I did some basic research and made some assumptions. 1-2 million cocaine users that self identify. More likely 10-20 million users with a lot of those being casual take it or leave it users. Probably just under a million chronic users.

So let's just say about million grams a day over a million users. That is about two tons. I think this is probably an underestimate, honestly.

Obviously my methodology is not great, just rough guesses based upon the best information.

https://www.samhsa.gov/data

It's a significantly stronger argument because you don't have to forfeit reason. If your only goal is to remove any ability to justify an attack then you can make up anything you want. For example: "It was aliens driving the boat with secret cloaking technology, and they didn't even come from Venezuela." Is that a stronger argument? Obviously not. The stronger argument is the one that's harder to refute, not the one that's trivial to.

It's not very tenuous really. There's a common design used for this, that isn't used for any other purpose as far as I'm aware. There's no comfort built in, so it's not like a consumer boat. They're built for speed, but also with a lot of cargo space, so they aren't like a fishing boat or anything else. We have many instances of them being boarded and drugs seized from the past, and they look almost identical. The boats also were loaded with some kind of cargo (we can't know what, because it was destroyed, but we know there was stuff in there). Here's a picture:

It's much easier to argue the regime is doing something illegal starting from a place of reason. If they wanted to stop them they easily could have boarded them (though also illegal where they are). Slaughtering the is illegal and immoral, no matter the justification. You can also point out that Venezuela has huge oil reserves, which is a trend for nations we invade. It isn't about drugs. Usually they talk about fentanyl, but that's not coming through Venezuela, so that's a big hole in their reasoning.

There's a lot of ways to approach it that don't require burying your head in the sand and arguing that there aren't drugs being smuggled. Theres far too much evidence for that.

No, there is a specific type of boat that's used. They are long thin boats usually with multiple motors (sometimes four or five). They will have containers, usually drums, in the middle section. They are built for maximum speed.

Technically a civilian could be using one of these perfectly legally. They are not fishing boats or anything like that though. The fuel would cost far too much to be worth it. They could be speed boats I guess for fun, but you still have to explain the cargo. I don't know what else it could be, and, again, it doesn't matter. It's illegal to destroy them (especially killing the shipwrecked) no matter what.

I don't know if it was in this particular chain of comments or one of the others, but I did say they should have boarded instead of shooting it at least, but that that is still illegal. The US Navy does not have the authority to do that. The US Coast Guard does have limited authority, but, IIRC, it still would have been illegal for them. There's really no legal justification for what the US is doing, drug boats or not.

Eh, not exactly. Sometimes, sure. If you don't think that narco subs or boats exist though then what the hell are those? If you want to say there aren't boats smuggling drugs then you need to explain a whole lot of shit out there.

Also, again, it doesn't matter. It's a lot easier to just not make this claim because it doesn't change the legality. Youre going to be ignored like a whacko moon landing denier if you claim there aren't drug smuggling boats, regardless of if these are or not (which they very much resemble them). You'll seem a lot more reasonable if you just don't touch that claim, which is a distraction, and argue that it's illegal whether it's a drug boat or not.