Drug submarines found in Colombia

bbc.co.uk ^ | 1 November 2007

[Tailgunner Joe]

The Colombian navy has seized two homemade submarines believed to have been built by the Farc rebel group to smuggle cocaine out of the country.

The two fibreglass vessels were found in a clandestine shipyard outside the country's largest port, Buenaventura.

One of the 17m (56ft) submarines was ready for launch, while the other had nearly been completed, the navy said.

Correspondents say drug-traffickers are increasingly relying on the sea to avoid checkpoints and border crossings.

Since 2005, the Colombian armed forces have uncovered nine homemade submarines, including a 20m (66ft) vessel on the country's Caribbean coast in August.

In 2000, police found a 30m (100ft) steel submarine under construction far inland, near the capital Bogota, which would have been capable of carrying up to 200 tons of cocaine.

[Strategerist]

Keeping this stuff off the streets is cheaper

Where is "This stuff" off the streets? Name an area of the country where cocaine is unavailable to those who seek it.

The street price of cocaine has been consistently dropping during the entire "War on Drugs."

Your mistaken assumption is anything is being "Kept off the streets."

[Strategerist]

Talked to a guy from the USCG last week that said these subs submerge really, really well.

They sometimes have trouble coming back up.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Lol!

[ketsu]

Those fiberglass hulls were not part of last years story, just the steel ones found inland. I know your against the war on drugs, and would rather see this stuff dumped on our streets in greater abundance, and made even easier for children to access and destroy their lives, and destroy our nation in general, but I disagree.

Shoot, do you know how much cocaine ends up in corporate boardrooms and the halls of Washington? If Al Qaeda wanted to shut down the US all they'd have to do is start suicide bombing drug dealers in Columbia.

[ketsu]

B.S. drug addicts can't afford the habit because they are too burned out to work. They'd still be robbing, breaking into houses and killing to get the money for their fix even if it were "legal". They'd still be sharing needles and the aids, hepatitis, etc. that goes along with it.

:rolleyes: Drug addicts are a self eliminating problem. Give them drugs, food and an apartment. It would cost $10,000 a year tops. Jail costs $25,000+. Better yet a drug addict dies in year or two, while an recidivist inmate will cost the system hundreds of thousands, if not millions when all is said and done.

Here's to Drug legalization.

[seemoAR]

This must mean that the airport at Mena, AR can’t keep up with the increased drug shipments and will have to be improved. ;0)

[Leisler]

The drugs are already here. I doubt there is anyone who wants drugs that isn’t able to get them. Further like Amway, at the local retail level, those costs are almost free or at cost to the dealers, if the knuckleheads did real accounting of their time and efforts. So, although importing over the boarder is costly, once in the drugs move through the nation free of many of the taxes that raise prices.

It’s cheaper when it is illegal. If it was legal, it would be taxed like cigs and gasoline. People used to the untaxed illegal drugs wouldn’t pay the high cost legal drug.

I know plenty of people using, now, untaxed heating oil in their cars and trucks. Ditto smoking imported North Carolina cigs. Just to wrap up, making drugs legal, would cause their prices to consumers to rise.

[GingisK]

Keeping this stuff off the streets is cheaper that paying for all the social ills, the crime, sickness and death it causes.

It is important to remember that the nations that once had no laws against drugs now have the strictest forms of anti-drug enforcement. That is simply because drugs destroyed their societies in the past. (Reference China and Turkey.)

[seemoAR]

China fought 2 wars, in 1841 and in 1856, to keep Opium out after they outlawed it. They lost Hong Kong to the British in the first war.

[Aquinasfan]

Most of the crime and killings happen not because of intoxication but because the trade must be clandestine.

And if the use of cocaine was legalized, presumably more people would use it, more people would abuse it, and more lives and families would be ruined.

There's no panacea for fighting the war on drugs, just like there is no panacea for fighting the war on first degree murder.

[Eye of Unk]

I would say AQ would offer to pay more for a smaller shipment of items weightwise to be shipped instead, something nuclear.

[microgood]

I know your against the war on drugs, and would rather see this stuff dumped on our streets in greater abundance, and made even easier for children to access and destroy their lives, and destroy our nation in general, but I disagree.

Yeah right, I want to see our children's lives destroyed.

But I would settle for the following:

(1) The ONDCP and DEA to quit lying to us about what is working and what is not. Plan Columbia has been a complete failure. Every year it has been in place the output of cocaine from that country has increased, all while the number of people dying in Columbia and the number of refugees has also increased. Even as they spray thousands of hectares with poison, they become more efficient and have even moved some growing into the National Parks which cannot be sprayed. Now the Colombians are pushing the FARC into Ecuador in a deliberate effort to make stick it to Ecuador for resisting our War in Colombia. It is a frigging disaster.

(2) Even if they use submarines, most of the Cocaine is still coming across the border from Mexico. Seal the frigging border. If you do not seal the border, you cannot say you are serious about the War on Drugs. Clearly Bush is not serious at all.

(3) Legalize Pot. It takes care of most of the drug problem and despite all the lies from the DEA and ONDCP, is way less harmful than even alcohol.

(4) Make parents responsible for their children. Cocaine and heroin have been around for a long time. Long before the 70s. Why is it a problem now? Parents have turned over the job of parenting to the government. Any parent that does not know their kids are on drugs is not doing their job. Period.

(3) I have never stated that heroin or cocaine should be legalized. But fighting the war the way we have for the last 30 years has not worked. And putting low level dealers in jail for 20 years is a complete waste of resources, no matter how good it makes drug warriors feel. As the baby boomers retire, there are gong to be less resources for everything, so we need to get smarter, instead of being stuck on stupid like we have the last 30 years.

Maybe this is a new type of sub, but I tend to not believe anything coming from the Drug Warriors, who continually lie about the state of the drug war. The DEA is now in 85 countries and are completely ineffective in everything they do, which is why they are throwing doctors in jail for overprescribing pain medication, they have failed at everything else.

[Eye of Unk]

[Tailgunner Joe]

It’s cheaper when it is illegal.

Don't legalizers always say that keeping drugs illegal only drives up their street value? According to the laws of supply and demand, ending drug interdiction would increase the supply available for sale, thus lowering the price.

If it was legal, it would be taxed like cigs and gasoline. People used to the untaxed illegal drugs wouldn’t pay the high cost legal drug.

That's right. They would just buy it on the black market without paying the tax like they do now.

[Leisler]

“Don’t legalizers always “
No.

“..supply and demand.”
Supply exceeds, and has so for decades, demand. Prices for same same products has decreased.

[microgood]

The whole idea that "legalized drugs" would solve any problems is laughable. Those that propose it obviously haven't thought out that argument very well, probably because they are too stoned to think.

Again, it depends on which drugs you are talking about. I would rather have a recreational pot smoker working for me than a beer drinker anytime. Those evening drinkers can't even think until after lunch. It may differ between jobs, the one I am in requires no physical strength and a lot of brain power.

When I worked in a blue collar job, however, a heavy drinker was OK because they did not need to think anyway.

[Nate505]

Keeping this stuff off the streets

Yeah, good luck with that one. You guys have been trying it for over 30 years, and have failed so badly it's embarrassing at this point.