by James W. Harris

Wednesday, September 6, 2000 should go down in history as the date that everyone finally realized the War on Drugs will never, ever work.

On that date, police in Colombia stumbled onto a half-built submarine - being assembled for drug smugglers.

The sub was found in a warehouse outside the capitol, Bogota - 7,500 feet up in the Andes Mountain. Fully 210 miles from the nearest seaport.

The sub was 100 feet long, extremely strong, and very high-tech. Finished, it would have been capable of crossing entire oceans, submerging fully 100 meters under the surface, and rising anywhere to drop off up to 200 tons of cocaine.

Even the Colombian navy admits it lacks the expertise to build a sub of such quality. A Navy expert described it as "unmistakably of superb naval construction." Clues indicate Russian engineers may have been involved, and Americans as well.

Even veteran Drug Warriors were stunned at the discovery. Smugglers have used passenger ships, planes and tunnels to smuggle drugs... but no one had ever suspected something like this. The warehouse was empty, and no arrests were made.

The tremendous profits of drug smuggling - a result of Drug Prohibition, of course - have created the incentive for such innovations, and provide the funding. And as long as Drug Prohibition continues, there will be huge profits to be made from meeting that demand... and people willing to go to extraordinary lengths to make the extraordinary profits.

(Source: Associated Press, September 8, 2000)

From THE LIBERATOR ONLINE, September 15, 2000 / Vol. 5, No. 17