraband. The fundamental difference between the checkpoints appears to be that whereas officials who serve at the secondary checkpoints in the U.S. are concerned about the importation of illicit narcotics into the interior, officials who serve at the secondary checkpoints in Mexico are concerned about the importation of firearms into the interior (for discussion, see Turbiville, 1999).

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their time, energies, and valuable contributions to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Criminal Justice Department, The University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, TX, U.S.A.

    Ben Brown

  2. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Eastern Illinois University, 600 Lincoln Avenue, Charleston, 61920, IL, U.S.A.

    William Reed Benedict

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A preliminary draft of this manuscript was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in Chicago, Illinois, March, 2005.

The U.S. military remained an active presence along the U.S.–Mexico border until the late 1990s when a tragic incident generated enormous public outcry. In May 1997, a U.S. Marine patrol shot and killed an 18-year-old high school student in an isolated area near Redford, Texas. Consequently, military leaders removed combat-ready units from the border and focused on the provision of training and logistic support to federal law enforcement agencies operating along the border.

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Brown, B., Benedict, W. Drug Availability in High Schools in a Border Town: A Case Study Pertinent to Federal Drug Interdiction and Border Security Operations. Secur J 20, 252–266 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.sj.8350027

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