Ah the ‘War on Drugs’ – unquestionably one of the most successful government initiatives in the modern era. Border agents were interviewed in a Discovery Channel special that aired in late 2008 who estimated that their efforts are stopping about 2% of  the drugs being smuggled into this country. Two percent. Read another way that translates to a 98% success rate for smugglers, which after 40 years of fighting this ‘war’ and countless billions of dollars can only be summed up with two words – MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

It seems that since the physical US border has been secured, drug cartels have been forced to ’switch up’ and have taken their smuggling efforts to the sea – via SUBMERSIBLES no less! But you can’t just pull a fast one on the greatest, most powerful nation in world – read how quickly our agents were able to recognize and adapt to this threat:

MEXICO CITY — When anti-narcotics agents first heard that drug cartels were building an armada of submarines to transport cocaine, they thought it was a joke.

Now U.S. law enforcement officials say that more than a third of the cocaine smuggled into the United States from Colombia travels in submersibles. — The Washington Post, 2009

Looks like the joke is on us. And we’re not talking about some shitty flotation device made out of a port-o-john and a few empty plastic containers, the cartels are using highly advanced technology that makes the submersibles almost impossible to detect:

“These vessels are intelligently designed. They are not very comfortable, but they are now very seaworthy. They are capable of carrying multi-ton cargos. They can travel thousands of miles without refuel or resupply. And they are very hard to detect,” said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Joseph Nimmich, director of the Joint Interagency Task Force South, which pursues drug interdiction in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean.

“You try finding a floating log in the middle of the Pacific,” one DEA agent said.

Let’s step back and think about this for a moment. On the American side, you’ve got a population with a voracious drug appetite that has shown zero signs of slowing down, and a government that spends over $50B per year to limit the flow of drugs to feed that appetite. On the other side, you’ve got drug cartels with UNLIMITED AMOUNTS OF CASH and the capability of sending multi-ton payloads of contraband to the United States with near impunity. How can this ‘war’ be won against such odds?

It cannot. That is until our politicians stop demonizing drugs as if needles full of heroin are just up and injecting themselves into unwitting American forearms. A winning approach starts by asking the question ‘Why the fuck would someone even think to bump diesel in the first place?’

Drugs aren’t bad. People are bad. Some drugs are worse than others, and some people do worse things than others. But thanks to Ronald ‘Rich’ Reagan and his 1980s campaign to ‘Just Say No’ we haven’t had much public debate about the role of drugs in our society. Until we grow up, look in the mirror, and start to have an adult conservation about what fuels the demand for drugs in this country we can never win.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. – Sun Tzu