The Beatles might have retitled their famous album “Yellow Submarine” to “White Submarine” if some recent events concerning drug-smuggling had happened forty years ago during The Beatles’ prime. It just feels appropriate with recent leaps in drug-smuggling technology. According to CNN.com, drug cartels, especially ones based in South America are now transporting their cocaine, also known as white, to the U.S. through miniature fiberglass submarines. Each vessel that the Navy can get its hands on contains more than seven tons of cocaine worth about $196 million, with the value rising each year as more and more vessels are captured. Ironically, these submarines are great at avoiding the Navy’s patrols, which use various boats and helicopters, but no submarines – yet.

Tony Montana, the drug lord from “Scarface,” would surely be proud of this extraordinary drug-smuggling ingenuity.

In no way am I supporting these ever-inventive drug cartels. It is just amusing in a sad way how inventive they are at bringing hard drugs into the United States. This is how the U.S. is slowly losing the war on drugs. Whenever the U.S. cracks down on a form of smuggling, the cartels simply find another. There is no better example of this than George Jung in the 1970s. Jung smuggled marijuana into the U.S. through the use of planes that were capable of transporting thousands of pounds of marijuana at a time. After federal air patrols blocked the air routes, drug smugglers started to use boats, especially around the San Francisco area.

The evolving technologies that arise to smuggle drugs in the U.S. and around the globe prove a point. With our various vices, humans will do whatever it takes to satisfy the vices. For example, during Prohibition in the 1920s, the sale and production of alcohol was banned. What happened after the ban went into effect? Gangsters started up speakeasies and brewed their own alcohol to sell it through facades of hidden doors, passages and caves.

Prohibition, drug smuggling through planes, caves and submarines all prove one point. When we humans want something, it doesn’t matter what we have to do to get it. If only the government understood this caveat, it would stop shooting itself in the foot trying to stop or even slow down smuggling. People, as inventive as they are, will always outsmart the government, even with its huge pockets, funds and military-esque technologies.

Danny Peters is a junior psychology major from Fort Worth.