WaPo (“Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say“):
The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.
In a recent assessment reviewed by The Washington Post, DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire. In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told lawmakers the strikes in international waters off South and Central America had not reduced its purity.
It turns out that demand continues to trump attempts at curtailing supply.
I’m reminded of a comic strip, I believe Bloom County, from my undergraduate days. I’ve been unable to locate it on the open web but the gist of it is that a major drug bust has resulted in something like a 0.0003 percent decrease in the supply of that drug. The last panel depicts the drug boss shouting: “Increase prices by 0.0003 percent!”
The War on Drugs was into its second decade at that point. It’s now 55.
Traffickers are also relying more on aircraft, which take off from clandestine airstrips along the Colombian-Venezuelan border and head east to Guyana and Suriname to avoid U.S. forces, according to the DEA assessment.
“When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side,” one DEA official told The Post. “They always find the weak spots and exploit them.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the subject publicly.
It turns out that drug suppliers like to both make money and stay out of jail. Or get murdered on the high seas. So, not shockingly, they adapt.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Operation Southern Spear was accomplishing “exactly what it was designed to do: detect, disrupt and dismantle designated terrorist organizations and the networks they rely on to traffic narcotics, generate illicit revenue, and threaten the security of the United States and the Western Hemisphere.”
“Transnational criminal organizations have continually adapted their tactics for decades,” Parnell told The Post. “That does not indicate the pressure is ineffective. It demonstrates that we are imposing systemic friction on their operations.”
Which is no doubt true. The question—leaving aside the legality and morality of this particular modality—is whether that friction makes any material difference in the supply of illicit drugs. Apparently, the answer is No.
