Interdiction

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has drawn praise from U.S. drug warriors for his commitment to fighting back against the drug cartels. Unfortunately, current strategies for reducing drug trade violence tend to have the opposite of their intended effect. Via New York Times, this is what you get when you really crack down on the drug traffickers:

"a hand-scrawled list of 22 officers, 5 of whom had already been gunned down in the street."

"A turf war among drug cartels has claimed more than 210 lives in the first three months of this year."

"The number of homicides this year is more than twice the total number of homicides for the same period last year."

"Several mass graves hiding 36 bodies in all have been discovered in the backyards of two houses owned by drug dealers."

"At the height of the violence, around Easter, bodies were turning up every morning, at a rate of almost 12 a week."

"'Neither the municipal government, nor the state government, is capable of taking on organized crime,' Mayor José Reyes Ferriz said in an interview."

"The local police are outgunned, underpaid, prone to corruption and lack the authority to investigate drug dealers…"

"The first batch of 150 new recruits came out of the academy in January, but they entered a force where most officers either feared drug dealers too much to move against them or lived on their payroll."

After decades of full-scale international drug war, the central fronts in this great crusade appear before us today literally smoldering, littered with shell-casings and stained in blood. That is drug prohibition's legacy and it will not change or improve. Violence will fluctuate between frequent and perpetual. Illicit drug markets will fluctuate between high availability and totally saturation. That is just the way it is and the way it will always be so long as the people currently in charge of addressing the drug problem are permitted to continue trying their ideas.

Thus, any realistic debate over our drug laws shouldn't be spiked with fictitious references to future victories or meaningful progress. An honest defense of the drug war, if such a thing could exist, would have to defend our current conditions and claim that it would be best if things stayed this way forever.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is super popular with U.S. drug warriors for his crackdown on drug trafficking, but it doesn’t sound like the cartels are very scared. If they were, they wouldn't be posting job listings on the highways:

(AP) Hitmen tied to Mexico's Gulf cartel appear to be boldly seeking recruits by posting help-wanted signs in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, including a giant banner hung across a thoroughfare, a federal anti-drug enforcement official said Monday.

The banner appeared over the weekend in Nuevo Laredo near the border with Texas: "Operative group 'The Zetas' wants you, soldier or ex-soldier. We offer a good salary, food and benefits for your family. Don't suffer anymore mistreatment and don't go hungry."

Yeah, Calderon's drug war troop surge is a joke that serves only to delay the inevitable realization that the drug war is a contractual guarantee of endless violence. The cartels aren't the least bit intimidated and we haven’t seen a fraction of the violence that is possible if Calderon wants to throw more gas on the fire.

He'll be voted out of office by war-weary constituents long before he ever drives out the powerful organizations that recruit their armies right out in the open. There is only one way to close these drug war job openings and that is to end the war on drugs.

President Bush and Drug Czar John Walters want Congress to give Mexico $1.4 billion of our money to waste on the drug war. Mexico can't afford a massive drug war like ours, so we're supposed to just go ahead and buy them one. It's a terrible plan.

Just listen to all the stuff the Drug Czar wants to buy for them. It's like building decades of drug war infrastructure overnight. The very fact that you need all this stuff ought to provide a clue that drug prohibition is a raging disaster of an idea:

*Non-intrusive inspection equipment, ion scanners, canine units for Mexican customs, for the new federal police and for the military to interdict trafficked drugs, arms, cash and persons.
*Technologies to improve and secure communications systems to support collecting information as well as ensuring that vital information is accessible for criminal law enforcement.
*Technical advice and training to strengthen the institutions of justice – vetting for the new police force, case management software to track investigations through the system to trial, new offices of citizen complaints and professional responsibility, and establishing witness protection programs.
*Helicopters and surveillance aircraft to support interdiction activities and rapid operational response of law enforcement agencies in Mexico.
*Initial funding for security cooperation with Central America that responds directly to Central American leaders’ concerns over gangs, drugs, and arms articulated during July SICA meetings and the SICA Security Strategy.
*Includes equipment and assets to support counterpart security agencies inspecting and interdicting drugs, trafficked goods, people and other contraband as well as equipment, training and community action programs in Central American countries to implement anti-gang measures and expand the reach of these measures in the region.

Of course, the fact that we're even talking about this just shows the pathetic state of affairs we've achieved after decades of drug war demolition tactics. With nothing to show for the untold billions we've already poured down the drug war drain, our tough drug generals just want more money and more time.

The drug cartels are already funded by U.S. drug dollars. If we buy Mexico an entire anti-drug army to fight them, we'll be funding both sides of a brutal war in a foreign nation all because we can't come to terms with our own drug use.

The violence and chaos has to stop and it won't stop if we spend $1.4 billion to continue it. The mess in Mexico is our responsibility, but only because we've been so stupid about drugs for so long. This war can only end one way and that is to bring home the soldiers and send in the tax collectors.

Most people at my office just roll their eyes when I explain that the drug war will soon be carried out by high-tech robots, but I'm right and they're naïve. Both sides are employing the latest technology to gain an upper hand in this never-ending struggle, thus it's just a matter of time until robots get involved. Case in point:

Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime.

A small pilotless drone manufactured by Honeywell International, capable of hovering and "staring" using electro-optic or infrared sensors, is expected to make its debut soon in the skies over the Florida Everglades.
…

"Our intentions are to use it only in tactical situations as an extra set of eyes," said police department spokesman Juan Villalba. [Reuters]

Yeah, right. When law-enforcement requests sophisticated technology and promises to use it only in an emergency, you can bet they'll soon be expanding their definition of "emergency." It's just a matter of time until our borders are swarming with these:

The CIA acknowledges that it developed a dragonfly-sized UAV known as the "Insectohopter" for laser-guided spy operations as long ago as the 1970s.

Imagine swatting a wasp, only to receive a bill for 150K from the Dept. of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the drug traffickers are setting the pace, unveiling a series of cool high-tech gadgetry. And this is just the stuff we know about:

Police in Mexico have come across a new weapon being used by the country's drug cartels - a James Bond-style vehicle complete with gadgets designed to deter arrest.
…

Inside was a smoke machine and a device to spray spikes onto the road behind - the purpose to make a getaway easier and stop the car from being followed. [BBC]

They've also got semi-submersible drug trafficking vessels, which are difficult to detect on radar. There's even a rumor circulating that some of these semi-subs are actually robots. I bet it's true:

In some instances, the semi-subs are towed behind other vessels and are scuttled if they are detected, Allen said. Authorities are investigating reports that some semi-subs are unmanned and are operated remotely, he said. [CNN]

In the long run, it is just intuitive that drug traffickers will outsource as many of their tasks as possible to high-tech robots. Though costly, robots are difficult to kill and immune to lengthy drug sentences. They can be wired to self-destruct when captured, although it stands to reason that captures will be infrequent if the robots possess proper defenses.

If it isn't happening already, the use of robots to transport drugs by air and sea will commence in the short term. As robot technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous, expect them be employed in manufacturing and retail distribution as well. They've already got a robot selling medical marijuana in California, although I suspect it was not designed to withstand attacks by drug enforcement agents.

Obviously, there will be police robots as well and we can be reasonably sure they'll be outfitted with these horrible devices, which use ultraviolet lasers to detect drug residue. Hippies will have to clean up after themselves, as these roving narcbots will stop at nothing. If you're paranoid now, I'd like to know what you'll say when a robot approaches you and asks for consent to search.

If this sounds like a joke to you, you might not understand the limitless absurdity of the war on drugs. Every day, our drug war leaders get more pissed and propose newer and crazier ideas. There is no amount of our tax dollars they won't waste and no ridiculous scheme they won't try. So if my predictions don't come true, it won't be because robots are expensive or impractical. It will be because enough of us finally came to our senses and ended this ever-escalating war before these terrible robots could be built.

Drug Czar John Walters went off the rails this week, suggesting that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was somehow involved in the drug trade. According to Walters, the best evidence of this is the lack of any evidence. Read it, it's hilarious:

"Where are the big seizures, where are the big arrests of individuals who are at least logistical coordinators? When it's being launched from controlled airports and seaports, where are the arrests of corrupt officials? At some point here, this is tantamount to collusion," Walters said in an interview. [Los Angeles Times]

Indeed, the Drug Czar is so confounded by the ongoing failure of international drug prohibition, he can only assume that entire nations are conspiring to undermine him.

The whole thing is just so crazy, The Los Angeles Times was forced to qualify his statements by pointing out that he couldn’t back them up with facts (emphasis mine):

Walters said the volume of Colombian cocaine moving through Venezuela, believed to represent at least one-third of Colombia's production, continues to increase with no discernible effort by Chavez government to impede it. He provided no statistics to back up his assertion.

Awesome. I nominate this reporter for a Pulitzer. You could add that sentence to the end of every paragraph ever written about the wild nonsense that spews forth out of John Walters mouth like a broken water main.

As Pete Guither points out, Walters's bizarre assertions are probably an attempt to blame someone -- anyone he can find -– for this:

MIAMI -- U.S.-directed seizures and disruptions of cocaine shipments from Latin America dropped sharply in 2007 from the year before, reflecting in part a successful shift in tactics by drug traffickers to avoid detection at sea, senior American officials disclosed Monday in releasing new figures. [News Tribune]

Walters can blame Hugo Chavez as much as he wants. But the failure of international drug prohibition will never have anything to do with Venezuela's refusal to fight a futile drug war at the behest of bullying bureaucrats from Washington D.C. The drug war is failing because that is the only thing it knows how to do.

I wrote yesterday about an absurd report in The Philadelphia Inquirer which valued marijuana at over $100 per joint. As I pointed out, boastful law-enforcement sources frequently collaborate with slothful reporters to produce wildly inaccurate news coverage of the drug war.

Obviously, it is just unacceptable to have major news sources reporting frivolous and false information. The laugh-out-loud craziness of implying that a joint costs $100 just shouldn’t have made it to print, and we can all gaze at this spectacle and shake our heads as we recognize that the incompetence which made this report possible is perfectly typical. It explains volumes about the media's neglectful role in permitting drug war indoctrination to permeate our collective consciousness each day. It is 2007, and we shouldn't even be reading celebratory drug bust stories anymore, because each new one is a mere exhibit of the failure of those that came before it.

But, beyond all of that, it stands to reason that such coverage has a remarkable potential to entice individuals to enter the drug trade in the first place. The theoretical deterrent value of reporting on major drug busts and the fate of the perpetrators is surely undermined when profit margins are overstated so dramatically.

If one believes The Philadelphia Inquirer that 16 pounds of high-grade marijuana can be sold for $812,000, and one subsequently stumbles across an opportunity to acquire that amount for the (more likely) price of $50,000-80,000, they might be intrigued. By routinely exaggerating the street value of illegal drugs, the press renders itself an inadvertent advertising campaign for the lucrative business of black market drug distribution.

I've heard, but cannot confirm, that the Canadian press has sought to scale back this exact behavior after a revelation that constantly reporting on multi-million dollar marijuana seizures was having the effect of convincing people that it's easy to make a million dollars growing pot. I have no idea whether this is accurate, but it's certainly amusing to consider the possibility that all of this reckless drug war reporting is simply emboldening prospective marijuana entrepreneurs.

One wonders, therefore, how many more of these drug bust press conferences our intrepid journalists are willing to snooze their way through before becoming overcome with déjà vu and finding themselves compelled by the distant call of journalistic integrity to do anything other than cut and paste the predictable pontifications of the proud pot police into the morning paper.

Exaggerating the value of drug seizures is an age-old tactic in the drug war. Fuzzy math can turn a routine bust into a career-making front page news story, so it's no surprise that narcotics officers frequently miscalculate the value of their scores. But when a major paper like The Philadelphia Inquirer inadvertently values marijuana at $100 per joint, you know things have gotten out of hand:

Today, police laid out 16 pounds of the stuff they said they confiscated from a high-level dealer who supplied the suburbs…

Police put the value of the marijuana at $812,000. On Tuesday, as the probe continued, investigators seized 12 pounds of hallucinogenic mushrooms worth $614,000 and more than $439,000 in cash, police said. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Really?!? Let's do the math. $812,000 / 16 pounds / 16 ounces / 28.3 grams = $112.08 per gram. That's a hearty marijuana joint for $112. The same formula finds them valuing the mushrooms at a whopping, and oddly similar, $113 per gram.

Just look at High Times Magazine's Market Quotes for marijuana to see that the highest street prices come nowhere close to these wildly false numbers. A gram of the very best pot can fetch $25-30, usually less. It is literally as though they calculated the value of the seizure and added a zero at the end (actually that's currently my best guess as to what happened here).

This is what we get when reporters simply pass along claims from police regarding drugs. Law-enforcement's lack of expertise on certain drug-related matters, combined with their incentive to exaggerate their own achievements, creates an obvious imperative that the press seek to substantiate such claims before offering them to the public.

This announcement from The Philadelphia Inquirer that marijuana costs $100 per joint is just a perfect example of the media's ongoing failure to provide responsible coverage of the war on drugs.

[Thanks, Irina]

You can't make this stuff up. Unfortunately, you don't have to because the drug war brings to life new and unfathomable absurdities each and every day:

Customs officials on the other side of the Pond are on the lookout for curvy drug mules after customs officers arrested a woman for attempting to smuggle £50,000 worth of cocaine in concealed pouches built into her bra. Criminals are now being said to favor "tall, flat-chested women who don't arouse suspicion when they have fuller figures." [Radar]

So now we can add both flat and full-chested women to the drug courier profile. We shall search women's underwear high and low because Victoria's got a new secret now and we don't want those fun bags getting into the hands of children.

A DRCNet member who blogs at the Daily Kos, among other places, sent me a fascinating article he found recently in the New York Times web archive about the US-Mexico drug war. According to the article, titled "US to Join Mexico in Fight on Drugs" and published in May 1925:

The drug treaty which will be formulated in El Paso by the Commissioners of the United States and representatives of the Mexican Government Is expected to achieve two results -- elimination of the constant stream of drugs which Is pouring into the United States through Mexico and helping to clean out from the border towns several groups of American and foreigners who 'have made large sums of Money through the drug traffic.

Eight two and a half years later, President Bush has proposed spending another $1.5 billion on the drug war south of our border. But according to the US General Accountibility office:

According to the US interagency counternarcotics community, hundreds of tons of illicit drugs flow from Mexico into the United States each year, and seizures in Mexico and along the US border have been relatively small."

Can we agree at a minimum that this project is far over budget?

After reading Donna Leinwand's cover story in USA Today, "Cocaine flow to 26 cities curbed," you'd think we've turned a major corner in the war on drugs.

Tough action by Mexico is driving down the cocaine supply in 26 U.S. cities, a recently declassified Drug Enforcement Administration analysis shows, an encouraging drop in narcotics crossing the border that law enforcement officials hope will continue.
…

This new Calderón government is really taking a tough stance, and it's really taking its toll on the trafficking organizations," says Tony Placido, the DEA's intelligence chief.

It just goes on like this. Cocaine is more expensive! The Drug Czar is optimistic! Mexico is kicking some serious drug trafficker ass! Amazingly, Leinwand entirely fails to explain that cocaine prices are still just a fraction of what they used to be. The real story behind cocaine prices is that they've rather consistently continued spiraling downward despite decades of drug war demolition tactics.

It is just so strange to leave this out because it actually makes the story more interesting. Wouldn't the rise in cocaine prices be more exciting if people understood how rare it is? It's like the drug war equivalent of a solar eclipse. For God's sake, don't stare directly at it or you'll fry your retinas. Such phenomena are best observed under expert supervision.

It is almost more frustrating, therefore, to read Leinwand's companion piece, which perfectly articulates how premature and overblown the Drug Czar's pronouncements truly are:

[drug policy expert Peter] Reuter says this isn't the first time the Mexicans have gotten tough on traffickers. "The Mexican government is clearly cracking down, but the government has cracked down before to no effect," Reuter says. "It's sort of early days for declaring that something important has happened."

Eventually, drug traffickers will develop new routes to get around whatever is stopping them, says Alfred Blumstein, a professor who specializes in criminology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

"It's a resilient process," Blumstein says. "I would anticipate that over a period of time, like six months to a year," the drug traffickers will "be back in shape."

These revealing perspectives are relegated to bowels of a different article on page 3, while Leinwand's above-the-fold cover story reads like an ONDCP press release. This is unacceptable. With opposing viewpoints safely quarantined in an entirely separate – and less prominent – article, ONDCP can now tout their USA Today coverage without directly exposing anyone to Reuter or Blumstein's skepticism. And that's exactly what they've done.

Everything we know about the cocaine economy tells us that it won’t be long before prices drop again to unprecedented new lows. That is just a fact, and I'm still not sure why anyone thinks it's worth their time to suggest otherwise.