Independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine is urging top Navy officials to find more ships to help interdict drugs coming into the country.
King says there are only enough ships to prevent 25 percent of the known drug shipments coming into the country, and called it a matter of national defense. At a budget hearing Tuesday, he urged Navy officials to divert some warships from current missions to help stop the flow of drugs that are killing Americans every day.
“We’re fielding a lot of capability for example in the western Pacific because of someone who may attack us, and yet we are not adequately responding to someone who is attacking us,” he says.
King says even if some older, less capable ships can be taken out of reserve, that would help meet the need to stop more drug traffickers.
“This is national defense. People are dying because we are not interdicting these ships. If these were terrorists coming in, I daresay we’d figure out a way to stop them. And yet people are dying because of these illicit drugs,” he says.
