Drug Control

Although the Pentagon has significantly expanded U.S. monitoring and detection of cocaine smugglers, this expanded capability has come with a hefty price tag and has yet to reduce the flow of cocaine onto American streets. The portion of the federal drug budget earmarked for military surveillance has quadrupled during the past five years, without measurable goals or results to show that the increases were warranted. Decisionmakers have lacked critical information needed to assess the costs and benefits of military surveillance. The nation's continuing failure to reduce the cocaine flow is not an indictment of the Department of Defense's (DOD) surveillance efforts. But in the absence of measurable goals for DOD's mission, the fact that cocaine remains affordable and readily available in the United States strongly suggests that surveillance is not producing results commensurate with its costs.