Job Security

From CGinformation.org — “the unofficial U.S. Coast Guard blog of information, news and commentary”:

Today HQ put out a press release congratulating the service for outdoing any previous 1st quarter in the interdiction of Cocaine with 97,635 pounds of the drug between Oct. 1, 2006, and Jan.1, 2007. This is good, but it also begs the question of why was there more Cocaine coming this way? Are we getting ready for yet anther ‹Drug WarŠá Well at least we‰ll have job security!

Drug traffickers treat Coast Guard interdiction much the same way that Wal-Mart expects a certain amount of shoplifting. It’s just budgeted in as a normal (and pretty cheap to them) cost of doing business.
From 1986 to 2006, the DEA seized 2,836,600 pounds of cocaine without having any impact on the availability or price.