Venezuela Shipping

Not an imminent danger?
While this is true, you cannot ignore the fact that up to 100,000 people die in the US per year from over doses. (evidently in 2025, this number has fallen)
Plus some additional information below wrt to other impacts due to the availability of drugs.

Irrespective of the governments process, and there are two (or more) sides to most arguments, if you suspected that if a boat was carrying a nuclear bomb at 13 miles (just inside international
waters, that it would be best to mitigate the threat?


AI's take on this
Key Statistics on Drug-Related Harms

• Substance Use Disorders (SUDs): In 2024, an estimated 48.4 million Americans aged 12 or older met the diagnostic criteria for a substance use disorder. This includes 28.2 million people with a drug use disorder and 27.9 million with an alcohol use disorder (some individuals suffer from both).
• Drug Overdose Deaths: There were approximately 105,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2023. The majority of these deaths (around 76%) involved an opioid, particularly illegally manufactured fentanyl.
• Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations: Adverse drug events (ADEs), which include medication errors, side effects, and unintentional overdoses, result in more than 1.5 million emergency department visits and around 500,000 hospitalizations annually.
• Co-occurring Conditions: The impact is often compounded by mental health issues; approximately 21.2 million adults in 2024 had both a mental health disorder and an SUD.

Add on to this the impact on those people who are related to these people above.

There is certainly not an easy solution to these problems

 

More good info from Sal:

 

Barry, I think the point is, history shows a government cannot stop the supply of drugs.
If there is an appetite, there will be a source.
In fact, it only drives the monetary price up, exacerbating the problem.
The obvious answer is fix the problem not the symptom.
Easier said than done.

An interesting thing has happened where I live.
Years ago, Narcan was introduced.
Hundreds of lives were saved.
The majority of those lives resumed drug use until Narcan was no longer effective.
Naloxone was then formulated and thousands of lives were saved.
Now we have an explosion of drug addicts and the problem has become unmanageable.
So, how effective was the miracle antidote?
Was it a mistake to save all those lives?
That's a moral question I'm not about to answer.

 

In what country in the world is, a criminal caught "in fraganti", executed without trial?
I couldn't resist writing this, so Mr. Forum Moderator, if you think I'm talking about politics and not human rights, please delete my post.

 

Tansl, it's an act of war.
And it's a bit of a dance.
With lunaticle choreographers.
Stand-by.

 

I’m not a big fan of the current clown car, but I like that their position on Venezuela doesn’t align with Putin’s, for a change. But this business of shooting a few boats confuses me because it doesn’t make much sense unless they are gonna pretend drugs are a case for war, which isn’t even good bs.

 

There is no evidence the boat were carrying illegal drugs, or that the USA was the destination. Justifying illegal acts only makes things worse. I believe the summarily executing people without due process or evidence is wrong and leads to the worst of fascism.

 

This isn't a fight (and certainly not a war) against drug trafficking; it's a fight against Venezuelan drug trafficking.
Spain is the main gateway to Europe for drugs from South America and the Maghreb. Will we soon see aircraft carriers and missiles here defending us from the traffickers? I sincerely hope no one comes to save us.

 

We are "chasing" a third at the moment. Accused of being false flagged and shadow fleet with sanctioned oil.

 

"Oil laundering", what a concept!

 

Not a fight against drug trafficking, just Maduro.

 

OK, that is an internal Venezuelan issue.

 

Manic demand for drugs is also an internal USA issue. Perhaps brought on by the huge amount of unequal affluence per capita compared to other nations? "We have seen the enemy and it is us".. Pogo

 

Serious D~K going on here.

The US has been mad at Venezuela since about 2007 when Venezuela took private oil businesses and nationalized them. And it has been one thing all parties agree upon, except for blowing up fishermen.

So all wrongdoing by the autocrat is getting called by Trump. And, Trump may need a war.