WINNING DRUG WAR NEEDS HIGHER PRIORITY

We're doing a passable job of sampling the atmosphere around distant
planets. We're on our way to learning more about Mars.

What we're not so hot at is keeping up with the sophisticated advances by
the criminals who are helping Americans kill themselves with illicit drugs.

It's not a matter of resources. It's a matter of priorities. When we rank
sending a rocket to Venus over unraveling a chemical formula that drug
lords use to hide dangerous drugs, we obviously need to rethink things.

Developments in the illicit drug trade are posing major problems for law
enforcement agencies, who could use some help from America's ample stock of
space-oriented scientists.

Two samples of matters that need attention from America's brightest minds:

Drug traffickers have discovered a new chemical process that allows them to
slip cocaine past drug-sniffing dogs and the eyes of casual observers.

The drug lords add charcoal and certain chemicals to cocaine that
transforms the drug into a black substance that has no smell. The stuff
also doesn't react when it is subjected to the usual chemical tests for
cocaine.

The drug traffickers go even further. They take the black, odorless,
chemical-test-resistant cocaine and mold it into different shapes that
resemble metal moldings or other harmless objects.

Trained dogs can't smell the stuff. Chemical tests turn out negative. As a
result, the altered cocaine moves undetected into the United States.

When the drug arrives at its destination, drug traffickers use acetone or
another chemical to turn it back into cocaine paste.

Drug traffickers, usually from Colombia, are smuggling into the U.S.
cocaine that has been turned odorless and chemical-test-resistant into a
wide range of phony products in a variety of colors, including red, yellow
and blue. Some altered cocaine even looks like transparent sheets of acetate.

Traffickers have developed super-fast boats that easily outrun Coast Guard
cutters. The boats, faster than anything manufactured in the U.S., are
manufactured on the west coast of Colombia and used to transport drugs in
the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.

One super-fast boat has been built that can carry two tons of drugs at
speeds so high that U.S., boats can't even begin to track them.

We're not saying space exploration doesn't produce useful information.

But right now, it would help if we diverted NASA's brains for a while to
developing higher-speed boats to chase down drug runners and perfecting
equipment that will ferret out disguised cocaine.

Space won't go away in the meantime.