Hundred Of Teens Released After Massive Ski Trip Drug Bust

COSTA MESA (CBS) —Hundreds of California teens were released after a tour bus raid turned up shocking quantities of drugs, paraphernalia, and alcohol.

Costa Mesa-based Summer Winter Action Tours operates what is billed as the largest high school ski and snowboard trip in the nation. Earlier this week, hundreds of teens from across SoCal, Northern California, and Arizona boarded buses bound for Salt Lake City, Utah.

But their trip was delayed when police in Elko, Nevada conducted a raid after receiving a tip about possible drug use outside the buses.

"All these cops came and like surrounded all the buses so we couldn't move," said one teen from the Bay Area.

Elko police say they used drug sniffing dogs to search five buses. Officers asked the bus passengers to give up their contraband in return for being released without consequence.

A teen on board one of the buses reports that enough contraband was collected from backpacks and cargo areas to fill up four garbage bags.

Elko's Chief of Police, Don Zumwalt, defends the agency's decision to confiscate large amounts of drugs, paraphernalia, and alcohol while making no arrests.

"I told them the bottom line is this, I wanted them to go to Salt Lake City and be safe," says Zumwalt.

He says officers could have impounded five buses and stranded 250 teenagers in Elko, but the kids were cooperating.

"We could have stopped everything, got search warrants, and searched every bag" says Zumwalt. "We would have still been writing search warrants a week later."

The tour company released a statement saying that travelers and their parents are responsible for adhering to a zero tolerance behavior code.

The statement said, "It's clear that the parents of the travelers who were in possession of contraband items failed to perform the first task asked of them; to check their students' bags prior to boarding the bus."

The company says all students on board the buses that were stopped hailed from Northern California.

Nearly 20 teens who allegedly had contraband were sent home after their parents were contacted.