Don’t Blame Drones for Crime Opinion

(A DRONELIFE Editorial.) A recent headline from the Brookings Institute is a stunning example of the drone industry’s public perception problem. Death from above: How criminal organizations’ use of drones threatens Americans is actually an article about the growing opioid crisis: but the authors places the blame for our current problems first on COVID, then on fentanyl, next on a breakdown in international relations – finally landing on drones as the biggest threat that our nation faces from across the border.

“Relatively small, drone-delivered, synthetic opioid cargo can mean the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands,” says the article.  “And swarmed drone-deliveries en masse could simply be devastating.”  (Note: “Swarmed drone deliveries” are merely a potential – they have not actually happened.)

The point that the article wishes to make – that counter UAS technology should be part of border security – is perfectly reasonable.  (The author’s…