New ruling threatens Coast Guard’s high seas counter-drug mission
By Joshua Goodman, The Associated Press
May 5, 02:17 PM
MIAMI — A little-noticed federal appeals court ruling this year threatens a key weapon in the United States’ war on drugs: A decades-old law that gives the U.S. broad authority to make high-seas arrests anywhere in the world, even if the drugs aren’t bound for American shores.
It’s a law that’s used to round up and imprison hundreds of foreigners every year, mostly poor, semi-literate fishermen from Central and South America who make up the drug trade’s lowest rungs.
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“It is a waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars to have these costly misadventures as we play drug police to the world,” said Eric Vos, head of the public defender’s office in Puerto Rico that brought the court challenge.
At issue is the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, which defines drug smuggling in international waters as a crime against the United States and gives the U.S. unique arrest powers anywhere on the seas — whenever it determines a vessel is “without nationality.”
But how a vessel is deemed stateless sometimes gets messy.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-navy/2022/05/05/new-ruling-threatens-coast-guards-high-seas-counter-drug-mission/
