I was listening to a terrorism expert testifying before Congress the other day. My attention was wandering when suddenly he said something that now I can’t get out of my head. I can’t quote him exactly but I can come pretty close:
Anyone who thinks a terrorist couldn’t smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States has only to reflect that they could bring it in in a bale of marijuana.
The more I do reflect on his point, the more I am convinced that it exposes the entire project of homeland security as an out-and-out fraud. If there are millions of bales of marijuana and jillions of kilos of cocaine coming into the United States covertly every year, brought by a vast army of extremely well funded illegals, then what is this joke about scanning cargo containers? The terrorists know you don't scan bales of marijuana and shipments of cocaine. Besides, why would terrorists use shipping and cargo containers rather than hire seasoned veteran smugglers?
Either the federal government is somehow complicit in the drug trade and already knows everybody involved, or the drug trade makes a farce of our current efforts at homeland security.
If this logic is correct then a non-suicidal America will soon realize it MUST legalize drugs. In a time of terror you simply cannot allow this vast carnival of drug smuggling across your borders. And the only way to stop it is to grow it, tax it, treat it all like alcohol and tobacco, and destroy the illegal competition from abroad. Perhaps it will be finally this motive of self protection that will propel this idea to the fore, although you would think that Americans' reflection on the savage butchery our drug habits are inducing in Mexico and Colombia would be reason enough to legalize drugs.