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Trump's 'Very Bad' Bahamian Drug Dealers? US Data Shows Little Evidence

Reuters

   President Donald Trump's concern the United States could open its doors
   to "very bad drug dealers" by easing immigration rules for the
   storm-hit Bahamas is undercut by administration data showing the
   Caribbean plays a small role in the narcotics trade.

   The era of the 1980s Cocaine Cowboys, who used speedboats to ferry vast
   amounts of that drug into South Florida from the Caribbean, has long
   since passed in large part because of the cooperation between the
   United States and nations including the Bahamas.

   The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's most recent assessment of drug
   trafficking mentions the Bahamas only once in its more than 150 pages,
   and raises concerns about more potent marijuana flowing from the
   continental United States to the Caribbean.

   "There are an extremely small number of people in the Bahamas involved
   in the level of criminality Trump was talking about, particularly drug
   trafficking," said Charles Katz, an Arizona State University
   criminology professor who has worked extensively in the Caribbean,
   including advising nations on how to fight crime.

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