Bringing It In Under The Sea
Surely this must be a record… according to a story in the Washington Post U.S. authorities have seized no less than 13 submersibles this year alone. These vessels are intended to carry drugs across the Gulf of Mexico.That’s more than they’ve seized in the past decade.
These “submersibles” are not quite submarines, (they can’t dive and surface at will, they just travel below the surface with periscopes and breathing tubes and exhaust vents poking up above the water) even so, they can cost $1 million and take a year to build. Made largely of fiberglass, they are nearly impossible to detect once launched. They leave no large wake visible from the air as do the 60 mph+ speedboats smugglers use. The ones seized were mostly seized during their construction, often in the dense jungles of Central or South America. One was even seized high in the Andes outside of Bogota.
A 10-ton load, typical capacity of one of the submersibles, can fetch nearly $200 million wholesale in the United States. Presumably, if the number of seizures of these vessels is so high they’re regarded by drug trafficers as effective. If 13 were found it stands to reason that there are dozens more that are under construction or travelling the seas. Even if they are scuttled offshore after unloading their cargo it’s still only a tiny percentage of the profit that is lost.
Back at the height of the cocaine craze it was estimated that 3 tractor-trailers filled with cocaine could satisfy U.S. demand for a year. They never managed to stop those 3 truckloads worth at the borders then and now, what with submarines added to the mix, it’s a safe bet they won’t do any better. They tell us that their work at interdiction hurts the drug cartels but, with an 18,000% profit from cocoa leak to eightball on the street of a U.S. city I doubt it hurts very much.
It certainly does hurt America very much though. Interdiction costs a fortune. We pay for the Colombian navy to patrol the Gulf. We pay for their troops scouring the jungles looking for shipbuilding facilities. We pay for our navy and coastguard to patrol the Gulf. And, of course, we pay even more for the police, prisons, and courts, needed to handle the small-time offenders they do catch. All together we’re talking about over $100 Billion a year!
But perhaps most costly to our country are the thousands of lives destroyed by the drug war. How long are Americans going to go along with this?
Have the Feds writen off California?
Northern California has a new U.S. Attorney, a Mr. Russoniello. Mr. Russoniello does not believe that marijuana has any medical use.He opposed California’s Proposition 215, the Medical Marijuana Initiative. Opinions not unexpected for a federal prosecutor.
However, at a press conference the other day Russoniello said that government resources may be better spent elsewhere. He said there may be changes in enforcement practices in Northern California. “We could spend a lifetime closing
dispensaries and doing other kinds of things and enforcement actions, bringing cases and prosecuting people, shoveling sand against the tide, it would be terribly unproductive and probably not an efficient use of precious
federal resources,” Russoniello said. Quite possibly the most sensible thing to come out of U.S. Attorney’s mouth on the subject of drug policy.
California has a different attitude toward marijuana than most states. For years now there has been a growing medical marijuana movement. The passage of Proposition 215 allowed the setting up of medical marijuana dispensaries, licensed by the state to grow and sell marijuana to those with a letter from a doctor and a state - issued card. Now some dispensaries have even installed vending machines to give patients access 24 hours a day. Local police are prohibited from interfering.
The DEA has made some raids on dispensaries as marijuana is a controlled substance under federal law but these proved widely unpopular. Dispensaries continue to thrive. Many even have neon signs advertising their product and a friendly doctor’s office next door much like the eye doctor next to the opticians.
California is the sixth largest economy in the world. The home of Hollywood movies, Silicon Valley technology, and Napa Valley wines. People here make millions from all sorts of things and lately one of those things is marijuana, medical and recreational. So much money, in fact , that an association of marijuana growers and dealers responded to the announcement of the state’s fiscal problems by offering Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger one billion dollars to solve the current state budget crisis. They asked to be taxed to help the state!
With the drug basically legal it seems the feds are just standing back and waiting for something terrible to happen. The thing is… the sky hasn’t fallen and shows no signs of doing so.
