According to this article in San Diego Union Tribune by Jeanette Steele, there has been a big increase in seizures of drugs going to the US and Canada during the past six months. DRUG SEIZURES UP | UTSanDiego.com
They value the "wholesale" value of the drugs at $848 Million during the past six months alone. Was it worth the expense? How much did those seizures cost to the American citizens? A typical, fully staffed navy ship can cost around $300,000 per day to operate. That is over $100 million per year! The article mentions the names of a couple of the ships involved. But to cover so much geography, the US and Canada must have over ten ships deployed -- that represents over a $Billion! The article also refers to flying a drone. An RQ-4B Global Hawk Drone costs about $49,000 per hour to fly. To keep just one on station over areas of interest 24 hours/day for a year would cost $429 million dollars. Those costs don't include the costs for guards and fences at our borders, inspections of all travelers on ships, planes, trains, cars, buses, trucks etc. I have to assume the Government also uses other sophisticated electronic systems such as sound-monitoring buoys, surveillance satellites and satellite communication links, which are all very expensive. We would also assume that Government spends money to pay for spies who work inside the drug operations in all of these countries. We pay hundreds of millions to South and Central American countries to provide them with training, equipment and operations against drug growers and smugglers. Other costs are the costs of prisons, prosecutors, judges, juries, balifs, courtrooms, probation officers, welfare for families who's breadwinners are in prison etc. None of those costs are ever shown as a cost of our drug war. We also don't talk about the loss of American Citizens privacy through the anti-money laundring laws and surveillance systems that are justified based upon the "war on drugs."
The bottom line is that even though the Government is bragging about their big "catch" in drugs this past year, the cost to the taxpayers was also much bigger. The cost might have been as much as an order of magnitude higher than the value of the goods captured. One of the reasons for the bigger drug haul, might be that the amount of drugs actually being transported is also higher. Are we catching a larger percentage of the total volume being transported? One of the best indicators is the street price for drugs. Has the price of those drugs increased since the interdiction success? Or stayed the same?
It still seems to me that those $billions could be better spent by offering free treatment for drug users, and we should legalize and tax the safer forms of these recreational drugs. Our country would be better, and our neighboring countries would also be beter off.
They value the "wholesale" value of the drugs at $848 Million during the past six months alone. Was it worth the expense? How much did those seizures cost to the American citizens? A typical, fully staffed navy ship can cost around $300,000 per day to operate. That is over $100 million per year! The article mentions the names of a couple of the ships involved. But to cover so much geography, the US and Canada must have over ten ships deployed -- that represents over a $Billion! The article also refers to flying a drone. An RQ-4B Global Hawk Drone costs about $49,000 per hour to fly. To keep just one on station over areas of interest 24 hours/day for a year would cost $429 million dollars. Those costs don't include the costs for guards and fences at our borders, inspections of all travelers on ships, planes, trains, cars, buses, trucks etc. I have to assume the Government also uses other sophisticated electronic systems such as sound-monitoring buoys, surveillance satellites and satellite communication links, which are all very expensive. We would also assume that Government spends money to pay for spies who work inside the drug operations in all of these countries. We pay hundreds of millions to South and Central American countries to provide them with training, equipment and operations against drug growers and smugglers. Other costs are the costs of prisons, prosecutors, judges, juries, balifs, courtrooms, probation officers, welfare for families who's breadwinners are in prison etc. None of those costs are ever shown as a cost of our drug war. We also don't talk about the loss of American Citizens privacy through the anti-money laundring laws and surveillance systems that are justified based upon the "war on drugs."
The bottom line is that even though the Government is bragging about their big "catch" in drugs this past year, the cost to the taxpayers was also much bigger. The cost might have been as much as an order of magnitude higher than the value of the goods captured. One of the reasons for the bigger drug haul, might be that the amount of drugs actually being transported is also higher. Are we catching a larger percentage of the total volume being transported? One of the best indicators is the street price for drugs. Has the price of those drugs increased since the interdiction success? Or stayed the same?
It still seems to me that those $billions could be better spent by offering free treatment for drug users, and we should legalize and tax the safer forms of these recreational drugs. Our country would be better, and our neighboring countries would also be beter off.
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