Drug war trumps port safety. Great, concise read.

Drug war trumps port safety
By Mike Krause

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But it is hard to take seriously the idea that ports are being effectively protected when the Coast Guard spent more tax dollars last year fighting the war on drugs than has been spent in total on port security since Sept. 11, 2001.

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Needless to say, Coast Guard ships chasing dopers around the Galapagos Islands are obviously unavailable to meet a potential threat approaching the American coast.

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What the seizure statistics and the massive range of cocaine flow estimates (between 325 and 675 metric tons of cocaine a year in the transit zone) - along with price and availability of cocaine in the U.S. - suggest is that more cocaine is getting through than ever before.

So not only does cocaine interdiction distract the Coast Guard from its port security mission, cocaine interdiction itself is failing.

Mike Krause is a veteran of the Coast Guard, and participated in numerous joint-agency drug patrols in the Caribbean Sea