The Coast Guard Says It's Miserably Losing the War on Drugs

The US Coast Guard is failing in its mission to keep illegal drugs from entering the United States by sea—just 20 percent of the estimated amount of drugs being smuggled in are intercepted, a top officer said.

Admiral Robert Papp, head of the Coast Guard, told Reuters that the number is far down because of sequestration and budget cuts that have left the force short staffed and unable to keep up with drug smugglers’ improving technology. Last year, the coast guard seized 88,400 kilos of cocaine, down from 107,000 kilos in 2012. That means that roughly 353,600 kilos of cocaine are making their way into the country through the sea each year—add that to the drugs that are smuggled in over land, and it should be little surprise that drugs are cheaper and more plentiful than ever before.

Even when it identifies potential drug-running vessels, Papp said that the Coast Guard only has money to go after 39 percent of them and is forced to let the others go.

The sheer amount of space the Coast Guard is responsible for policing is astounding—roughly 6 million square miles of ocean. With drug smugglers getting more creative, using narcosubs and offshore drops to get drugs into the country undetected, it certainly seems like the force is fighting a losing battle.

That’s not necessarily a good thing, but it’s another example of just how badly America is losing the war on drugs. When I spoke with Evan Wood, a researcher who studied drug surveillance data over the past decade, he told me that, at best, the United States has been stuck in neutral since it has started the War on Drugs. The demand hasn’t drastically changed, but there’s been no problem keeping supply up.

Seizing a couple thousand kilos isn’t really hurting anyone, because the supply is so huge. And making arrests doesn’t really help, because there’s so much money in the game that new leaders and traffickers pop up no matter what.

“All the drugs needed to supply the US for a year could fit into 60 semi trucks,” Wood told me. “At Laredo [border crossing], there’s 5.5 million trucks crossing the border every year. It gives you a sense of how difficult a task this is.”

And that’s just if all of the drugs were coming in on semi trucks through one border crossing in Texas. They aren’t. Papp told Reuters that “multi-ton loads are broken down into smaller loads and they come across the border ins one way, shape, or form.” That’s right—they’re coming on subs, in tiny packages, in speed boats, in trucks, in cars, on commercial planes, on small puddle jumper planes, and a wealth of other ingenious methods.

There simply is no way to keep drugs out of the country. An attempt to kill the supply hasn’t worked, so what are we doing?