Was thoroughly amazed and disgusted watching extreme drug smuggling methods into the US on AHC (American Heroes Channel).
30 ton cranes lifting drug filled vans over the US fence. Those typical auto cargo carriers changed to be driven on a pick up truck so they can drive up to the fence and throw down a ramp onto the US side and drive vehicles over the fence.
Semi-submersibles and even actual submarines. Said only 10% are captured, and they captured 67 semi-submersibles last year. That is a lot of tons of drugs coming by sea to the US. Many taking years to build on the Amazon River.
Sadly putting drugs into animals, especially dogs. Six puppies cut open and six pounds of black tar heroin implanted into them. Homing pigeons taking drugs into places. Parrots to warn drug dealers if police come. The usual drug tunnels, even with railroads, with one running to a house with a pool table that raised like an auto lift.
Ultra light aircraft dropping 400 pounds of drugs without ever landing in the US.
Humans internally body carrying. Normally encapsulated in wax balls.
Showed one guy taking 119 huge pellets. Ticking time bombs. One drug mule went to North Carolina and expelled the pellets, then found out he had to be in New York and had to re-swallow them.
Have heard of most of these, but the quantity is unbelievable.
Now some untreatable diseases or almost untreatable coming into the US with some illegals or drug mules coming across the border.
These cartels have a lot of sick people with tons of money coming up with anything that can be devised.

And all that could be eliminated, if the War on Drugs were ended. They could save the billions spent fighting the drug cartels, make drugs and the drug industry far safer, reduce the spread of AIDS, hepatitis, and other blood borne diseases by providing a sterile environment for addicts, eliminate the thrill of doing something illegal, and collect billions in taxes. But there's also a lot of money in corruption. And the ones charged with changing things for the better are often a big part of the problem.

I will say it again. This nation learned absolutely nothing from Prohibition.

It's pretty impressive from an engineering standpoint. I wish we could find a way to get those efforts focused on something positive.

War on drugs subs?

There is so much emphasis by policy makers to prevent terrorism and how to handle illegal immigration but when it comes to handling drug trafficing there just isn't the same level of focus out there on the issue.

Regan and Clinton tried to clean up the streets by stricter sentencing and more money toward law enforcement. The amount of people thrown in jail was so high that it eliminated a lot of the middleman drug crime as shown by a huge reduction in murder statistics. The attorney general has now rolled back some of that sentencing for non-aggravating cases (eg. ones that don't also include an aggravated assault or manslaughter charge).

The way to manage an endemic threat that is too big for any one government to tackle is support the bigger players against the smaller ones. The US is essentially doing that in the Middle East by dealing with Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar as regional policeman. The only big player they do not have is Iran and they are working to change that. They want those countries to assume mop up costs for terrorism and to by American technology.

The US is supporting the Mexican government but the problem there is they are trying to fight all of the cartels directly with some regional police and army units corrupted. What they should be doing here is trying to play the cartels off one another like the do with the tribes in the Middle East. Back the bigger cartels against the smaller ones in Mexico to cut the violence and corruption of the Mexican government the give the inside information to the US to interdict local supply lines. Deal with the problem more in chunks than trying to bite it off all at once. Its not as simple as giving the Mexican government Apache helicopters and say go get them boys. The approach has to be more strategic on this.

(06-29-2014 08:00 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  There is so much emphasis by policy makers to prevent terrorism and how to handle illegal immigration but when it comes to handling drug trafficing there just isn't the same level of focus out there on the issue.

Regan and Clinton tried to clean up the streets by stricter sentencing and more money toward law enforcement. The amount of people thrown in jail was so high that it eliminated a lot of the middleman drug crime as shown by a huge reduction in murder statistics. The attorney general has now rolled back some of that sentencing for non-aggravating cases (eg. ones that don't also include an aggravated assault or manslaughter charge).

The way to manage an endemic threat that is too big for any one government to tackle is support the bigger players against the smaller ones. The US is essentially doing that in the Middle East by dealing with Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar as regional policeman. The only big player they do not have is Iran and they are working to change that. They want those countries to assume mop up costs for terrorism and to by American technology.

The US is supporting the Mexican government but the problem there is they are trying to fight all of the cartels directly with some regional police and army units corrupted. What they should be doing here is trying to play the cartels off one another like the do with the tribes in the Middle East. Back the bigger cartels against the smaller ones in Mexico to cut the violence and corruption of the Mexican government the give the inside information to the US to interdict local supply lines. Deal with the problem more in chunks than trying to bite it off all at once. Its not as simple as giving the Mexican government Apache helicopters and say go get them boys. The approach has to be more strategic on this.

That is actually how the Mexican government used to operate. Essentially dealing with one huge cartel that would keep the smaller ones in line. They stopped doing that around 10 years ago with very bad results.

As a member of the USCG I have seen my share of these things. Came across a sub around 2008. All I remember about the boarding was the smell. Piss, sh*t, and puke. An old shipmate of mine boarded the largest one last year.

Now, as far as history is concerned, drugs have always been prominent and found their way into the United States. Opium used to be brought into Vancouver and smuggled into San Francisco. The Chinese formed some our first cartels with opium.