Good Job U.S. Customs and Border Protection!

This was a planned Sting operation carried out and conducted aboard during the cruise to STT and exercised by ICE as the Allure re-entered US waters, which allows for search and seizure without a warrant -- very discriminatory !!!- and as close to entrapment as the thin line of law allows and when you consider the huge and profitable amount of illegal drugs these ships protect and carry TO the USA a huge useless chump change waste of time.

Wrong, Zero

No discrimination at all, CBP boards every ship entering USVI waters. Ship security reported drug use to the boarding CBP officers, who used K9 to find the drugs. Meth, Ecstasy, and Rohipnal were found. When the passengers heard that there was a search, passengers were throwing their drugs into the hallway. (The windows don't open). ICE had nothing to do with it.
All passengers allowed their cabins to be searched, so no warrant was needed.

Any time CBP finds this kind of quantity, it's worth the effort. The fed gov collected $5000 in mitigated fines. That's not chump change to me.

Wow, a 51 year old gay man from west hollywood selling ecstacy on a cruise ship? Say it ain't so!! He sounds like a violent, career criminal who was out to commit heinous acts of cruelty and malice! I sure feel safer knowing that no one one that cruise was able to get high. That will surely protect us!!

WAY TO GO US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PATROL!! It's tough going after these hardened criminals, but someone's gotta do it, and you sure came through. Next up, would you please go after those sailboats with topless women on them in FULL VIEW of other boats. That's illegal too, you know, and we sure don't want a scourge like that affecting our very safe and orderly island.

Once again: WAY TO GO CUSTOMS AND BORDER PATROL. I salute you! Nice to see our tax dollars hard at work.

Wow, a 51 year old gay man from west hollywood selling ecstacy on a cruise ship? Say it ain't so!! He sounds like a violent, career criminal who was out to commit heinous acts of cruelty and malice! I sure feel safer knowing that no one one that cruise was able to get high. That will surely protect us!!

WAY TO GO US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PATROL!! It's tough going after these hardened criminals, but someone's gotta do it, and you sure came through. Next up, would you please go after those sailboats with topless women on them in FULL VIEW of other boats. That's illegal too, you know, and we sure don't want a scourge like that affecting our very safe and orderly island.

Once again: WAY TO GO CUSTOMS AND BORDER PATROL. I salute you! Nice to see our tax dollars hard at work.

I would heart you if I could.

IT

USVI Residents don't pay Federal Tax Dollars so its not your money being spent on the CBP.:-o

Yeah I feel safer too :S

What a waste of time and money.

Sean

Small busts like this send a message. Judging by the reaction here, I'd say it was quite effective.

Judging by your response, I'd say you completely missed the point of the reaction here.

Send a message? Yes, they do, and the message is: we like to waste your tax dollars by going after non-violent offenders.

Message received!

The message is that the war on drugs gets fought on both the supply side and the demand side.

The message is that next time it could be you, if you have a little baggy or a recreational stash of some sort.

Nobody who's clean would react to this bust with any indignation.

It's no use Sunny these are the type of people who complain when they get a speeding ticket that the cops should be out catching real criminals. They want guns and violence to disappear. How is that going to happen till we get rid of the drugs? That's how the thugs make their money. To get the big guy you have to get the small guys. And just the lack of respect makes me sick.

Stiphy,
When your son starts school and the non violent drug dealer attempts to sell your son some drugs, will your tune change about waste of time and money?*-)

Non-violent offenders? Anyone who thinks drugs are not related to violence should look up what's been happening on the U.S.-Mexico border. Maybe this guy was not violent, but the drug trade as a whole is very, very violent.

Non-violent offenders? Anyone who thinks drugs are not related to violence should look up what's been happening on the U.S.-Mexico border. Maybe this guy was not violent, but the drug trade as a whole is very, very violent.

Do you know anything about E dealers on gay cruise ships?

IT

Tsk tsk. A lot of you don't have the brains to see what the prohibition of alcohol made the mafia into. The demand will never go away. Making drugs illegal just factors money into it, and the lure of money is where the violence comes from. Funny part is, you probably are typing these comments while drinking alcohol to amp the effects of the prescription drugs you take - but hey, those are legal!

Hey NoOne,
You were the self admitted drunk that got the boot from the Forum not long ago. People that live in Glass houses shouldn't throw stones.(td)

Non-violent offenders? Anyone who thinks drugs are not related to violence should look up what's been happening on the U.S.-Mexico border. Maybe this guy was not violent, but the drug trade as a whole is very, very violent.

Do you know anything about E dealers on gay cruise ships?

IT

If those harmless "E dealers on gay cruise ships" want E to be a legal recreational drug, like alcohol, they should work to make it so.

Hey NoOne,
You were the self admitted drunk that got the boot from the Forum not long ago. People that live in Glass houses shouldn't throw stones.(td)

Huh? I never said I don't do drugs, of which alcohol is a mind altering drug. If I was throwing stones I would be saying the same things you do, hypocritically I might add - quotes like this:

Stiphy,
When your son starts school and the non violent drug dealer attempts to sell your son some drugs, will your tune change about waste of time and money?*-)

If we regulate it, then some scumbag that is only interested in money and not the law will not be selling it to kids - see how alcohol and tobacco sales work? Not many people would risk the law for little or no money to give under age kids alcohol or tobacco.

The war on drugs is a loss, except for the police, DEA, customs, lawyers, judges, courts, privately owned prisons, etc. You are right, your tax money is not being wasted - it's going into the pockets of people who only want to see this perpetuated, without a care about the impact on the public. Too bad you can't see that.

Edit: Oh, and a direct example of the impact is that the USVI is #2 worldwide for homicides. *-)

Oh and if you have any doubt about this being about money on both ends, look at this:

100-ft-long drug-smuggling, Narco-crafted submarine discovered in Colombia

The sub presents the use of advanced technology seen for the first time in this country, and its construction must have cost the narcotraffickers more than 4,000 million pesos, (edit: this is about $2.1 million in US dollars) according to the Naval police of the Pacific.

Members of the Colombian Navy stand guard on top of a seized submarine built by drug smugglers in a makeshift shipyard in Timbiqui, department of Cauca, February 14, 2011. Colombian authorities said the submersible craft was to be used to transport 8 tons of cocaine illegally into Mexico. (REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga)

From the comments in the article (link posted below)

1 short ton = 907,184.74 grams

Yeah a $2 million sub just doesn't sound so expensive when you stand to make $145 Million...

BoingBoing article

Here is another article:

...Montoya still doesn’t believe that international customs agents will ever thwart the well-funded research-and-development efforts of international drug outfits.

Article about submersibles being used for drug trafficking

As a matter of fact, it is cheaper and easier just to build these subs and ditch them when the one-time run is done:

But it’s also effective. Rodriguez estimates that perhaps as few as 25 percent of all semi-submersibles leaving Colombia are seized.

Rodriguez recalled a case in January when the Colombian Navy spotted a semi-submersible near the Pacific island of Gorgona. Before Navy officers could arrest them, the traffickers sunk the vessel. The evidence was lost and all Rodriguez’s men could do was pass out life jackets to the smugglers and return them to the mainland.

Global Post "Drug Traffickers Move Underwater"

Non-violent offenders? Anyone who thinks drugs are not related to violence should look up what's been happening on the U.S.-Mexico border. Maybe this guy was not violent, but the drug trade as a whole is very, very violent.

Do you know anything about E dealers on gay cruise ships?

IT

If those harmless "E dealers on gay cruise ships" want E to be a legal recreational drug, like alcohol, they should work to make it so.

Thank you! Not that I think E should be legal, but at least that would be a legal way to approach the issue.

And why are people focusing on his gayness? How is that relevant? We don't mention other criminals' straightness. Is it impossible to be both gay and violent? *-)

Hey NoOne.
Your News Flash talks about confiscated sub, sunk sub etc., Looks like the War on Drugs is in fact doing something. So you can preach for your Zombie like existence to the current legislatures. Oh and the subs were not captured by US Tax Dollars.:P

Stiphy,
When your son starts school and the non violent drug dealer attempts to sell your son some drugs, will your tune change about waste of time and money?*-)

Thanks to the war on drugs my kids will be offered drugs in school, just like I was. No one walked around my school trying to sell beer or smokes (both legal) in the school, but heroin and pot was being offered right outside my locker.

My kid will be raised properly, like I was, to know what using and abusing drugs can do to you. Hopefully they will make the same wise choices I made. What scares me is that if they do make the wrong choice they may end up dead before they can get help because the war on drugs forces them to buy drugs on a black market where you have no idea what you are actually buying. Too many friends died of heroin overdoses growing up because one week they got weak stuff and the next week the dose was twice as strong. They weren't trying to kill themselves, they were stupid kids who made bad choices. Before drug prohibition in the early 20th century when Bayer was selling heroin legally in controlled doeses this wouldn't have happened.

The war on drugs was lost many years ago. It is unwinable. It is a waste of money. It often leads to violation of the Constitutional rights of the innocent. This has all been well documented. But we continue to pretend that we can "win" whatever that means this war. Our kids will continue to die. Poor kids will continue to be allured by the high profits of the black market created by the war on drugs and choose the violent life of a drug dealer just as poor kids did during Alchohol prohibition. Re-legalizing drugs would have the same effect that re-legalizing alchohol had; crime rates would drop dramatically. Stop violently putting people who have committed no violence themselves in cages. Tax drugs but put all the taxes into rehab programs so people who make the wrong choice have prepaid for their own treatment.

Or just continue to live the fantasy that you can actually control the supply of something people want. It's worked so well thusfar hasn't it?

Sean

Stiphy,
Only time will tell what your song will sound like regarding Zombie Land in the future. Constitutional Rights of the innocent. If you partake in illegal drugs as a seller or buyer you're not innocent. That's the best one yet:@). Maybe you and NoOne should get together and do your thing for new laws and tax.

Non-violent offenders? Anyone who thinks drugs are not related to violence should look up what's been happening on the U.S.-Mexico border. Maybe this guy was not violent, but the drug trade as a whole is very, very violent.

Do you know anything about E dealers on gay cruise ships?

IT

If those harmless "E dealers on gay cruise ships" want E to be a legal recreational drug, like alcohol, they should work to make it so.

Thank you! Not that I think E should be legal, but at least that would be a legal way to approach the issue.

And why are people focusing on his gayness? How is that relevant? We don't mention other criminals' straightness. Is it impossible to be both gay and violent? *-)

Because that point is salient to concluding that the specific situation at hand -- a guy dealing E on a gay cruise -- was hardly dangerous, violent, guerilla, drug warfare.

Alcohol is far more toxic than E. Legality has very little to do with dangerousness.

IT

I'm happy to hear it!