SAPD seizes edible pot products at train station

Investigators see uptick in products coming from west coast

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police seized a shipment of marijuana and edible marijuana products at an East Side train station Monday evening.

The shipment was intercepted at the downtown Amtrak Station by an SAPD interdiction unit.

"We're trying to intercept narcotics and contraband that's coming through the city or sometimes ending up in the city of San Antonio," said Sgt Javier Salazar. "Some of our detectives that are specially trained in this type of recognition and interdiction of these kinds of drugs interdicted this."

The contraband, worth about $100, included marijuana cigarettes and as well as marijuana brownies, gummy candy, and chocolate bars. Salazar said their appearance as run-of-the-mill food items and packaging suggest the products are being marketed to kids.

"By the packaging and by the way these things were made to look, it's pretty obvious who this is being made to appeal to," he said. "You can tell one of them has a cartoon penguin on it that may seem cartoonish for some of the kids."

The label on the product's packaging shows they were made by California-based Anarchy Edibles. The label even includes the amount of THC contained in each edible. Salazar said their presence in San Antonio is evidence of the lucrative trafficking of now-legal marijuana products to states where the drug is still illegal.

"From what detectives are telling me, they're seeing a lot of it is coming from the West Coast and Colorado," he said.

Salazar said traffickers use public transportation such as trains and buses to ship illegal drugs, often sending drugs in unmarked parcels or unattended luggage to be picked up at a specified location.

With no arrests or suspects identified, investigators must now work backward to trace where the drugs came from.

"Once we get the drugs they'll have to start conducting background research on who sent it, where did it originate from, where is it going to," he said.