The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Stratton stands by to offload 34 metric tons of cocaine in San Diego. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley)

SAN DIEGO — With the Coast Guard being the only branch of the military whose members may go without during the current government shutdown, the service has decided to resell the nearly $1 billion dollars worth of cocaine seized in the past six months to supplement pay for the 42,000 men and women on active duty.

“We doubt legislation will be passed by Friday, Dec. 28, which will keep us from getting our scheduled pay check for 31 Dec.,” Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Francescon said in a statement. “However, we have a shit ton of drugs. And if we can capture it, we damn well can sell it back for twice the price to the right buyers.”

With Coast Guardsman needing to pay mortgages, rent, food, and travel expenses, the service weighed various options to cover the services many costs, such as a GoFundMe campaign, mandatory intermittent fasting, bread-lines at military galleys, and turning the Coast Guard’s small boats into party boats and their cutters into cruise liners.

Officials said that since the Coast Guard was the only part of the military under the Department of Homeland Security, it left them as the only military service not being paid as other branches continued to receive funding during the shutdown. Nevertheless, those other services don’t have over 20 tons of pure uncut cocaine in storage to sell to the highest bidder, according to multiple sources.

Besides the federal drug sale, Navy Federal Credit Union has announced a relief program offering a zero-interest loan to qualified affected members, while USAA has offered a free sponsored coffee mug to use while members panhandle outside of all Coast Guard bases.

On Friday, Trump threatened Congress with continuing the shutdown if lawmakers refused to fund $5 billion for the border wall, and said that since the Coast Guard’s motto is “Always Ready,” why weren’t they ready for this?

Nevertheless, the Coast Guard remains in good spirits though and according to Pamatian, “If we run out of blow we can always sell all the marijuana we captured. You think we just burn it?”