President Trump, in his address last night, claimed that “More Americans will die from drugs this year than were killed in the entire Vietnam War”. Surprsingly, this is not a lie. According to the CDC, more than 72,000 people died from overdoses in 2017.
According to the DEA, drugs that are smuggled across the Mexican border primiarily are smuggled in vehicles that come through points of entry. Other methods include smuggling in cargo trains, passenger busses, and digging tunnels. Smuggling through remote areas is a very small part of the problem. So why doesn’t Trump take that $5B and use it for better detecting drugs via the methods that are actually being used to smuggle the drugs in? Or better yet, try to reduce the demand that Americans have for drugs? That would surely save more lives than building a wall that will do nothing to stop the deadly drugs from coming in.