SOME DRUG FOIBLES OF SOUTH TEXAS, A USER'S GUIDE

By Juan Montoya

Some readers of this blog remember the story of the Superfly II boat captured off the Gulf Coast by the Coast Guard whose 37 tons of red-bud Colombian pot ended up in the hands of local smokers (and dealers) after a sudden rainstorm doused the diesel-fueled flames lit by law enforcement to destroy the cache.

What follows are short snippets of local drug lore handed down through the years by local heads.

The Smoke That Shouldn't Have Been There

In the heyday of the Brownsville Herald's grudge match against then-Cameron County Judge Ray Ramon, editor Bill Salter depended on reporter David Crowder to deliver the goods to expose the foibles of the Ramon administration.

The coverage in the then-afternoon paper usually featured multiple photos of Ramon and Pct. 3 commissioner Dolph Thomae going at it tooth and nail. The readers ate it up.

Salter was delighted and gave copy editor Don Duncan a free hand in laying out the blow-by-blow accounts.

One day Crowder wanted to relieve some of the stress of being a point man for the feud between Salter and Ramon and invited me to go to Garcia's in Matamoros to have dinner. I accepted and we took off.

After the food, drink and music we came back at a decent hour (about 10 p.m.) and waited in line to go through customs. We were both talking when we approached the Customs officer and for once he asked David to open his trunk.

We both stepped out (you could do that back then) and Crowder opened his trunk. The Customs officer moved a few items around the trunk and pulled on a folded newspaper. Out popped a small clear baggie with a small amount of marijuana.

"What's this?" asked the officer.
Crowder, his face red,stammered, "That's not supposed to be there."

The officer looked at straight-laced Crowder and asked him where he worked.
"At the Herald," David replied.

The officer shook his head and told him,"Get out of here."

And as Don Pedro said, out we went.

La Abuela Gets Busted at Gateway
A friend of mine was hurrying on his way to the Gateway Bridge after he was called and told that his grandma had been detained at the bridge. Although the officers wouldn't tell him why, they asked that someone come to straighten out a problem.

We were at the Palm Lounge and he said he'd be back after he took care of the problem. He returned about a half an hour later with a smile on his face.
"Everything alright?" we asked.
"Yeah," he said. "But you're not going to believe this."

It seemed that his 83-year-old grandma had gone to visit relatives and buy some prescriptions in Matamoros. Like most people her age, she suffered constantly from arthritis and the normal maladies of an advanced age.
"Did she have some sort of prescription drug that she wasn't supposed to have on her?" we probed.
"No," he said. "Let me tell you what happened."

It seemed that as soon as the car his grandma was riding got to the checkpoint vestibule, the dogs were alerted to some sort of contraband in the vehicle. Suspicious, the officers at the bridge directed them to a secondary inspection. Then the dogs really went wild. They jumped and barked around the passenger side where his granny had been sitting and wouldn't budge.

"There's something here," the officer had charged. "Tell me now so we won't have to take the car apart."
"Yo no se," the old lady replied. "Let me call my grandson."

And so our friend arrived to find his grandma worried sick wringing her hands with the sniffer dogs crowded around her.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"We want to know where the stuff is and she says you might know," said the officer.
"What stuff?" our friend had asked.
"You know what I'm talking about," the officer said. "Don't make us take the car apart or we will."

Looking at the dogs sniffing around his worried grandma, it suddenly dawned on our friend and he started laughing.
"What are you laughing about," the officer shouted. "This is no laughing matter."
"I gave my grandma a mixture of alcohol with a little marijuana to rub on her arthritic hands to ease the pain and allow her to move her fingers," my friend explained. "It's an old Mexican folk remedy. That's what's setting off you dogs. She doesn't have any drugs."

"Te untastes el remedio pa las riumas antes que te fueras al otro lado, abuela?"
"Si, mijo," she answered demurely.
"You see, man?'' our friend had told the officer. "My grandma don't have no drugs."

Disgusted, the customs officer walked away and dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

"You're lucky I don't take you in for contributing to her delinquency," he said over his shoulder as he tugged his sniffer dog away.

Sanchez and the Green Mangoes

Andres Sanchez (not his real name) was a native of Tamaulipas, Mexico whose dad was an accountant for PEMEX and took part in the 1938 seizing and nationalization of petroleum installations in Madero. For his service to the nation, his father was given a home owned by a former foreign oil comany administrator in the swanky Aguila Negra neighborhood in Tampico by the federal government.

As a young man, Sanchez never lacked for anything and got to know the upper crust of Mexico's petroleum hierarchy in PEMEX. He became a sort of educated bohemian and bon vivant traveling up and down the country and hanging out with the rich folk.

It came to pass that in the 1970s Andres and his family and his elderly mother moved into the Brownsville Country Club.

Well known to the movers and the shakers in the political and business arenas, Andres soon settled down into a life of a country club squire. His evenings, when he wasn't out rubbing elbows with smugglers and politicians, consisted of dressing up in his silk night gown playing on his electronic chess game, drinking fine cognac, and snorting an occasional toot after the family had gone to bed.

It happened during one of those nights that after he had used a dinner plate to cut up his coke he went back to his chess game. After about an hour, he heard a knock on the door. It was his elderly mother.
"Andres, something's wrong with me," she said nervously.
"What's the matter, mama?" he answered alarmed.

"I am real nervous and I can't go to sleep," she said. "Tengo palpitaciones. I think I may need to go see a doctor."
Andres asked her whether she may be having an allergic reaction to something she had eaten.
"All I ate before I went to bed was green mangoes with lemon and salt," she said. "But I always eat that."

Jorge went to the kitchen and saw the remnants of her mother's snack. Then it hit him. She had used the same plate that he had used to cut his cocaine!
"You'll be alright mother," he assured her. "The mango was probably too green. Try to go to bed."

He knew that if he took his mother to the doctor a blood test would have alerted the physician to the cocaine in her system.

"I had to walk her around for about an hour before she calmed down," he said. "I never did that at home again."