Drug War Robots Are Not the Answer

Submitted by smorgan on
Time Magazine reports on the proliferation of flying drones that spy on drug smugglers from the sky. I'm sure our brave drug war soldiers love sending in remote control robots to do their dirty work, but Time takes things way too far by surmising that these creepy drones might become a game-changing force in the war on drugs:

Indeed, with drones playing an increasing role in U.S. military operations — some 7,000 are in use today, up from just around 100 in the year 2000 — it only stands to reason that drug drones will soon join America's growing stealth arsenal. That's especially true at a time when many in Congress are questioning the cost-effectiveness of a drug war (which has poured more than $5 billion in U.S. aid to Colombia alone this decade) that intercepts tons of narcotics each year but rarely seems to put appreciable dents in eradicating crops like coca, the raw material of cocaine, or reducing the flow of marijuana, coke, heroin and methamphetamine into the U.S.

This is backwards logic. The fact that the drug war consistently and colossally fails to reduce the drug supply is not an argument for spending millions on gigantic flying drones. We should have learned the opposite lesson by now.

Seriously, stop building futuristic drug war machines. We've taken things way, way too far already.

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Source URL: https://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2009/jun/08/drug_war_robots_are_not_answer