Stepping up the attackSometimes it seems that success fathers its own problems. In its
campaign to hook smuggled drugs, the Reagan Administration has claimed
some impressive catches: since establishing a regional interdiction
center in South Florida in March 1982, it says that cocaine and
marijuana seizures there are up 54% and 23% respectively, drug arrests
have risen by 27%, and the street value of intercepted dope amounts to
around $5 billion. Smugglers, however, have risen to the challenge by
trafficking in smaller, harder-to-detect loads and by moving some
off-loading operations to other places, including California and the
Atlantic Coast as far north as Nova Scotia.To counterattack, Vice President George Bush, in a speech on Friday,
announced the creation of five new regional interdiction centers that
will be modeled on the South Florida experience. Based in New York,
Chicago, New Orleans, El Paso and Long Beach, Calif., each new office
will be assigned representatives from all the major military and
intelligence bodies and will make use of equipment from other agencies.
Explained one Bush aide: “The military has to go on training missions
anyway. If we know of a trouble spot, why not ask the Air Force to fly
a plane with radar to that spot?”All of this coordinated activity comes none too soon in the view of the
General Accounting Office . Last week it issued an 88-page report
charging that despite a tripling of federal resources to $278 million
over six years, only 16% of the marijuana and less than 10% of the
other illegal drugs entering the country were seized. It further
observed that military assistance is necessarily limited by costs,
other commitments and national security considerations. Above all,
the GAO urged the creation of a single “drug czar” post to coordinate
sometimes inefficient and even counterproductive drug-busting efforts
by the various agencies involved.Administration officials complained that the report, mostly covering the
period between 1977 and September 1982, ignored recent
developments, and pointed out that there is already an emphasis on
closer cooperation. Each of the newly established offices will have a
full-time coordinator under the overall command of the Vice President's
staff. Said Bush last Friday: “We in the Administration are not unaware
of the difficulty of our task. But our efforts are both innovative and
substantial.”
