The U.S. Attempts to Prevent the Illegal Importation of Controlled Substances from Crossing the Southern Border

Since 90% of drugs are coming through legal ports of entry anyways, the attempt is fruitless. Drugs continue to pass into the country at a consistent rate and you have wasted nearly $10 billion dollars and years of construction. Go back to square one.

Federal regulations of the substances provide "above ground" avenues of importation, ensure quality control, make revenue from taxes and cut the legs of the black market. Victory!

The basic economic principle of "supply and demand" takes over. The ease of accessibility to previously illegal substances becomes a hot trend and the whole country is overtaken by addicts.

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/the-cost-of-immigration-enforcement-and-border-security

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/06/710712195/how-do-illegal-drugs-cross-the-u-s-mexico-border

https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/paradox/htele.html

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/NDCS-Final.pdf

https://www.aclu.org/other/against-drug-prohibition

Subtopic

By air(mail)

The "STOP" Act is enforced by Congress, the mailman is trained with the skills of a drug-sniffing hound, and international packages are subject to further inspection and manifests (a.k.a. more paperwork).

Success!
You will likely never send anything out of the country again because the mailing process will be like going to the DMV, but that's a small price to pay in the spectrum of national sobriety!

The already dying postal service cannot sustain the burden of the additional responsibilities and the system shuts down entirely.

Still a success!
Without an international postal service, there is no longer an avenue for dealers to mail their products across the border!
However, this shutdown also impacts the employment rate and diverts all the mail services to private companies such as UPS and FedEx, creating a monopoly that impacts the rest of the economy.

By land & sea

Increase number of Customs and Border Protection officers & establish a partnership with the Mexican Federal Police.

Mexico has their own drug issues to deal with. Their government reinforcements may prove unreliable. In fact, the drug traffiking crisis in Mexico may be a root issue for the drug trade in the U.S. Better luck next time.

Congratulations! Your plan worked and all drugs were stopped at the border!

So... what are you going to do with those thousands of pounds of controlled substances now in U.S. Federal custody?

Unfortunately, this plan prevented ANYTHING from getting through the border. While waiting to get their trucks checked, all the imported produce rotted. While putting the drug kingpins out of work, you have also interrupted the work of the local farmers. This causes extreme poverty to sweep these already poor countries. You have single-handedly stopped drug traffiking AND overturned the entire economic system of Central America.

The internet's "dark web" and crypto-currencies provide anonymity to drug purchasers. You can prevent substance importation before it even occurs by monitoring and shutting down the avenues by which they are sold.

As long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. In tandem with the depth of the internet, this option is a glorified whack-a-mole. Try again.

Success! The government perfected an algorithm to block all sales of drugs on the internet. However, the power of this algorithm is unknown to the general public and now "Big Brother" is watching everything...