Drug Runners Perfect Long-Range Subs 428
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Authorities have captured a 74-foot camouflaged submarine — nearly twice as long as a city bus — with twin propellers and a 5-foot conning tower that, with a crew of four to six, has a maximum operational range of 6,800 nautical miles on the surface, can go 10 days without refueling and was probably designed to ferry cocaine underwater to Mexico. The vessel carries a payload of 9 tons of cocaine with a street value of about $250 million and uses a GPS chart plotter with side-scan capabilities, a high-frequency radio, an electro-optical periscope and an infrared camera mounted on the conning tower—visual aids that supplement two miniature windows in the makeshift cockpit. "This is the most sophisticated sub we've seen to date," says Jon Wallace who has headed the Personal Submersibles Organization, or Psubs, for 15 years. "It's a very good design in terms of shape and controls." In the meantime jungle shipbuilders continue to perfect their craft."
In others news .... (Score:2, Funny)
The DEA perfects the Depth Charge.
Re:In others news .... (Score:5, Insightful)
The tricky bit is detection: There's a lot of ocean out there, and a composite-skinned boat barely sticking out of the water is going to have a comparatively minimal radar presence, a worthwhile thermal signature only if they are running on diesel, and probably count as fairly quiet by the standards of all but substantially more expensive combat subs.
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Uhm, while a modern attack sub might be able to sneak up on a carrier I doubt your chance of success would be very high with this underwater barge.
By DEA standards this thing is practically undetectable, by navy standards it's not.
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Re:In others news .... (Score:4, Funny)
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I think you have wrong three letter agency.
Google for some of the following, and you'll find the answers.
Cocaine One [madcowprod.com]
Cocaine flight crashes in Yucatan (2007) [newsvine.com]
Cocaine flight (1990) [thegooddrugsguide.com]
Herion, Opium, etc (1960's on) [infocollective.org]
And more (1950's on) [ciadrugs.com]
If you're going to run black ops mission with operations off the books, that budget has to come from somewhere. It's not to say that it's all bad, they get lots of things done,
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What's funny is (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Insightful)
"The one thing I can't work out is why there is so little debate on the matter among those with the power to change it"
Three words: Private prison lobbyists
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Oh, bull crap. There were no private prisons when drugs were made illegal. Up until the early 20th century you could buy cocaine in the local drug store.
Drugs are illegal as a result of the same nanny-state impulse that brought us seat belt laws and Social Security. Some people can't resist the urge to run your life, and they'll enlist the government to do it.
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Informative)
That's the reply that makes the least sense: If drugs were legal, everyone would use them.
Hello? Would anyone go "hey, it's Tuesday, let's try crack!"? Be serious for a single moment here and think. Yes, protect the kids and make handing drugs to them a crime (not the lala kind of "nono" it is today when it comes to cigs and beer), but if an adult willfully wants to ruin his life, by all means let him!
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Right and legal drugs don't have an underground market. You name one drug including Tylenol and cough syrup and you can find a black market for it.
Hell American's are going to Canada to buy their prescription medications because those same drugs made by the same company are being sold in the USA at 10 times the price.
Just because you make it legal doesn't mean the price will go down on it. Drugs are dealt with poorly in this country for the sake of profits.
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If a drug is freely and legally available the patent owner (though patent licensing fees) if there is one and/or the governement (through taxes or lack of taxes) will largely control the price and provided they aren't too greedy will get the lions share of the profit. Illegal sources that want to survive will have to undercut the legal source.
Patent holders will set the price at what the market will bear, clearly they have determined that the american market (where the buyers are largely private insurance c
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Funny)
Sometimes I read a post and stop after one sentence too.
"You name one drug including Tylenol and cough syrup and you can find a black market for it."
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There is a black market because of age restrictions and taxes. Cigarettes especially have super high taxes on them, and black market dealers don't collect them. Or check ID.
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The GGP must be proposing lifting those restrictions for cocaine as well, otherwise there will be a black market anyway. Besides, is there any statistical data whether the tax revenue from alcohol or tobacco is enough to pay off for all the medical issues they create? I recall hearing a tv report that it's not the case in Germany, by a very large margin.
Ah, found it: in Germany the yearly tax revenue from alcohol taxes is 3,5 billions EUR, but estimated 24,4 billions EUR are spent due to alcohol-related dam
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Insightful)
Because they don't tax alcohol enough, and don't count the money saved by undercutting a booze mafia. Cocaine could be enough to keep its prices at about $50 a (real, not diluted) gram and it would bring in about 90% its current revenue $billions in taxes. While reducing the costs (money and personally) of the cocaine mafia. Converting Mexico, Colombia and much of Bolivia, Peru, Panama and the rest of Latin America back from drug lord countries would save the Western Hemisphere and much of the Eastern many $billions every year.
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Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm, gotta need to read the Constitution and the Bill of Human Rights again... How could I possibly miss the right to be high or/and drunk?!
Freedoms aren't just what is enumerated as rights, but any imposition on our actions.
The money which is spent on social services, roads, schools etc. instead of providing additional services and facilities to deal with the aftermath of excessive tobacco or alcohol consume?
So what? These governments don't need to provide these services. I'm not interested in curtailing my freedom merely because government has created yet another service which needs protection from my actions.
Seriously, a society which is held permanently drunk or high is much easier to control by the government since the people tend to think less and to doubt less. Sure, there is no denying that a man can't be forbidden to wish such things, but it's still giving away the essential freedoms for temporary happiness while damaging the society you live in. Will deserve neither and lose both ;-)
So what? It's not nor should be the job of government to attempt to force citizens to be patriotic or virtuous.
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You don't get any rights from your constitution. Your rights are an inalienable part of you. The constitution of the USA is simply a reminder to the government that you have these rights and they are not to pass any laws that infringe on them.
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And how many colleges are filled with people under 21 but get drunk every weekend?
How many high schools have kids who smoke?
Where there is a desire there is a way even if it is illegal.
Re:What's funny is (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wanted to add to what you said: look at the parallels to Prohibition in the twenties and early thirties.
Alcohol was made illegal and what happened? Gang warfare. Smuggling. Higher addiction rates, instead of lower ones like you might expect, only now the addicts are going broke because of the increased prices. Criminality of all stripes caused by desperate, broke addicts. Illegal products contaminated by poisons (methanol, mostly). Law enforcement resources diverted when they were sorely needed elsewhere. Officials bribed and corrupted. Assassination and murder for hire, the inevitable result of unscrupulous people flush with cash operating outside the law. This was not a good time to be alive.
Every negative consequence of Prohibition is mirrored in the modern War on Drugs. And what happened when Prohibition was repealed? The problems slowly went away. There wasn't an explosion of alcoholism; the addicts were there all along and nobody suddenly decided to join their number now that it was legal to do so. The criminal empires built on moonshine and smuggling collapsed. Things got better once we stopped trying to force people to live up to the ideals of sobriety, as if it were ever possible to coerce someone to be a better person.
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Point of fact: after prohibition ... (Score:2)
Per capita alcohol consumption in the US went down.
I don't have a link for that, but I get my numbers from a chart I saw in a museum at Mt. Vernon. Alcohol consumption per capita was massive at the end of the 19th century, but through Prohibition it stayed flat and when Prohibition ended, it decreased.
My first guess would be that the vicarious thrill of being a law-breaker increased consumption. I suspect that something like that is also true of drug consumption in the US. Take away the thrill of eating the
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Comparing it to prohibition misses one giant point tho:
During prohibition noone made money fighting the smugglers and mafia.
Today the war on drugs is a huge industry with enormous momentum.
Smugglers using subs is an economic gift to the whole industry, now they get to dust off the old cold war sub defenses and sell them again.
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Informative)
It is not as simple as you describe it. In the 1980ies Gorbachev more or less introduced alcohol prohibition to the USSR. And while it indeed lead to moonshine contaminated by poisons and alternative drug abuse, it actually lowered criminality somewhat, raised birth rates and boosted life expectancy to the highest value in the whole history of Russia before or after it.
Not exactly. (Score:4, Interesting)
Gorbachev's changes were more about limited access. You could still buy vodka but you could only buy limited quantities and at limited times. Which drove sales to the black market. Which hurt the Russian economy.
Hell, that's kind of like Washington state's laws as of 10 years ago when you couldn't buy vodka on a Sunday because all the liquor stores are state-owned.
Alcohol (and other drugs) are complex subjects that cannot be "solved" with simplistic solutions.
Unfortunately, most politicians can only think in the most simplistic of sound-bites so that's all we ever get.
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The problem was a combination of two things. First, it became cool to drink. It was a thrill ride because you never knew when the sting came and the fines were ridiculous, so you could just "risk" it.
And second, and more importantly, the law had no backing in the general population. There wasn't the big consensus that this was a good idea and that booze should be banned. Quite the opposite. And laws that have no backing in the population are dangerous. For more than one reason.
First, nobody cares about thos
Re:What's funny is (Score:5, Informative)
Alcohol was made illegal and what happened?
Alcohol consumption dropped to less than one gallon per person per year.
1906-1910 2.60 gal.
1916-1919 1.96 gal.
1934 0.97 gal.
1955 2.0 gal.
1973 2.62 gal.
1980 2.76 gal.
2007 2.31 gal.
Apparent per capita ethanol consumption for the United States, 1850-2007. (Gallons of ethanol, based on population age 15 and older prior to 1970 and on population age 14 and other thereafter). [nih.gov]
Higher addiction rates, instead of lower ones like you might expect
If this were true, you should be seeing higher liver cirrhosis mortality rates.
In fact, the rates between 1920 and 1940 are about half those of 1910. Age-Adjusted Liver Cirrhosis Mortality U.S. 1910-1996 [nih.gov] [chart]
Re:What's funny is (Score:5, Insightful)
With the same accuracy, can you please tell me how much PCP is currently consumed? What about Marijuana? How's about crack? Since none of those operate on an open market, all of these statistics would be heavily inferred from other proxy variables, and all would be WAY off the mark. If you're seeing a drop, that doesn't necessarily mean there was a drop, but instead there was a change in reporting. Additionally, even in an unregulated market with an open exchange giving us all the awesome information we could want, it can be hard to estimate these rates. While I would have expected prohibition to have had an effect, from seeing documentaries about people who lived in that time, and talking to people who lived through it, I know that the effect was more for show.
In fact, the rates between those dates, from the source you've listed, are under-reported by its own admission. They did not calculate those rates over this period, which is odd, given they were calculating it consistently before and after. This could suggest that the rates didn't change at all. In fact, given the market was flooded with lower quality alcohol (READ: Dangerous), it could mean it was higher. But that's just speculation.
Additionally when looking at epidemiology (an often deeply flawed method), you need to scrutinize what they're doing to the data to display it. For instance, this data is mostly Age-Adjusted [mo.gov], which means that it likely doesn't truly represent the observed rate at that time.
Lastly, while liver cirrhosis is terrible, I think the worst thing about prohibition was the "super gangs" it created. Some of which are still around, and many of which used this model for other things that were made illegal, that shouldn't have been. The statistics from that, would be way worse than any others, but calculating run on effects, is always hard.
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Insightful)
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You forgot another consequence, when the feds poisoned alcohol to make people think it was more dangerous, and killed its own citizens as a result: http://www.slate.com/id/2245188/ [slate.com]
Which they tried again in the 1970's by spraying marijuana fields in Mexico with paraquat [wikipedia.org]. Which failed miserably since paraquat sprayed pot isn't really all that poisonous.
The simple fact is that if shenanigans like this are required to convince people the stuff is dangerous, then it's not dangerous enough to justify federal regulation.
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You missed the point. This is a "for the greater good" argument. Not a single person here has said that addiction or the violence would go away. There is no reason to treat marijuana, crack, or any of the other illegal drugs different from alcohol, caffeine, or tobacco. There is evidence that the Prohibition made the addiction and the violence associated with alcohol worse. Applying that to this modern prohibition would lead to the idea that it might be better to legalize illegal drugs rather than allow
It is all about the money (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been around rich people and around poor people. Almost without exception, the poor people have been more honest and a better class of people.
You are extremely naive if you don't think that a large percentage of the drug money isn't being laundered into the hands of the 'legitimate' people who run the government and wear three piece suites. That is why the drug trade is allowed to go on. It is making too many people too much money. If there was a real desire to shut down the trade, it could be shut down overnight. It would be nice if drugs were legalized, but i don't think it will happen as long as so many people are making so much money.
Think about it. The coast guard and the DEA are the drug runners best friends. Who else would artificially inflate the price of these plants. Likewise the DEA, and coast guard have to love the drug runners. Their jobs, and all the neat toys they get to play with are all purchased to fight this endless war on drugs.
When prohibition was finally lifted, it was the rum runners who came to power in the USA (Kennedy et. al) The ironic thing is that even when alcohol was legitimately taxed, it was still the rum runners who were making the money (Kennedy et. al). The only difference is the instead of the crooked individuals being gangsters they became politicians.
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I'm curious - do you have a source for the assertion that Kennedy was a rum runner?
Re:It is all about the money (Score:4, Informative)
I'm curious - do you have a source for the assertion that Kennedy was a rum runner?
Joseph Kennedy [wikimedia.org] was widely reputed to have been in cahoots with the Canadian Bronfman brothers. They made their fortune running rum from Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean up to Canada and then slipping it across the US border from there.
Canadian Club whiskey is a legacy of that trade route. 'Canadian' clubs tended to have the best booze, you see. The families involved in this trade became extremely wealthy. The Bronfmans founded Seagrams distillery and one of their scions actually owned entertainment giant Vivendi/Universasl for a while.
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he bought up lots of stock in Dewars and Gordons during Prohibition and sold it soon after repeal for a huge profit.
that just seems like a logical, shrewd investment move that anyone could do, whether they're in the business or not.
Totally. Doing illegal drugs is immoral, usually victimless, but immoral and disgusting, because its illegal. However, few actions approach what amounts to one of the greatest goods of the American dream: making a fortune off of the habits of the immoral criminal drug user, and in general, if possible, the misery of others. That's what makes this country great. You can on the one hand be completely offended by what someone else does even when you aren't aware of it, and yet still sleep at night knowing you
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The price would still be astronomical, but if they were legal it'd be because of all the lawsuits people would bring due to all of the side effects of things like Cocaine or Meth or whatever / all the extra regulation that'd go into their manufacture. Mary Jane may be pretty much fine, but the bulk of the others are not just illegal; they're super bad for you in any kind of fun quantity. And right now they can be made in the bed of a pickup truck by a guy losing hair into the mix; it'd cost a tad more to
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the bulk of the others are not just illegal; they're super bad for you in any kind of fun quantity
Citation needed. Yes, methamphetamine is a fairly dangerous drug to use, and it does cause brain damage, but where is the evidence that the "bulk" of other drugs are dangerous for you? Can you cite any studies that have found that those drugs are more dangerous than, say, alcohol?
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Really? The U.S. port industry was legal yet it was infiltrated by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra. The Teamsters were a legal trade union, but in thrall to the mob. What makes you think the organized crime syndicates running drugs are going to take legalization lying down? Cigarettes are legal yet there is a thriving underworld devoted to avoiding taxes and shipping them around the globe. Medical drugs are legal, yet there is a thriving industry devoted to producing and shipping counterfeit drugs. Hell, ev
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Enough of them certainly. Of course many object for moral reasons. Either because they fear the damage that will be caused to society (too late) or because they feel sorry for the victims who fall to addiction. Then there is the purported fact that the CIA actually dabbles in this business in order to pad their black ops budget. Regardless we can't even get relatively harmless Marijuana decriminalized so certainly harder stuff is out of the question.
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Interesting)
If you worry about the addicts, outlaw tobacco and alcohol. Let's not be hypocritical here, ok? As long as there's far more addictive substances legal and less addictive and damaging substances are illegal, let's not talk about "moral".
The difference is that there's an industry behind those two drugs and that industry is legal and pays taxes, and most of all there's public support for them. Start a campaign for pot akin to the one against smoking today and you'll see MJ legalized in a breeze.
But as long as there's little incentive from various industries to legalize anything but what's already legal and firmly in the hands of a few tobacco and booze corporations we won't see any change in that.
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Interesting)
Think for a moment what happens to the US banking industry if drugs were to be legalized.
$1,000,000,000,000 * 10% = $1,000,000,000 / 2 = $500,000,000
Do you think that the banksters are going to let politicians wipe out a five hundred billion dollar revenue stream just because it's the sane thing to do?
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First the pro drug crowd not only wants decriminalization but they also want a very special status in which product quality and purity is not examined or a path to taxation kept in view.
I'm pro-legalization of pretty much everything. I consider myself a 'moderate libertarian'.
My saying is 'legalize, tax, and regulate it'. Hell yes I'd be taxing and regulating it.
The thing about dropping the price is that they won't NEED to commit the crimes to get it, they won't be as messed up from contaminated drugs so they're more likely to be able to keep a regular job(and afford their habit), and since it's not illegal, it won't have the stigma to prevent people from getting treatment.
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Interesting)
That would be the street price. The sub would transport high purity (>90%) coke, by the time it gets to the consumer it's usually around 10-15%.
However the authorities always grossly over-estimate the value of a haul. Looks good for their totals, and helps prosecutors secure higher sentences.
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The Wikipedia article on Narco submarines, linked in the summary, estimates the construction cost of (older) semi-submersible craft at $2 million. They're scuttled after a one-way trip. If they're spotted by the Coast Guard, they're scuttled, with a complete loss of the cargo and (now) the arrest of the crew. They're spending enormous amounts of wealth on risky ventures, and have been doing so for some time. It seems reasonable to conclude that the profits are even more enormous..
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That would be the street price. The sub would transport high purity (>90%) coke, by the time it gets to the consumer it's usually around 10-15%.
However the authorities always grossly over-estimate the value of a haul. Looks good for their totals, and helps prosecutors secure higher sentences.
I agree with your first point, so in this case it seems like your second point isn't true.
We agree it wouldn't make any sense to smuggle low-purity cocaine using so costly and risky a method. That's going to be nine tons of nearly pure coke.
But by my math, $250 million divided by nine tons comes out to a little less than $31 a gram, or $93 for an eight ball. Of pure cocaine? I don't think so. They could easily step on this shipment five times, still have the best stuff around, and make considerably more tha
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Price at the ships destination. Stated to be Mexico so I'd say it was about right, maybe a little high.
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You're right, that's outrageous. Aspirin (the low dose stuff they sell to people with heart and stroke problems) is only about $2000 / lb.
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$14k/lb? Who the heck is snorting it at that price?
Charlie Sheen must account for a lot of it.
Engineers required (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like the kind of thing that takes more than a few engineers to build. I wonder what toys they hand out at recruitment fairs?
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They pay well, value your skills, and let you work on fun & interesting projects. Ethics aside, it sounds like a good job.
But the retirement plan sucks.
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That said, I wonder why they don't use smaller, simpler, unmanned subs. Making a submersible liveable for a crew of 6 seems like a whole lot of resource and engineering overhead when they can probably get a few people to bang out gps-only navigation. It's not like they don't have access to clever people to get the job done.
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The guy in the article describes it a little differently. He ended up losing his family, becoming addicted to various substances and had a price on his head when he finally left.
That said, I wonder why they don't use smaller, simpler, unmanned subs. Making a submersible liveable for a crew of 6 seems like a whole lot of resource and engineering overhead when they can probably get a few people to bang out gps-only navigation. It's not like they don't have access to clever people to get the job done.
I don't know much about the drugs business, but I get the feeling they try to pack huge amounts of stuff in each shipment. Probably beats having loads of individual trucks, which one might use if one was in a legit business. The problem, of course, is you're betting a lot on each shipment going through. Can you imagine losing 250M worth of dope because something went wrong with the nav system? They probably want real people on board to make sure everything goes to plan, and in order to navigate the vagaries
Enough now (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we just fucking legalise and tax drugs, rather than let murderous druglords make billions off the black market? It 's a choice of two evils, but at least the corporations will pay tax.
I can't believe people think that if you pretend it doesn't happen it will go away. Let's fucking deal with it using scientific enquiry and logical, rational arguments related to economics and crime. Emotional appeals to 'the evil drugs' are a fucking waste of time. It's a shame that it is political suicide to even entertain ideas about legalisation, thanks to all the fuckwit voters out there. Mostly old people stuck in their conservative ways. I can't wait for these people to die off and we can start learning lessons from history and move forward as a species.
Re:Enough now (Score:5, Funny)
at least the corporations will pay tax.
What if GE got into the drug trade?
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Make it a 20% sales tax.
Have 5% of that go to funding programs to help addicts and 5% go toward product quality enforcement. A large number of expensive hospital visits are from what the drug is cut with rather than the drug itself.
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at least the corporations will pay tax.
What if GE got into the drug trade?
Mod parent insightful, seriously. If giant businesses started selling our drugs, they wouldn't be paying taxes, just like they don't pay taxes now.
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The victims are all the people and corporations who did pay taxes - including GE's own employees. It's a crime with an effect that's spread thinly over a huge number of people, but not a victimless crime.
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Re:Enough now (Score:4, Insightful)
Labeling is not a ban; and I'm unaware of any proposal to ban kids from bringing potato chips in with theit bag lunches, only for the government to improve the quality of the food it provides in school cafeterias.
It's called medical ethics. If for $X you can either save 1,000 kids, or drag out the death of a 95-year-old for one painful week, yes, that should be a consideration in making end-of-life decisions.
What are you talking about? Are you somehow referring to health education and anti-smoking campaigns? Fates forfend that we educate people about how to take care of their health.
OMG you mean they're spending money on health science research? Those bastards!
It's funny how often I hear that sentiment from those who would be first up against the wall of natural selection if such a revolution came.
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I don't know if you've been keeping up with Merck and Pfizer but that's how it is NOW.
I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I believe two of their products could be replaced with marihuana.
First, let's take a look at a particularly deleterious substance marketed as Vicodin. This is an opiate drug that not only gets you high, but is addictive* and has withdrawal symptoms. From what I understand a local hospital is in the business of getting people addicted. One of my friends once showed up to get an asthma inhaler refill and walked out with a Vicodin prescription. Just like big tob
legalize it (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you imagine how bad the cartels would be hurting if this stuff got legalized? You'd better believe they'd be buying up senators left and right to keep it banned.
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Re:legalize it (Score:5, Insightful)
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Come to think of it, your entire argument is that we should keep prohibition in pl
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Just because someone bad doesn't like something, doesn't mean it's a good thing.
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The cartels already have the capital. If drugs get legalized, they'll just move more heavily into kidnapping and slavery.
Same thing as after Prohibition, organized crime just moved into other territories. There is no way to turn back the clock and prevent the cartels from coming to power in the first place.
Not that this is an argument against legalization, mind you. It's just the observation that one particular argument for legalization doesn't hold that much weight.
That's a poor counter-argument. The cartels are already heavily involved in those other areas as they are profitable, and it's not like the demand for sex slaves is going to double just because people aren't buying illegal drugs. If there was additional unserved demand in those areas, they would already be exploiting it.
Why not legalize coke? (Score:5, Interesting)
This should be motive enough to legalize some drugs or at least restrict sales such that it would stop the South Americans from shipping coke to the US.
Once naval and intelligence experts become concerned of the sub building capabilities and detection of these subs it acknowledges that this poses a risk to US security. I read earlier articles that indicated ex-Russian sub designers were being hired by the Cartels to build their sub.
I don't think there's any major worry of these subs being virtually undetectable like the current American subs or carrying nukes or torpedoes but I think there might be a concern that some of these people would go to work for some other country at some point. Hell, if they're building these kinds of subs in the jungle, I'd be concerned about what they can do if they don't have to be so conspicuous.
I'd say it does a good job of it so far (Score:4, Insightful)
Try this: find a kid in high school and ask her what's easier to buy: booze or weed.
If weed is so easy to purchase today, it doesn't follow that legalization will create a significant increase is usage.
Get away from the bias of wanting to believe that legalization will significantly or dramatically increase drug use and abuse, and you're left with the realization that the current form of government addressing the ill of drug abuse is far worse than the abuse itself.
Next step: drone boats (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been building autonomous vessels since 2004 and the very first potential customer was a guy who wanted to smuggle weed and cigs from Switzerland to Italy with one. Had to wait a few months for an actual legit customer and I get that sort of call/email twice a year on average. I could've made a lot of money, but eh.
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Technical question (Score:3)
I've heard of side-scan radar and side-scan sonar. What the fuck is side-scan GPS? Wouldn't the vessel have to be on the surface to receive a GPS signal, or if submerged, extend some sort of antenna above the ocean surface? What in the name of Cthulhu are they scanning laterally for? Does the US Navy have a secret GPS constellation that orbits underwater or something? Methinks the writer studied journalism at the University of Make Shit Up.
Re:Technical question (Score:4, Informative)
My guess would be that the writer is clueless and easily impressed by something like this:
http://www.premierfishing.co.uk/humminbird---1198cx-si-combo---side-scan-sonar--gps-436-p.asp [premierfishing.co.uk]
Leave out the world sonar and there you have it... side-scan GPS.
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Interesting, sure, but (Score:2)
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Just sayin'.
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I wouldn't be surprised if payloads were already being delivered by rocket, rockets are cheap to build and can have a few keys of payload. A guided rocket with a parachute can even be reused.
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Who would have thought (Score:2)
that when you restricts something its value sky rockets and make people rich by dealing in that item. Mind you the DEA and company probably rake in more money then the cartels so there's no reason to make that item legal.
Encourage a black market -- help terrorists. (Score:2)
Acoustic Signatures (Score:4, Interesting)
You can bet the USN & CIA detection equipment from sea floor mounted sensors will be able to pick up the known propulsion signatures.
Sounds transmit underwater for very long distances which will limit the number of sensors particularly if "well placed" at known transit spots.
It won't be long before they can pretty much find, follow and intercept as they wish.
Re:Acoustic Signatures (Score:4, Interesting)
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It won't be long before the DEA, DHS, and the FBI all argue for their own independent submarine fleets before congress and get them.
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These subs travel to close to the surface for those methods to work.
What's the difference between a surface vessel that goes 20 feet under water, and a sub traveling 20 feet under water?
Sonar can't tell you.
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These "subs" won't go below any thermocline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline) and so sea floor mounted sensors will be mostly useless. Also small boats like these won't sound significantly different than pleasure craft and trawlers, especially as they use COTS engines and propellers.
The only way to reliably track these kinds of vessels is extremely sensitive airborne magnetometers (they have non-metallic hulls) and the mark I eyeball.
As long as drugs are outlawed ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As long as drugs are outlawed ... (Score:4, Informative)
Besides keeping people who have no self control in check, there are safety concerns.. the "illegal" trade already comes up with concoctions that have things like battery acid and all sorts of other things that are unpleasant and deadly.
It sounds like you are saying we need to keep drugs illegal because illegal drugs are less safe than legal drugs. Your argument against medical marijuana is similar. The problems you point out would disappear if marijuana were legalized because there would be no need for people to abuse the medical marijuana system.
Your only potentially viable point is that we need to keep drugs illegal in order to protect some poor souls from themselves. This is a matter of opinion and I strongly disagree with yours even though I'm not a libertarian. The idea that people turn to drugs merely because they lack self control is naive and over simplistic.
If removing the profit motive doesn't reduce drug use to acceptable levels then maybe we can use the $44 billion [wikipedia.org] per year we waste on the war on drugs to instead improve social conditions for the segments of society that are most vulnerable. Or we could use the $33 billion in tax revenues on legalized drugs to fund the program and reduce the budget deficit by $44 billion dollars.
For goodness sake, even the Council on Foreign Relations [cfr.org] (pdf) has admitted that the War on Drugs has been an abysmal failure:
A state-driven, supply-side, and penalty-based approach has failed to curb market production, distribution, and consumption of drugs. The assumption that punishing suppliers and users can effectively combat a large market for illicit drugs has proven to be utterly false. Rather, prohibition bestows enormous profits on traffickers, criminalizes otherwise law-abiding users and addicts, and imposes enormous costs on society. Meanwhile, there has been no real effect on the availability of drugs or their consumption, and three-quarters of U.S. citizens believe that the war on drugs has failed.
space (Score:4, Insightful)
Now we only need to figure out how to make drug smuggling to Mars profitable and we'll have manned interplanetary space flight in no time.
Remember... (Score:3)
...the source of this whole raging drug war river is "ZOMG, we can't let Joe Nobody in Pootville get high!"
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Do you know if Joe sells, too? Not that far a drive for me.
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Re:i am for the legalization of marijuana (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in your view, you prefer to COMBINE the effects of the "highly addictive substances" which "entrap lives" with all the side-effects of prohibition, since the prohibition has no chance of actually working in practice because in order to be effective, the counter measures require essentially a totalitarian police state apparatus to be erected, which also presents additional power concentration and profit opportunities for the "authorities" - see also: private prisons etc, not to mention dispensing with all of these inconvenient civil liberties and personal freedoms, Habeas Corpus and the like hindrances for the Holy Crusaders of Anti-Addiction.
So if you are intellectually honest with us, you also advocate a complete Big Brother 24/7/365 all-encompassing surveillance totalitarianism, since it is the only possible scenario under which the supposed "benefits" (i.e. no addicts) of the prohibition could ever be realized. That is, of course, if you are a believer in totalitarian police states and think Orwell's 1984 was an instruction manual.
All to "save us" from ourselves.
No?
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How's that prohibition of murder working out for you? huh, guess we should legalize it, then.
Just because you can't eliminate it completely doesn't mean it's worthless to fight it.
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the problem is, by my determination, legalization will result in a larger number of users. this problem, in my mind, is more potent than all the bad side effects of prohibition. so prohibition should continue, with highly addictive drugs
There's a couple of points to be made here, first I don't think there is any evidence that these drugs are not already affordable and accessible to those who wish to experiment with them, I have been offered methamphetamine/methylamphetamine (which the media here in NZ refer to as "P", and most users/dealers refer to as "speed"), more often than I have been offered cannabis, so anecdotally at least, I would say that it is just as accessible. So who exactly are we "freeing" from addiction here?
Methamphetamin
Re:i am for the legalization of marijuana (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually you are quite right. The true reason for all the "prohibitions" is pencil-necked control-freaks who positively cannot stand someone, somewhere doing something in private they do not approve of. All the whining about "addictions" (in case of drugs) or "innocent children" (in case of sexual material on the net) is just a smoke screen.
Sexual gratification they derive from enforcing their will on others is what it is all about.
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