Flutterby™! : shooting fisherman does not impact cocaine supply

I went looking for a non-paywalled, non-Bezos-owned version of Washington Post: Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say that everybody's linking to, and, yeah, the indie people were on the story a week ago: Breaking Defense: The US military campaign to stop drug trafficking has failed. It’s time to move on.

According to US Customs and Border Protection, more cocaine was seized by US authorities in the eight months since the boat strikes started compared to the eight months preceding them. Cocaine prices have remained stable across this time frame as well, which suggests there aren’t any supply shocks. The market is well stocked. In short, if the US objective is to reduce trafficking, then Washington’s own statistics show that Operation Southern Spear is doing absolutely nothing.

I mean, given that the current administration and its well-heeled supporters are probably the majority of the cocaine demand in the US, it's silly on its face to assume that they'd pursue a policy that actually impacts supply (unless it lets their cronies raise prices), but it's also unsurprising that shooting up a bunch of fishermen for sport impacts supply either.