How the left's Cloward-Piven strategy is fundamentally changing America

Drug Czar James W. Carroll: ‘More Drugs Are Coming in Than Ever Before’ Because of Political Diversions

Diverting border security resources to address the “humanitarian need” of migrants is leading to record-high levels of illicit drug smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border, said James W. Carroll, director of the U.S. Office of Drug Control Policy, in a Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

Carroll said, “I couldn’t tell you how bad this is. Seizures are down, and it’s not because there are less drugs coming in. It’s because their attention has to be diverted because of the humanitarian need, but what that means is more drugs are coming in than ever before.”“Border patrol, their job is to protect us,” added Carroll. “That’s what they want to do, and they can’t do it because of what’s happening — because of the broken immigration system. We’re encouraging these people to come. Alex, you understand this; you’ve studied this issue. More people need to understand it. We’ve offered to bring members of Congress down there, and they didn’t show.”

Using federal resources meant for border security on “humanitarian” endeavors compromises the government’s ability to interdict drug smuggling, said Carroll. “That’s what these men and women want to do. They want to protect their families and their friends from these poisons coming in. That’s what we need to let them do. Fix the immigration system. Let them get back to protecting the U.S., and let us get back to the issue of saving lives.”

Drug cartels game the Border Patrol’s humanitarian policies by exhausting federal authorities’ resources to facilitate their drug-smuggling operations, explained Carroll.

“Border Patrol is stretched so thin that we have miles and miles of completely unprotected border where they can just bring the drugs in en masse,” noted Carroll. “Our Border Patrol is stretched so thin [that] they can’t do the mission they signed up to do, which is to protect our borders. We have to do the humanitarian thing. We understand that, but what happens is the drug cartels — they control the river on the Mexican side — will send the people [over the border] trying to sneak into the country. They’ll send them in one area, and then the Border Patrol, of course, has to go help them and do the humanitarian thing, but it leaves miles and miles completely open. And then the traffickers send the drugs over in an area where Border Patrol can’t do their job.”

Despite increased numbers of illicit drugs being smuggled across the border, overdose deaths decreased in 2018 relative to the previous year. It is the first such decline in nearly three decades.

“The president’s plan is working,” said Carroll. “This is the first time in 30 years that the number of Americans dying from a drug overdose has gone down [from one year to the next]. For 30 years, it has gone up. It has gone up under Obama. … The president said he wanted to reduce high-dose opioid prescriptions by one-third by the end of his term. We’re already there. We’ve already reduced that by 34 percent, while still making sure that people who have chronic pain can get their medication as they need it. Under this president, we’ve increased naloxone — this life-saving drug — by 500 percent, and we need to stop the flow of drugs. This is what happens when you focus on it. The president has. … We can’t declare success. There’s so much more to do.”

Carroll praised Breitbart News’s coverage of issues related to drug abuse and smuggling.

“Alex, thanks so much for bringing attention to this issue,” Carroll shared. “Everyone is really in debt to you for talking about this.”

“Wow, that’s really a lovely compliment, and we take it to heart,” replied Marlow. “We take a lot of pride in being able to identify the big threats to the country, and I’ll tell you, it’s not this ‘child separation’ of people coming up. This is an issue that is affecting countless lives, an incalculable amount, and we’ll continue to shed light on it.”

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.