Border Patrol Wins Battle Against Weed Catapult

The trillion dollars we have spent waging the drug war? Not so wasteful after all. We have the technology…to stop 8th century (B.C.) technology! From the New York Daily News: 

Mexican soldiers on Wednesday seized a large drug catapult that smugglers were using to launch packages of pot into a remote area of Arizona.

U.S. National Guard troops at the Naco Border Patrol station about 80 miles southeast of Tucson tipped off the Mexican Army after a surveillance camera spotted several traffickers hurling bundles of weed over the border last Friday night.

The grainy surveillance video below indicates that the contraption is the most basic of catapult designs; the smugglers are required to pull down the arm manually to fire their potent packets. Once they upgrade from "traction" technology to a full-on counterweight machine, there's no telling how quickly Southwestern skies will turn from blue to green. 

Tucson Border Patrol spokesman David Jimarez tells the Associated Press that his team is prepared for anything, including weed catapults: 

"I have not seen anything like that in my time before as a Border Patrol agent…although we are trained to handle any kind of a threat that comes over that border," Jimarez added.

If we're going to fail with honor in prosecuting this insane "war" for another 30 years, it might be time for the Border Patrol to add a cataphract patrol. 

More from Reason on the Drug War here.