It's been only four weeks, but members of the newly-formed Gwinnett County Police interdiction unit are practically paying for themselves.

A traffic stop Wednesday morning on I-85 North near Pleasant Hill Road netted a 308-pound marijuana seizure with a street value of $1.4 million. It's the first of what officials hope will be many significant drug busts by the unit, which began operating in February.

Its purpose is to intercept narcotics transported through the county on major highways, said Cpl. Illana Spellman, spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County police.

Spellman said the bust came about when officers from the interdiction unit stopped a 1999 Freightliner tractor trailor for commercial vehicle violations. The driver allowed them to search the vehicle, Spellman said, and officers found weed stashed in the cab.

The driver reportedly told police that he was not stopping in Georgia, but was en route to another state.

Criminal charges are pending against the driver, Miguel Angel Flores, 34, of Salt Lake City, Utah, and passenger, Carlos Flore Aria, 27, of Lumberton, N.C.

The Gwinnett County Police Department has had three straight years of record drug seizures. In 2007, more than 8,000 pounds of marijuana, 218 pounds of powder cocaine and 96 pounds of methamphetamine were seized along with several other drugs, with a total street value of more than $63 million. In 2006, police took $55.9 million worth of drugs off the market.

According to Jack Killorin, director of Atlanta HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area), Gwinnett's location straddling I-85 and near to Atlanta —a distribution hub— makes it ideal for smuggling drugs up and down the East Coast.