American Notes DRUGS

After more than five years of plummeting prices, inflation has hit the cocaine trade: the Drug Enforcement Administration reports that coke prices in South Florida are on the rise. Three months ago, undercover DEA agents could buy coke wholesale for as little as $13,000 a kilogram. Today they can rarely bargain dealers to lower than $16,000. Some DEA agents believe dealers are trying to recoup losses. Cocaine seizures in Florida and the Caribbean have more than doubled in the past year.

If law enforcement has been more effective lately, it is little thanks to the two E-2C Hawkeye radar planes that the Navy turned over to the Coast Guard last year. According to the House Government Operations Committee, the Coast Guard uses the Hawkeyes just 100 hours a month. Moreover, the planes are based in Norfolk, Va., 1,500 nautical miles from their surveillance area of southern Florida and the Caribbean.