Re: 12 kg of coke found in car (News, Jan. 11)
The Canadian and B.C. governments claim to be making ground in the war on drugs, but a quick look at the estimates of regional cocaine flows suggests this is only a fraction of the amount which passes through America into the country.
These so-called drug busts are heralded as a trophies in the struggle which authorities are waging against drug trafficking.
Such self-congratulatory acts may not be entirely warranted. If the percentage of seizures are applied to the United Nations Office on Drugs and the RCMP’s crime estimates that some 165 metric tons of cocaine is consumed in North America annually, it could mean around 143.55 tons of the drug pass into the U.S. and Canada annually. The claims thus represent a drop in an Olympic size swimming pool of cocaine and has only worsened in recent years.
This is unlikely to change in the future, as the governments are notoriously in denial. Maybe it is time for a re-think?
William Perry
Victoria