Good News For Drug Traffickers

The Coast Guard slashed its operating costs by a quarter last year because of sequestration. It's the only U.S. military service that can arrest drug smugglershundreds of miles off the U.S. shore. It lost Naval support too. 

The Navy decommissioned ships on drug missions in Latin America. It sent some of them elsewhere because of the increased emphasis on Asia. Coast Guard Adm. Robert Papp says U.S. interdictions fell 30 percent from the year before. He estimates that they tracked just one-third of the drug smuggling boats and planes that traveled the North-South corridor. He tells the defense industry in San Diego, the Coast Guard's resources are "woefully inadequate." The service's operating budget returns to 2012 levels this year.