American Notes DRUGS

After a storm of protest over the so-called zero-tolerance policy -- under which Brobdingnagian yachts were confiscated if lilliputian amounts of marijuana were discovered on board -- the Coast Guard and the U.S. Customs Service have decided that perhaps they can tolerate a trace or two of illicit drugs on the high seas after all.

In what was billed as a "refinement" of the controversial program, Coast Guard officials last week reiterated that the Guard's job is to interdict vessels suspected of smuggling drugs into or out of the U.S. Officers will no longer seize vessels in international waters if only an amount of illegal drugs small enough to be consumed before the boat enters U.S. waters is discovered.