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1993-03-05
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Part 1 of 2 parts
02/25/1993 By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The flow of cocaine into the United States
remains steady despite increased drug seizures and less cross-border
air smuggling, federal officials said today.
"Interdiction has not made a difference in terms of the higher
goals of deterring smugglers and reducing the flow of cocaine," said
Louis J. Rodrigues of the General Accounting Office. "Cocaine price,
purity and availability on American streets have remained relatively
stable."
He was speaking on the second day of a Senate Appropriations
subcommittee hearing on the effectiveness of Pentagon-led measures
to stop drug trafficking across U.S. borders.
Lt. Gen. Martin L. Brandtner, director for operations for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the panel that helium radar balloons
called aerostats operated by the Pentagon along the border have been
largely successful.
"We know that airborne drug trafficking directly to the United
States has decreased dramatically in recent years," he said.
In testimony Wednesday, officials said air smuggling across the
border is less than 25 percent of what it was a decade ago.
Instead, air smugglers have been landing in Mexico and trying to
bring in drugs overland or using Caribbean routes, the officials
said.
"The United States government has made considerable headway in
effectively sealing off our borders to airborne drug smugglers,"
said John E. Hensley, assistant commissioner in the U.S. Customs
Service.
Acting Customs Service Commissioner Michael Lane said the
aerostats, the subject of television and newspaper stories claiming
they often fail to detect air smugglers, were key to the program's
success.
"This is evidenced by the dramatic reduction in the aviation
threat and the shifting of both smuggling routes and methods to
avoid these systems," Lane said.
A former official in the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
John Walters, also cited better cooperation with other countries in
intercepting between 30 percent and 50 percent of all produced
cocaine before it enters the United States.
Other figures presented at the hearings showed that border
patrols seized 35,000 pounds of cocaine worth $782 million last
year, up from 19,000 pounds worth $489 million in 1990.
Jack Blum, former special counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee and an expert in drug policy, questioned the drug
officials' optimistic figures, saying border interdiction systems
only intercept about 8 percent of contraband.
He said U.S. border patrols lacked the flexibility to meet new
threats. "This country's next big drug problem is heroin from Asia
coming through Europe, Africa and various Asian ports. Much of it
will come by container. There is no way to redeploy existing
resources to meet this threat."