War On Drugs A Waste Of Money?

 Americas longest war in it's history is not the war on terrorism but the war on drugs. For decades now, and untold billions of dollars later, we only need to look at the record amount of drugs being seized at our borders and in our parks and national forests to see that we are no better off now than many years ago when it comes down to eliminating drugs from our streets. Sure, every so often a huge drug bust is made and the price on the street goes up in some areas. But with a seemingly unlimited supply crossing our borders every year, it seems a new approach might be needed. Drug seizures are on the rise again after falling in 2010. In the San Diego sector alone, marijuana seizures have already tripled their 2010 levels to over 65K pounds and we still have two months left in the fiscal year to go. Cocaine seizures tally 1,368 pounds, also a record level in that sector from last year. However, record levels of seizures does not guarantee that lower levels of drugs are hitting our streets. The only hard fact to take from record seizures is that record numbers of drugs are being produced south of our border. Recently, the Mexican authorities found a 300 acre pot farm in Baja California, Mexico. While it was reportedly destroyed, do we trust Mexican law enforcement given the huge history of corruption in that country? Another front in the war is inside our borders in our parks and national forests. Every year, more and more states report wild pot farms growing in the parks and forests inside their borders. This story is the latest to come out about that front. Over 460,000 plants were removed. At a potential profit of 5K a plant (as reported on CNBC), that is over 2.3 billion in revenue for the cartels in Mexico from just that one wild farm. Not only is it dangerous to those that go inside these areas for recreation, but do not forget about the environmental disaster taking place. Runoff from fertilizers and chemicals enter those streams, lakes and rivers and causes untold harm to both fauna and flora. Yet not one environmental organization has come out and said anything about this disaster. The same goes for their lack of condemnation about the over twenty-five million pounds of trash on our border. More and more people are coming across armed men, mostly illegal aliens, guarding their wild pot farms. This is a problem that will not go away any time soon. In upstate New York, pot growers go into the corn fields when the corn is growing and plant their pot so it is hidden by the corn plants. Then they harvest the pot before the corn is harvested. One way these tactics are discovered is by helicopter. But since New York is out of money they have reduced these flights by as much as 60 to 70 percent. Problems like this are going on all over the country, not just New York. The question is though, do we continue going down the same road or do we look for a new approach?