From: 76330.3412@CompuServe.COM ("John M. Sulak")
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Nabisco's drug war paraphernalia: 1-800-932-7800
Date: 15 Apr 92 02:27:38 GMT


Voice your opinion to Nabisco Food's Consumer Center 1-800-932-7800
between 9:00 am and 7:30 pm ET Monday through Friday, or at 201-503-3897.

You may want to ask them if they saw ABC's 20/20 story "Beware of I-95" in
1991, or CBS story on 60 Minutes last week (7 April 1992) showing how police
use these dogs to take cash from innocent people. You may want to express
the same feelings to 1-800-BE-ALERT.

*******BEGIN QUOTED ARTICLE**********

Drug-sniffing dogs star on cards

By Philip J. LaVelle
Copley News Service

	SAN DIEGO There's a new breed of San Diego All-Stars on the
national trading-card scene, and we're not talking Benito Santiago 
in fact, we're talking about a bunch of dogs.
	Real ones.
	With names like Snag, Sinbad and Simon, these furry quadrupeds are
the first-stringers in the U.S. Customs Service's war on drugs. From
San Diego to Miami, these sharp-nosed pooches have sniffed out a
combined $12 billion in hidden narcotics booty.
	And starting this month, their smiling dog faces began showing up
nationwide on trading cards stuffed into Milk-Bone Dog Biscuit boxes.
It's all part of a cooperative venture between the doggie treat maker
and the Customs Service.
	"We figure it's great exposure for both Milk-Bone and for the U.S.
Customs drug dogs," said Ann Smith, spokeswoman for Nabisco Foods
Group, parent of Milk-Bone.
	"This is something Nabisco feels strongly about. They believe in
the message that they give to the children," Smith said from
corporate headquarters in Parsippany, N.J.
	The message: a simple Just Say No-style moral, is delivered in a
kind of Lassie vs. the Cartel Lords plot.
	The front of the cards features a photo of the happy-faced, furry
cops.
	On the back: The dog's seizure stats, a number kids can call to
snare suspected smugglers (800-BE-ALERT), and the exhortation to
"STOP DRUG SMUGGLING!"
	Customs began using about a half-dozen dogs in the early 1970s. Now
there are more than 300 dogs in the service many of them rescued
from the pound.
	"We pull 'em off of Death Row and give them a shot," Customs
Service spokesman Steve Duchesne said from Washington, D.C.
	"Many of these are dogs that people don't want any more. However,
they're basically intelligent animals that have incredibly keen
senses."
	Duchesne said the dogs go through a 12-week training program. The
graduates are "highly trained, effective officers," he said. Those
that flunk are put into private homes, and not returned to the pound.
	Of 24 dogs featured nationally, seven are from the San Diego
County-Imperial County region.
	Snag, a 4-year-old Labrador retriever based in San Diego, wagged
his tail into history on Oct. 4, 1990, when he sniffed out 8,705
pounds of Colombian cocaine hidden in a propane gas tanker stopped at
the Otay Mesa border crossing.
	That load worth nearly $784 million was the largest border
seizure in U.S. history.
	Other San Diego star dogs include Sinbad (Labrador retriever mix,
$38.9 million in career seizures); Blow (Labrador mix, $17.3 million);
Simon (golden retriever, $82.5 million); Tia (Labrador, $48.1
million); Tom (Labrador, $40.3 million); and Benny (golden retriever,
$20 million).
	The trading card program began 18 months ago in Dallas, where
Customs dog trainers took their charges on the road to local schools
for "demonstration" visits. The visits ended with trainers handing
out doggie trading cards to students.
	Demand for the cards soon outstripped supply.
	Rather than end up in the doghouse of defeat, the feds began
looking for corporate sponsors for their trading cards, and found a
partner in Milk-Bone. Duchesne said Milk-Bone was the only dog food
manufacturer to take up the service's call for help.
******END OF ARTICLE*********

"If you keep on doing what you've always done,
you'll keep on getting what you've always gotten."
Vote Andre Marrou for President
Vote Nancy Lord for Vice President
vote Libertarian. Call TOLL FREE 1-800-682-1776 for information,
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