Senator Cantwell misses the mark.

[rantiquity]

Originally Posted by WRM20

So you want to completely search 35,000 trucks and over 100,000 cars every day? It's not possible to do that and maintain cross border economic activity. If you were crossing the US/Mexico border, would you settle for waiting 48 hours to get through the line, and have your car disassembled?

It would be great if all small packages containing fentanyl were found, but I am pragmatic enough to understand that's impossible.

Actually with high tech like ex-ray machines and the use of drug sniffing dogs at the border crossings it may not stop all drugs but a lot are stopped. It a deterrent at best.

But the majority of drug traffic is by illegal who evade detection at non-border crossings. Its estimated that nearly 2 million illegal alien border crossing are not caught. So there you go.
But sounds like you don't want to enforce drug laws and let drugs flow freely into the country? I'm I right?

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by rantiquity

Actually with high tech like ex-ray machines and the use of drug sniffing dogs at the border crossings it may not stop all drugs but a lot are stopped. It a deterrent at best.

But the majority of drug traffic is by illegal who evade detection at non-border crossings. Its estimated that nearly 2 million illegal alien border crossing are not caught. So there you go.
But sounds like you don't want to enforce drug laws and let drugs flow freely into the country? I'm I right?

Wrong. I would be very happy if all inbound drugs were stopped. But that's impossible given the volume of traffic that crosses the border and how easy it is to hide the drugs, especially fentanyl.

The majority of marijuana and cocaine may be carried by illegal aliens, although I haven't seen any evidence of that. Fentanyl is carried by US citizens or in small shipments inside 40 foot containers or inside tank trucks and in secret compartments.

A 40 foot container has a volume of 2350 cubic feet. 1/8 of a cubic foot of fentanyl is worth a huge amount of money. How hard do you think it would be to hide 1/8 of a cubic foot in a 2350 cubic foot container?

[jacqueg]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Fentanyl is so concentrated and easy to mass produce that we will NEVER be rid of it through law enforcement interdiction. That is simply a fact. And the whole enterprise is doomed to failure.

If you could wave a magic want and make 50% of all the fentanyl in the US magically disappear what do you think would actually happen? Two things:

1. The remaining distributors of the other 50% would make an absolute killing as the price doubled, which would simply attract endless new dealers and distributors into the market (supply and demand), and

2. Existing addicts would become doubly desperate and double their crime and anti-social behavior to gain the increased funds necessary to maintain their fixes. So twice as many cars stolen, catalytic converters stolen, people robbed, etc.

Would we be in a better place if that happened? Doubtful.

You forgot the third thing that would happen - making fentanyl right here in the US. If enough fentanyl is blocked at the borders, more americans will get into making it.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by WRM20

Wrong. I would be very happy if all inbound drugs were stopped. But that's impossible given the volume of traffic that crosses the border and how easy it is to hide the drugs, especially fentanyl.

The majority of marijuana and cocaine may be carried by illegal aliens, although I haven't seen any evidence of that. Fentanyl is carried by US citizens or in small shipments inside 40 foot containers or inside tank trucks and in secret compartments.

A 40 foot container has a volume of 2350 cubic feet. 1/8 of a cubic foot of fentanyl is worth a huge amount of money. How hard do you think it would be to hide 1/8 of a cubic foot in a 2350 cubic foot container?

And you don't even necessarily hide it inside the container. Maybe you hide it inside one of the 18 truck tires. Or inside the gas tank. Or inside products that are being carried inside the container. Like inside the control panel of a washing machine that is shrink wrapped in cardboard behind 50 other washing machines in that truck. Or a million other places.

On average about 35 THOUSAND trucks cross the Mexican border every single day.

[texasdiver]

[MechAndy]

This is the modern day version of the Opium War.
It didn’t work out very well for the last country that was attacked and their country was what a couple thousand years old?
What makes us think that we are so much better than them that we can survive this kind of attack?
Apparently they have no problem using this war tactic since it was once used on them.

All the devisivness going on here with people saying we can’t win doesn’t help.
Shutting the borders instead of having free entry for all would help.
Stronger criminal prosecution would help.
Thinking homeless drug addicts should not be acceptable would help.

There is a lot of things we can do but for some reason they don’t seem nice enough.

[rantiquity]

Originally Posted by MechAndy

This is the modern day version of the Opium War.
It didn’t work out very well for the last country that was attacked and their country was what a couple thousand years old?
What makes us think that we are so much better than them that we can survive this kind of attack?
Apparently they have no problem using this war tactic since it was once used on them.

All the devisivness going on here with people saying we can’t win doesn’t help.
Shutting the borders instead of having free entry for all would help.
Stronger criminal prosecution would help.
Thinking homeless drug addicts should not be acceptable would help.

There is a lot of things we can do but for some reason they don’t seem nice enough.

People who have giving up on stopping drugs and illegals crossing our borders are only fooling themselves and are enablers.

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

And you don't even necessarily hide it inside the container. Maybe you hide it inside one of the 18 truck tires. Or inside the gas tank. Or inside products that are being carried inside the container. Like inside the control panel of a washing machine that is shrink wrapped in cardboard behind 50 other washing machines in that truck. Or a million other places.

On average about 35 THOUSAND trucks cross the Mexican border every single day.

Ha! They've never seen that before(end sarcasm). All the above stand out like a sore thumb on the X-ray.
It would have to come in with something of like form, like flour for instance, and then it's up to the dogs to find it. Even that gets suspicious, flour coming across the border with an unknown or shady manifest, is that even profitable?

No, a majority of the drugs are flowing freely through the sieve that is still a vast majority of our unsecured southern border.

[jertheber]

After reading for a couple of hours on the how's and why's of fentanyl coming to the US, I'm more baffled than ever. One article mentioned the fact that Chinese manufacturers of fentanyl components understand the ban on certain component chemicals, but then they also know what they can easily substitute other chemicals for the banned substance. Other articles from 2019 expressed a great hope of Xray technology utilized on the southern border as the best thing since sliced bread, but--that's four years ago, and we now have and use that technology--and the stuff is still flooding the US. Others were skeptical of the CBP's efforts as just another failed punt against this avalanche of drugs.

https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-w...the-drug-trade

Bidens newest "plan."
https://www.newsweek.com/here-are-ne...border-1684214

I realize the political connection in all of this adds to the fires of disagreement, but at day's end, the question remains---Why are we having such a huge demand for these drugs in the first place. Most people I know are savvy about the laws of supply and demand and how that plays into the growth of the problem, and most also understand the entrepreneurial aspect that drives the dealers end, especially given a profit structure that most American corporations would kill to have. We've seen the decades of coke, the years of pot, the ecstasy craze, the LSD fads, and yes the deadly opioid epidemic. And through it all, we've seen the terrible pain of all that drug consumption, the insane addicted population growth, the deaths, the hospitalizations, first responder efforts, police interference, the courts, the prisons as a growth industry.

And yet our common response is to continue to put our faith in the same old tried and failed tactics. CBP interdiction, the tens of thousands of mightily heralded drug busts complete with the quantities blared about as proof that these tactics actually can stop the spread, but we don't stop the spread, and if the interdiction efforts succeed with one drug a new drug pops up and round and round we go, never quite able to succeed, but still looking to technology to save us.

Maybe we need to look at this from a different perspective?
https://discoverrecovery.com/why-the...%20drug%20use.

It's become obvious that so many simply want an argument, one that spurs on their political biases, something that whips them into a frenzy of thoughtless retorts, gasping their deepest but miniscule understanding as a kind of gospel. But again, we all know that this drug use and addiction epidemic stems from a supply and demand market. We are all too familiar with the notion of supply side interdiction, and the decades of failed drug policies etc. We just might want to begin a heavier scrutiny of that demand issue..