COLEGIO INTERAMERICANO DE DEFENSA
DEPARTAMENTO DE ESTUDIOS
CURSO XXXVIII
THE UNITED STATES
NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY (NDCS) AND ITS EFFECTS ON LATIN AMERICA
COUNTER-DRUG PROGRAMS
Tcnel ARNALDO CLAUDIO
ESTADOS UNIDOS
WASHINGTON, DC., MAYO DE 1999.
Large International drug trafficking
organizations are responsible for the majority of all illegal drugs entering
the United States every year. The 1998,
White House National Drug Control Strategy indicates that approximately 300
metric tons of cocaine, 13 metric tons of heroin, vast quantities of marijuana
and smaller amounts of other illicit drugs to include methamphetamines were
brought into the US in 1997. The August
1998 Semiannual Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement estimated that 151
metric tons (MT) of cocaine arrived in the US in the first six months of 1998.
These large quantities of illicit drugs entering the US place a tremendous
burden on our society today. For
example, the social costs of drug use (as stated by US Drug C-Zar, Barry
McCaffrey during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on March
4, 1998), was estimated of over $67 billion a year, including $46 billion in
crime, $6.3 in AIDS- related costs and $8 billion in illness-related costs.
Additionally, these international drug
organizations/syndicates also poses an enormous threat to democratic
institutions and their financial resources can easily corrupt all sectors of
society. In Latin America, and
specifically in the Andean Ridge countries of Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, 100%
of all cocaine that enters the United States is cultivated and produce,
therefore, viewed by the United States Government (USG) as the center of
gravity in the international effort in combating drug trafficking.
The United States National Drug Control Strategy is the absolute
foundation for the United States Government’s commitment to encounter the
cultivation, production, trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs both
domestically and abroad.
This
research project has the purpose of illustrating the USG’s commitment to combat
illicit drugs and to promote cooperation among the nations of Latin America in
decreasing illicit drug cultivation, production and trafficking. Research focused on the US NDCS evolution,
its goals and objectives, the US problem of illegal drug use, consequences of
illegal drug use and drugs as they are related to crimes. Furthermore, it
illustrates the USG’s supply-reduction strategy and its effects on the
counter-drug efforts in Latin America with emphasis in the Andean Ridge
countries of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru and the effectiveness of the USG and
the Andean Ridge Countries cooperation to: 1) eliminate illegal drug
cultivation and production; 2) destroy drug-trafficking organizations; 3)
interdict drug shipments; 4) encourage international cooperation and 5)
safeguard democracy and human rights.
|
The United States National Drug
Control Strategy (NDCS) and Its
effects on Latin America Counter-Drug Programs. |
“Supply reduction is an
essential component of a well balanced strategic approach to drug control.”
The 1999 NDCS
Large International drug trafficking organizations are responsible for the majority of all illegal drugs entering the United States every year. The 1998, White House National Drug Control Strategy indicates that approximately 300 metric tons of cocaine, 13 metric tons of heroin, vast quantities of marijuana and smaller amounts of other illicit drugs to include methamphetamines were brought into the US in 1997. The August 1998 Semiannual Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement estimated that 151 metric tons (MT) of cocaine arrived in the US in the first six months of 1998. These large quantities of illicit drugs entering the US place a tremendous burden on our society today. For example, the social costs of drug use (as stated by US Drug C-Zar, Barry McCaffrey during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on March 4, 1998), was estimated of over $67 billion a year, including $46 billion in crime, $6.3 in AIDS- related costs and $8 billion in illness-related costs.
Additionally, these international drug organizations/syndicates also poses an enormous threat to democratic institutions and their financial resources can easily corrupt all sectors of society. In Latin America, and specifically in the Andean Ridge countries of Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, 100% of all cocaine that enters the United States is cultivated and produce, therefore, viewed by the United States Government (USG) as the center of gravity in the international effort in combating drug trafficking.
The United States National Drug Control Strategy is the absolute foundation for the United States Government’s commitment to encounter the cultivation, production, trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs both domestically and abroad. This research project has the purpose of illustrating the USG’s commitment to combat illicit drugs and to promote cooperation among the nations of Latin America in decreasing illicit drug cultivation, production and trafficking. Research focused on the US NDCS evolution, its goals and objectives, the US problem of illegal drug use, consequences of illegal drug use and drugs as they are related to crimes. Furthermore, it illustrates the USG’s supply-reduction strategy and its effects on the counter-drug efforts in Latin America with emphasis in the Andean Ridge countries of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru and the effectiveness of the USG and the Andean Ridge Countries cooperation to: 1) eliminate illegal drug cultivation and production; 2) destroy drug-trafficking organizations; 3) interdict drug shipments; 4) encourage international cooperation and 5) safeguard democracy and human rights.
Evolution of the U.S National Drug Control Strategy
National Drug Control Strategies have been produced every year since its first in 1989. Each defined demand reduction as a priority. In addition, the strategies increasingly recognized the importance of preventing drug use by youth. However, it is important to noticed that various strategies affirmed also, that no single approach could rescue the nation from the cycle of drug abuse and that drug prevention, education, and treatment must be complemented by supply reduction actions abroad, on our borders, and within the United States.
Each strategy also shared the commitment to maintain and enforce anti-drug laws. All the strategies, with growing success, tied policy to a scientific body of knowledge about the nation’s drug problems. The 1996 Strategy was a break-through that established five goals (with goals 4 and 5 targeting the international effort) and thirty-two supporting objectives as the basis for a coherent, long-term national effort. These goals remain the heart of the 1999 Strategy and will guide federal drug-control agencies over the next decade. In addition, the goals will be useful for state and local governments and the private sector.
Goals of the 1998 U.S. National Drug Control Strategy:
Goal 1: Educate and enable
America’s youth to reject illegal drugs as well as alcohol and tobacco.
Goal
2: Increase the safety of America’s citizens by substantially reducing drug-
related crime and violence
Goal
3: Reduce health and social costs to the public of illegal drug use.
Goal 4: Shield America’s air, land,
and sea frontiers from the drug threat. (International effort)
Goal 5: Break foreign and
domestic drug sources of supply. (International Effort)
Democratic: The USG
domestic challenge is to reduce illegal drug use and its criminal, health, and
economic consequences while protecting individual liberty and the rule of law.
The USG international challenge is to
develop effective, cooperative programs that respect national sovereignty and
reduce the cultivation, production, trafficking, distribution, and use of
illegal drugs while supporting democratic governance and human rights.
Outcome-oriented: The Strategy must ensure accountability.
Performance Measures of Effectiveness: A System for Assessing the Performance
of the National Drug Control Strategy details long and mid-term targets that
gauge progress toward each of the Strategy’s goals and objectives.
Comprehensive: Successfully addressing the devastating drug
problem in America requires a multi-faceted, balanced program that attacks both
supply and demand. Prevention, education, treatment, workplace programs,
research, law enforcement, interdiction, and drug-crop reduction must all be
components of the response. Former “Drug
Czar” William Bennett laid out in the 1989 National Drug Control Strategy a
principle that still applies today: “…
no single tactic—pursued alone or to the detriment of other possible and
valuable initiatives—can work to contain or reduce drug use.” We can expect no
panacea, no “silver bullet,” to solve the nation’s drug-abuse problem.
Long-term: No short-term solution is possible to a national
drug problem that requires the education of each new generation and resolute
opposition to criminal drug traffickers. The strategy must be philosophically
coherent and consistently followed.
Wide-ranging: The strategy must response to the drug problem and
must support the needs of families, schools, and communities. It also must
address international aspects of drug
control through bilateral, regional, and global accords.
Realistic: Some people believe drug use is so deeply embedded
in society that we can never decrease it.
Others feel that draconian measures are required. The 1998 Strategy
rejects both these views. Although the strategy cannot eliminate illegal drug
use, history demonstrates that it can control this cancer without compromising
American ideals.
Science-based: Facts, based in science and data collection,
rather than ideology or anecdote must provide the basis for rational drug
policy.
General (ret) Barry McCaffrey, U.S. White House, Drug Policy Office
Director states, the metaphor of a “war on drugs” is misleading. “Although wars are expected to end, drug
control is a continuous challenge. The moment we believe we are victorious and
drop our guard, the drug problem will resurface with the next generation. In
order to reduce demand for drugs, prevention efforts must be ongoing. The chronically addicted should be held
accountable for negative behavior and offered treatment to help change
destructive patterns. Addicts must be helped, not defeated. While we seek to
reduce demand, we also must target supply.
Cancer is a more appropriate metaphor for the nation’s drug problem.
Dealing with cancer is a long-term proposition. It requires the mobilization of
support mechanisms—medical, educational, and societal—to check the spread of
the disease and improve the prognosis. The symptoms of the illness must be
managed while the root cause is attacked. The key to reducing both drug abuse
and cancer is 1revention coupled with treatment.”
The world is facing a pandemic of drug abuse that inflicts staggering costs on our societies. Illegal drugs kill and sicken people, sap productivity, drain economies, threaten the environment, and undermine democratic institutions and international order. The United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP) estimates the annual value of the international drug trade at approximately five hundred billion dollars.
To confront this menace in the United States, the USG developed a comprehensive, balanced, and integrated national strategy consisting of the five goals and thirty-two objectives mention above. The USG first priority is to reduce the demand for illegal drugs: to educate youth to reject illegal drugs and to reduce the health and social costs of illegal drug use. In support of this demand-reduction effort, the United States spend over $5 billion in 1998 for drug prevention and treatment in schools and prisons. Presently, the Office of the National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is conducting a $195 million mass media campaign to change the attitudes of adolescents towards drug abuse.
Efforts in the United States will have an effect on other nations: as the United States continues to reduce demand for cocaine and heroin, traffickers will seek new markets. The UNDCP documents that the United States now consumes only 2 percent of the world’s heroin. Traffickers have taken note of the potential for increased global demand and are aggressively looking for new markets. . Illegal drug use rates are 50 percent lower than 1979’s historic high level. In 1997, overall drug use remained stable, and use among youth stopped increasing after five years of rising rates. An estimated 13.9 million Americans (6.4 percent of the U.S. household population aged twelve and over) were current drug users. This figure represents a significant change from 1979 when the number of current users was at its highest recorded level—twenty-five million (or 14.1 percent of the population). Despite this dramatic drop, approximately 34 percent of Americans twelve and older have used an illegal drug in their lifetime; of these, more than 90 percent used either marijuana or hashish, and approximately 30 percent tried cocaine. Fortunately, sixty-one million Americans who once used illegal drugs have now rejected them.
The consequences of illegal drug use have also been devastating within the United States. The USG estimate that in the last ten years, drug use has cost the US society more than 100,000 dead and some $300 billion. Each year, 500,000 US citizens go to hospital emergency rooms because of drug-induced problems, and 14,000 suffer drug-related deaths.
US citizens from every social and economic background, race, and ethnic group are concerned about the interrelated problems of crime, violence, and drugs. They are especially concerned about the increased use of drugs by young people. Today, dangerous drugs like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine are cheaper and more potent than they were at the height of our domestic drug problem fifteen or twenty years ago. In 1997 in Arizona, 90 percent all homicides were related to methamphetamine. No nation can afford such devastating social, health, and criminal consequences.
The demand for illegal drugs lies at the heart of the global drug problem. The United States is a substantial part of the demand side of the drug equation. However, over the past two decades, the United States has made more progress in this area than on any other public health issue. Has stated, the number of Americans who are casual drug users has dropped by 50 percent since 1979, from twenty-five million to twelve million. The number of casual cocaine users has dropped over the past decade from six million to 1.5 million Americans in 1998. The U.S. National Drug Control Strategy recognizes that demand and its associated profits are the impetus for the drug trade; USG efforts have been prioritized accordingly. Therefore, the USG’s number one counter-drug goal is to prevent the sixty-eight million Americans under eighteen years of age from becoming a new generation of addicts. The USG find it unacceptable that drug-use rates have doubled among our youth since 1992; therefore it must reverse this trend. In November 1997, the USG kick off the largest anti-drug media campaign in history. This program will spend up to 350 million dollars a year (counting federal and matching industry funds) to change social attitudes toward illegal drugs.
While the U.S. can’t arrest its way out of the drug problem, it will continue to uphold to strict drug laws. A million and-a-half Americans are now behind bars, many for drug-law violations. More than a million additional Americans are arrested every year for drug offenses. Incarceration is entirely appropriate for many drug-related crimes. There must be strong incentives to stay clear of drug trafficking, and prison sentences can motivate people to obey the law. Our challenge is to address the problem of chronic drug use by bringing drug testing, assessment, referral, treatment, and supervision within the oversight of the U.S. criminal justice system. The USG is doing so by increasing the number of drug courts that oversees treatment and rehabilitation for drug-law violators and will increase federal spending on youth drug prevention by 21 percent in the next fiscal year. The USG is investing in dramatically expanding community-based anti-drug coalitions. The USG goal is to increase the number of U.S. towns and cities that have private-public anti-drug coalitions from 4,300 to more than 10,000.
Illegal Drug Use
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Illegal Drug Use Has Begun to Level Off among Youth but Remains Unacceptably High: The University of Michigan’s 1997 Monitoring the Future (MTF) study—a nationwide school-based report of drug use among eighth, tenth, and twelfth-grade students—records that drug-use rates are leveling off. Since 1992, there has been a substantial increase in the use of most drugs—particularly marijuana. In 1997, for the first time in six years, the use of marijuana and other illegal drugs did not increase among eighth graders. Use of marijuana and other illegal drugs among tenth and twelfth graders also appears to have leveled off. Furthermore, attitudes regarding drugs, which are key predictors of use, began to reverse in 1997 after several years of erosion.
The 1997 MTF survey partially corroborated an earlier finding of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) 1996 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) that current drug use among twelve to seventeen-year-olds declined between 1995 and 1996 from 10.9 percent to 9 percent. However, this good news is tempered by the fact that today’s drug-use rates among youth, while well below the 1979 peak of 16.3 percent, are substantially higher than the 1992 low of 5.3 percent. One in four twelfth graders is a current illegal drug user while for eighth graders; the figure is approximately one in eight. A survey conducted by the Columbia University Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reported that 41 percent of teens had attended parties where marijuana was available, and 30 percent had seen drugs sold at school.
Estimates of the size of the population that uses drugs heavily (termed chronic users) are imprecise because many individuals who are deeply involved in drugs are difficult to locate for interviews, survey or other forms of questioning. This problem of access tends to produce a negative bias in data gathered in conventional ways. Researchers estimate the number of chronic users at 3.6 million for cocaine and 810,000 for heroin. Learning more about the demographics of chronic users is vital. Chronic users maintain the illegal drug market, commit a great deal of crime, and contribute to the spread of hepatitis and tuberculosis as well as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Without an accurate estimate of the number of chronic users, initiatives responsive to the scale of the problem are difficult to develop.
The ONDCP funded large-scale feasibility study, conducted in Cook County, Illinois, underscored the difficulty of estimating the number of chronic users and the tendency of survey instruments to undercount. The Cook County study interviewed self-professed chronic users where they are most likely to be found in large numbers: jails, drug-treatment programs, and homeless shelters. Researchers sought to learn about the characteristics of heavy drug-users and the frequency with which they made contact with institutions. The survey estimated that 333,000 chronic drug users were in Cook County.
The
results of this study of drug abuse in one county cannot be extrapolated
nationwide. The next step will be applying this approach to an entire region
and then, assuming the results are accurate, to the whole country.
Health Consequences
Drug-related
medical emergencies remain near historic highs: SAMHSA’s Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), which studies drug-related
hospital emergencies, provides a snapshot of the health consequences of
America’s drug problem. DAWN reported that drug-related episodes dropped 6
percent between 1995 and 1996, from 518,000 to 488,000. The decline was due, in
part, to significantly fewer episodes of non-medical use of legal drugs (like
aspirin and ibuprofen) and some illegal drugs (methamphetamine and PCP).
Nevertheless, pharmaceutically controlled substances accounted for 25 percent
of reported medical emergencies.
Estimated
emergency mentions of both cocaine and heroin were at their highest levels
since 1978. Cocaine-related cases remained about the same in 1995 (137,979) and
1996 (144,180). The increasing incidence of cocaine emergencies among persons
aged thirty-five and older continued through 1996, rising 184 percent from the
1990 level. Heroin-related episodes declined slightly between 1995 and 1996
from 72,229 to 70,463 yet were 108 percent higher than in 1990. Although the
change between 1995 and 1996 is not statistically significant, the decline is
the first since 1990.
Methamphetamine- related emergency-room episodes decreased 33 percent between 1995 and
1996 from 16,183 to 10,787. This is the second year of decline since the 1994
peak of 17,665 emergency episodes. SAMHSA suggests that the drop in
methamphetamine cases may be explained by shortages of that drug in early 1996.
While increases in marijuana-related cases between 1995 and 1996 (45,775 to
50,037) are not statistically significant, the 1996 figure is substantially
higher than the 1994 figure of 40,183 episodes.
Maternal
drug use affects mother, developing fetus, and children: SAMHSA’s 1996 NHSDA
estimates that 3.2 percent of pregnant women (approximately eighty thousand)
were current drug users. This rate is
substantially lower than for current users among women aged fifteen to
forty-four who were not pregnant and had no children (10 percent). However, women who recently gave birth (who
were not pregnant and had children under two years of age) had a current-usage
rate of 6.2 percent, suggesting that many women resume drug use after giving
birth. Similar patterns are seen for alcohol and cigarette use. Drug use can
affect the health of a developing fetus and, later, the child. The immediate consequences of prenatal drug
use may include premature birth and alteration of the newborn’s brain
function. Although more work needs to
be done, researchers studying the potential long-term consequences of prenatal
drug exposure are finding that these children may suffer a higher incidence of
learning disabilities and other neurological deficits that become manifest
later. Many women who use illegal
drugs during pregnancy also use alcohol.
One to three infants in every one thousand live births are born with
fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) -- a distinct cluster of physical and mental
impairments caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol. FAS imposes costs on the
health-care system through neonatal intensive care and surgical services;
medical treatment for children and adolescents; and educational, residential,
and institutional programs for children and adults.
Addiction: Once viewed as essentially a moral or character defect, addiction now
is understood to be a complex behavioral and medical condition with personal,
social, and biological underpinnings, as well as a chronic, relapsing
disease. Research has shown that some
individuals are at greater risk than others of developing drug-related problems
and that addiction invariably alters brain chemistry. Drug seeking and use alters thinking patterns and, in essence,
re-trains the brain. With heavy, frequent drug use, the change in cerebral
function can be pro-found, and interventions to date—although effective in
modifying behavior—have not demonstrated the capacity to fully restore brain
chemistry. Persons of any background can become addicted to drugs. Approximately 45 percent of Americans know
someone with a substance-abuse problem; nearly 20 percent state that drug abuse
has been a cause of trouble in their families.
Spreading
of infectious diseases: Illegal drug users and people with whom they have
sexual contact run higher risks of contracting gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis,
and tuberculosis. Chronic users are particularly susceptible to infectious
diseases and are considered “core transmitters.” High-risk sexual behavior
associated with crack cocaine and the injection of illegal drugs enhances the
transmission and acquisition of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 35.8 percent of new
HIV cases are directly or indirectly linked to injecting drug users. Consequences of underage drinking: Although
alcohol is a legal drug that many American adults use without negative
consequences, it holds unique dangers for underage drinkers. The younger the onset of drinking, the
greater the chances of developing a clinically defined alcohol disorder.
Researchers
at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) found
that young people who begin drinking before age fifteen are four times more
likely to become alcohol dependent and twice as likely to abuse alcohol than
individuals who start drinking at age twenty-one. Underage drinking can impair
physical and psychological development as well as learning. Drinking by youth
correlates with increases in other high-risk behavior, including unsafe sexual
practices. Drinking greatly increases
the risk of being involved in a car crash, and this chance is further magnified
because young persons are inexperienced with both drinking and driving. More
than 2,300 youths aged fifteen to twenty died in alcohol-related crashes in
1996 -- 33.6 percent of total traffic fatalities in this age group. A survey focusing on alcohol-related
problems experienced by high school seniors and dropouts revealed that within
the preceding year, approximately 80 percent reported getting “drunk,” binge
drinking, or drinking and driving.
More
than half said that drinking had caused them to feel sick, miss school or work,
get arrested, or be involved in an auto accident. Alcohol use among adolescents has also been closely linked to
increased risk for suicide. According to one study, 37 percent of
eighth-graders that drank heavily reported attempting suicide, compared with 11
percent who did not drink. Smoking-related consequences: Tobacco use,
particularly among youth, has been shown to be correlated with the later onset
of illegal drug use. In addition, tobacco use can cut short one’s life
expectancy. Most smokers start between ten and eighteen years of age. Approximately 4.5 million American children
under eighteen now smoke, and every day another three thousand adolescents
become regular smokers.36 One-third of these new smokers will eventually die of
tobacco-related diseases. Seventy
percent of adolescent smokers say they would not have started if they could
choose again.
Problems Estimating Drug Availability
Information about quantities of illegal drugs imported to the United States or cultivated or produced within the United States is imprecise. So too is wholesale and retail level price and purity data for different drugs. Estimation models for cocaine availability are the most rigorous. Domestic availability figures are derived by calculating the quantity of cocaine exported from producer countries, based on cultivation and production figures, and adjusting the figure to reflect the probable proportion bound for the United States and in-transit seizures. However, similar methodologies for estimating heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, and other drug availability have not been developed. Domestically, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) System to Retrieve Information from Drug Evidence (STRIDE) is used to provide broad ranges for retail and wholesale purity and prices. Without accurate estimates, gauging the size of illegal markets or the effects of anti-trafficking programs is difficult. ONDCP’s Advisory Committee on Research, Data, and Evaluation is addressing this information shortfall.
1.1.1.1.1.1
Cocaine
Overall usage in the U.S.—In 1997, an estimated 1.7 million Americans
were current cocaine users. This figure represents 0.8 percent of the household
population aged twelve and over and is a substantial decline from the 1985
figure of 5.7 million (3 percent of the population). The current-use rate, however, has not changed significantly in
the last seven years. The number of first-time users in 1995 (652,000) was
significantly lower than the number between 1977 and 1987 when more than one
million Americans tried cocaine each year. Estimates of the number of chronic
cocaine users vary, but 3.6 million is a widely accepted figure within the
research community.
Use among youth: Cocaine use is not prevalent among young people. The
1997 MTF survey found that the proportion of students reporting use of powder
cocaine in the past year was 2.2 percent, 4.1 percent, and 5 percent in grades
eight, ten, and twelve, respectively.
This rate represents a leveling-off in eighth-grade use and no change in
tenth and twelfth grades. Among eighth graders, perceived risk also stabilized
in 1997, and disapproval of use increased—both after earlier erosion in these
attitudes. The 1996 NHSDA found current use among twelve to seventeen-year-olds
to be 0.6 percent, twice the rate of 1992 yet substantially lower than the 1.9
percent reported in 1985. However, young people are still experimenting with
cocaine, underscoring the need for effective prevention. NHSDA’s finding of a steady decline in the
mean age of first use from 22.6 years in 1990 to 19.1 years in 1995
substantiates this requirement. Crack
cocaine use, according to MTF, leveled-off in the eighth, tenth, and twelfth
grades during the first half of the 1990s.
Availability: Between
287 and 376 metric tons of cocaine are estimated to have been smuggled into the
United States in 1995.
Consumption-based calculations suggest the U.S. demand for cocaine that
year was about 330 metric tons. Powder
cocaine retailed at approximately 130 dollars per gram in 1997. Wholesale quantities (kilograms) are
generally 80 to 100 percent pure. Retail purity levels vary widely according to
local supply and demand.
In accordance with the 1998 NDCS there are approximately 320,000
occasional heroin users and 810,000 chronic users in the United States. Injection remains the most efficient means
of administration, particularly for low-purity heroin. However, the increasing availability of
high-purity heroin has made snorting and smoking more common modes of
ingestion, thereby lowering inhibitions to use. This change is reflected in the
proportion of lifetime users who smoked or snorted, which increased from 55
percent in 1994 to 82 percent in 1996.
While quite low, rates of heroin use among teenager’s rose
significantly in eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades during the 1990s. Being able
to snort or smoke heroin, instead of injecting it, undoubtedly played a major
role in increasing use of this drug.
The 1997 MTF found no change between 1996 and 1997 in tenth and twelfth
grades but concluded that use in eighth grade has leveled-off and may have
declined. The report also discovered
that more young people perceive heroin as dangerous; 56.7 percent of twelfth
graders thought that trying heroin was a “great risk”—the highest percentage
recorded in twenty-three years. The
1996 NHSDA found that the mean age of initiation declined from 27.3 years in
1988 to 19.3 in 1995. Unfortunately,
communities throughout the country are experiencing the results of heroin
abuse. For example, Plano, Texas, one of the nation’s ten safest cities, had
eleven heroin-overdose deaths in 1997; many of the victims were children. Orlando, Florida saw forty-eight heroin
deaths in 1995 and 1996; ten victims were twenty-one years of age or younger.
Information about the price and purity of heroin is extremely imprecise. In 1997, the average retail price for a pure gram of heroin was approximately 1,375 dollars; the mid-level cost was 450 dollars. These prices were significantly lower than in 1981 when the retail price of a gram was estimated to be three thousand dollars and the mid-level price 1,700 dollars. Ethnographers suggest that heroin is increasingly available in many cities. High-purity Southeast Asian, Southwest Asian, and Colombian heroin is plentiful in most regions of the country. Lower-purity Mexican black tar heroin is more common in the Southwest.
The 1996 NHSDA estimated that 4.7 percent (10.1 million) of the population aged twelve and older were current marijuana or hashish users, which is the same rate as in 1995. Marijuana is the most prevalent illegal drug in the United States; approximately three-quarters (77 percent) of current illegal drug users used marijuana or hashish in 1996. The number of initiates in 1995 declined, albeit insignificantly, from the 1994 figure of 2.4 million.
The 1997 MTF shows that marijuana continues to be the illegal drug most frequently used by young people. Among high school seniors, 49.6 percent reported using marijuana at least once in their lives. By comparison, the figure was 44.9 percent for seniors in 1996 and 41.7 percent in 1995. After six years of steady increase, current marijuana use fell in 1997 among eighth graders, from 11.3 percent in 1996 to 10.2 percent. There was evidence of a reduction in the rate of increase among tenth and twelfth graders. The 1996 NHSDA found that current marijuana usage among twelve to seventeen-year-olds was at 7.1 percent compared to 8.2 percent in 1995. While there is no statistically significant difference between the 1995 and 1996 figures, this finding is encouraging given the doubling of marijuana usage in this age group between 1992 and 1995.
While marijuana is the most readily available illegal drug in our nation, there is currently no methodology to determine the extent of cannabis cultivation within the United States. Consequently, there is no national survey or accepted estimate of domestic cultivation. Cannabis is frequently cultivated in remote locations and on public land to prevent observation and identification of owners. The drug is also grown commercially and privately indoors, which complicates the task of assessing cultivation. California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia are major growing states. Marijuana is also imported from a wide range of regions; Colombia, Jamaica, and Mexico are major source countries. Eradication and seizure data suggest the magnitude of the illegal marijuana trade.15 In 1996, three million marijuana plants were eradicated in the United States; their potential yield was 1,389 metric tons.16 In 1997, more than 300,000 plants were eradicated in 4,400 sites in National Forests. According to the El Paso Intelligence Center, 478 metric tons were seized along the southwest border in 1996, a fifty percent increase over 1995. In 1996, marijuana typically sold at eight hundred dollars a pound.17 The potency of some of today’s marijuana crops is higher than in the early 1980s as a result of indoor cultivation and manipulation of Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels—THC is the primary psychoactive chemical in marijuana.
SAMHSA’s 1996 NHSDA estimated that 4.9 million Americans tried methamphetamine in their lifetime, up insignificantly from the 1995 estimate of 4.7 million. The National Institute of Justice’s (NIJ) Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) system (which regularly test arrestees for drug use in twenty-three metropolitan areas) reports that methamphetamine use continues to be more common in the western United States than in the rest of the nation. It also found that methamphetamine use fell significantly from 1995 levels.
Eight cities (Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Omaha, Phoenix, Portland, San
Diego, and San Jose), that were cited in the 1995 report as having the highest
methamphetamine rates among adult arrestees, experienced substantial declines
in 1996. In San Diego, positive test
results declined from 37.1 to 29.9 percent, in Phoenix from 21.9 to 12.2
percent, in Portland from 18.7 to 12.4 percent, in San Jose from 18.5 to 14.8
percent, in Omaha from 8.1 to 4.3 percent, in Los Angeles from 7.5 to 7
percent, in Denver from 3.8 to 2.2 percent, and in Dallas from 2.7 to 1.3
percent.18 Use among youth: The 1997 MTF asked twelfth graders only about the
use of crystal methamphetamine, known as “ice.” Ice is often smoked or burned
in rock form. The survey found that ice
use, which had been rising since 1992, leveled-off in 1997 after perceived risk
stabilized a year earlier; 2.3 percent of twelfth graders reported use of ice
in the past year.
Methamphetamine is by far the most prevalent synthetic controlled substance clandestinely manufactured in the United States. It is also imported from Mexico. Methamphetamine is cheaper than cocaine in many illegal markets. Long associated with motorcycle gangs that supplied users in western states, this drug has spread eastward. Methamphetamine purity remained at approximately 50 percent or more over the past four years, indicating relatively stable availability. Prices currently range nationwide from $6,500 to twenty thousand dollars per pound, five hundred dollars to $2,700 per ounce, and fifty dollars to $150 per gram.
The price of methamphetamine is heavily influenced by the supply of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which are key ingredients. Efforts to curtail the supply of precursors have caused the price of methamphetamine to reach more than double its earlier cost: from three thousand dollars per pound to $6,500 and ten thousand dollars in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The 1996 NHSDA reported no significant change in the prevalence of inhalants, hallucinogens (like LSD and PCP), or psychotherapeutics (tranquilizers, sedatives, analgesics, or stimulants) used for non-medical purposes between 1995 and 1996. Current usage rates among those twelve and older for both hallucinogens and inhalants remained well below 1 percent in 1996. However, the number of initiates to hallucinogen use, 1.2 million in 1995, has doubled since 1991. Current-use rates for psychotherapeutics were 1.4 percent in 1996. Finally, an estimated three million Americans used prescription drugs for non-medical purposes in 1996.
The 1997 MTF reports that inhalant use is most common in the eighth grade where 5.6 percent used it on a past-month basis and 11.8 percent did so on a past-year basis. Inhalants can be deadly, even with first-time use, and often represent the initial experience with illegal substances. Current use of stimulants (a category that includes methamphetamine) declined among eighth graders (from 4.6 to 3.8 percent) and tenth-graders (from 5.5 percent to 5.1 percent) and increased among twelfth graders (from 4.1 to 4.8 percent). Ethnographers continue to report “cafeteria use” of hallucinogenic or sedative drugs like ketamine, LSD, MDMA, and GHB throughout the country. Treatment providers have noted increasing poly-drug use among young people. NHSDA also reported that the mean age of first use of hallucinogens was 17.7 years in 1995, the lowest figure since 1976.
LSD is inexpensive, with dosage units costing as little as twenty-five cents wholesale. Retail prices vary from one to twenty dollars per dose. This odorless drug, which is often carried on blotting paper, can be purchased via mail order. PCP production is centered in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Los Angeles-based street gangs, primarily the Crips, distribute PCP to a number of U.S. cities through cocaine-trafficking operations. Retail PCP prices vary greatly. MDMA (known by such street names as Ecstasy, XTC, Clarity, Essence, and Doctor) is produced in west Texas and on the West Coast or smuggled into the United States from Mexico. It is distributed across the country by independent traffickers and through postal or express mail. MDMA is often sold in tablet form with dosage units of 55 to 150 milligrams. Law-enforcement agencies throughout the country continue to report incidents involving gammahydroxybuterate (GHB) and various benzodiazepines, including flunitrazepam (Rohypnol) and clonazepam (Klonopin). These substances have been reportedly used to incapacitate victims prior to assault; consequently, they are called “date rape” drugs.
Our own U.S. role is guided by the U.S. President’s commitment to mutually respectful relations that benefit all peoples. Over the past year, the U.S. President was accompanied by the U.S. White House Drug Policy Office Director, Drug C-Zar, Barry McCaffrey to Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela, who also participated with him in the leaders’ summits in Central America, and the Caribbean. Throughout the hemisphere, general optimism has been tempered by recognition of the growing threat posed to all nations by drug cultivation, production, trafficking, consumption, and money laundering.
When the United States government speak to U.S. audiences about hemispheric drug control challenges and counterdrug cooperation with Central, and South American neighbors, the USG underscore that increasingly important U.S. hemispheric relations do not revolve around any single issue. While drug policy concerns are critical to all, no one should lose sight of the other realities that define the ways in which our peoples interact. History, culture, geography, and commerce link the nations of the Americas. It is important to point out that more than 830 million people in the Western Hemisphere now live in democratic regimes. Collectively, our economies constitute a $13 trillion market. Indeed, intra-hemisphere commerce is already significant. The U.S. trades more with Brazil than China; more with Venezuela than Russia; more with Costa Rica—a nation of 3 million—than with 100 million Eastern Europeans; more with 14 million Chileans than with almost a billion Indians. By the turn of the century, Latin America will have a $2 trillion economy and will trade more than $600 billion in goods and services. U.S. trade with the nations to our south will exceed trade with Europe. One of the U.S. President’s priorities is to work with Latin America to act on this reality by building on the successes of NAFTA, the 1994 Miami Summit of the Americas, and the 1998 Summit in Santiago.
Drug trafficking and consumption increasingly threaten our critical values of freedom and justice. The United States, in conjunction with other hemispheric democracies, has dedicated itself to three principles: respect for the rule of law, regard for human rights, and commitment to the principles of democratic rule. All of these aims are under attack from the drug trade. The events of the last decade have left no doubt that wherever drugs are in transit, corruption takes root. Crime, violence, and social decay are inevitable consequences of illegal drugs. Drugs and associated crime threaten the health and well being of our communities, thwart the aspirations of our peoples, and sully the future for our children. No one is immune from this poison; international cooperation is the anti-toxin.
Working cooperatively, we can prevent illegal drug production, trafficking, and consumption from marring our societies. If the great democracies of this hemisphere do not stand united then drug abuse and trafficking will increase; the violence will continue; and social decay will eat away at our institutions, our communities, and our future. To reaffirm the message of the Summit of the Americas in Santiago, the time for finger pointing is past; the time for global cooperation against drug traffickers is at hand.
International Cocaine Trade
Colombia-based drug trafficking organizations, supported by guerrilla groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) continued to direct the cocaine in Colombia, by maintaining primary control over cocaine cultivation, production and trafficking to the United States, despite the incarceration of its most powerful kingpins. In Mexico, drug gangs continued to grow in power, sophistication, and reach. These gangs increased their involvement in domestic U.S. cocaine distribution as well. The cocaine trade, however, continued to be rooted in South America, where the bulk of the cocaine available worldwide was produced. [Cocaine is produced from the coca plant, which is cultivated primarily in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru.] In 1996, excluding hectarage lost to government eradication, farmers cultivated the coca plant on 209,700 hectares of land. Theoretically, the amount of land under cultivation was capable of producing approximately 303,600 metric tons of coca leaf. These data represent a slight decrease from 1995, when 214,800 hectares of cultivation potentially yielded approximately 309,400 metric tons of coca leaf. This coca leaf could have potentially produced 760 metric tons at cocaine HCl, commonly referred to as cocaine. Most of the coca leaf was produced in Bolivia and Peru, while cocaine HCl processing laboratories were concentrated in Colombia. After harvesting the coca leaves, traffickers processed the leaves into crude, impure form of cocaine—known as cocaine base—in facilities located near the cultivation sites. Traffickers transported the cocaine base to Colombia for final processing and subsequent shipment to international markets. Traditionally, general aviation aircraft flying between clandestine airstrips located near processing facilities accomplished the transport of cocaine base to Colombia. However, in recent years, flight interdiction efforts by the Colombian and Peruvian air forces have forced traffickers to change their methods. As a result, traffickers have begun to rely increasingly on river and land transport to move shipments of cocaine base to staging sites in areas outside the traditional trafficker air routes, beyond the range of interdiction aircraft. In 1996, traffickers continued to avoid air routes and to favor river transport of cocaine base.
Official U.S. Government estimates determined that maximum potential
worldwide cocaine production in 1996 amounted to 760 metric tons compared to
780 metric tons in 1995. Actual worldwide cocaine production in 1996, based on
data obtained under the auspices of Operation BREAKTHROUGH, was placed at 700
metric tons after deducting the estimates for coca produced for legal uses.
According to the Federal-wide Drug Seizure System, U.S. Federal authorities
seized 108.1 metric tons in Fiscal Year 1996, compared to 102.4 metric tons in
Fiscal Year 1995.
Colombia is located in the northwest corner of South America, with coasts on both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. This location enables traffickers to smuggle cocaine to the United States by a variety of routes. Moreover, traffickers transported cocaine from South America from countries other than Colombia. Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela, in particular, also have become significant cocaine transit sites.
A large part of the cocaine traffic between South America and the United States was routed through Mexico by using a number of routes and methods. Traffickers relied primarily on air and maritime transportation to move cocaine into Mexico from South America. Maritime activity included shipping cocaine from Colombia’s western coast by bulk cargo ships or fishing vessels sailing from the Port of Buenaventura, following eastern Pacific routes to either Mexico or Central America. High-speed “go-fast boats,” freighters, and fishing vessels sailed from Colombia’s North Coast; from the Ports of Cartagena or Barranquilla; from the Gulfs of Uraba or Morrosquillo; or from the Guajira Peninsula. Vessels with cocaine shipments to be transported through Mexico followed northwesterly routes into the western Caribbean, en route to locations off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where the cocaine shipments would be off-loaded on shore, or transferred to Mexican vessels for delivery to shore.
Cocaine shipments transported through Mexico or Central America generally were moved overland to staging sites in northern Mexico, although intelligence suggests a substantial amount of cocaine also was moved to the border area by aircraft. At these staging sites, the cocaine was broken down into smaller loads for smuggling across the U.S.-Mexican border. The primary cocaine importation points within the United States were in Arizona, southern California, southern Florida, and Texas. Typically, land vehicles were driven across the Southwest border, and then either left in parking lots or driven directly to storage sites in the United States.
Wholesale cocaine distribution within the United States continued to be controlled primarily by the Cali drug mafia, which had sophisticated and highly compartmentalized methods of operation and operational cells in many U.S. cities. Cell managers, operating independently of other cells, received their orders directly from Colombia. Colombian traffickers distributed multihundred- and multithousand-kilogram quantities of cocaine, primarily from Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City. The Cali drug mafia controlled most of the cocaine brought into New York City, shipping the drug from staging sites in California, Florida, and Texas.
Cocaine supplied by smugglers operating from Mexico was temporarily stored at staging sites in the Southwest. Proceeds from the sales of cocaine were collected from cities and towns all over the country and consolidated in several cities for collection and, increasingly, for direct transfer to Colombia. The primary collection points were located in Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City.
At the retail level, distribution was controlled by a variety of highly ethnocentric criminal groups. In major U.S. cities, organized groups of Cuban, Jamaican, and Mexican criminals, as well as African-American and Dominican gangs, dominated the retail market.
The Crips, Bloods, and Dominican gangs, as well as Jamaican posses, were responsible primarily for widespread cocaine and crack cocaine-related violence. The migration of gang and posse members to smaller U.S. cities and rural areas resulted in increases in drug-related homicides, armed robberies, and assaults in those areas.
Initiatives
to Break Sources of Supply
The United States' international drug-control
strategy seeks to:
Promote international cooperation: The United States seeks to improve international cooperation to strengthen regional enforcement efforts and deny sanctuary to international criminal organizations. Because traffickers do not respect national borders; no country can deal effectively with illicit drug trafficking alone. Multinational efforts are essential for making optimal use of limited assets.
Assist source and transit countries: In nations with the political will to fight drug-trafficking organizations, the United States will help provide training and resources so that these countries can reduce narcotics cultivation, production, trafficking, and consumption.
Support crop eradication and alternative development programs: The elimination of illicit coca and opium cultivation is the best way to reduce cocaine and heroin availability. Alternative development programs can provide farmers with incentives to abandon drug cultivation.
Destroy drug-trafficking organizations: U.S.-supported programs help disrupt and dismantle international drug organizations, including their leadership, trafficking, production, and distribution infrastructure and their financial underpinnings.
Stop money laundering: The United States shares expertise and assists producer and transit countries with training and equipment to foster coordination among investigators, prosecutors, and financial regulators.
Prevent chemical diversion: The production of illegal drugs requires enormous volumes of precursor chemicals. Limiting their diversion and tracking their movements can complement other drug-control measures.
Interdict drug shipments: Trafficker routes in source countries are linked to growing areas. Operations against cocaine HCl laboratories disrupt production operations at a critical stage. U.S.-supported source-country interdiction programs can break transportation links, disrupt drug processing, and depress drug-crop prices in support of alternative development programs.
Support democracy and human rights: Democratic principles, human rights, and international drug-control policies are mutually supportive. Wherever drugs are grown or produced in volume, rule of law is corrupted by powerful criminal elements. Consequently, strengthening democracy is integral to international drug control.
Multilateral Drug Control Cooperation:
The growing trend toward greater cooperation in the Western Hemisphere is creating unprecedented regional drug-control opportunities. The era in which the region's anti-drug efforts were largely driven by a series of distinct, bilateral initiatives between the United States and selected Latin American and Caribbean countries is giving way to one that increasingly includes multilateral approaches. The institutions and many of the mechanisms to have successful cooperation are in place or under development. It is in our interest -- and the interests of the other countries in the region -- to enhance these institutions and accelerate multilateral cooperation.
In the past several years, a multilateral framework for increased drug-control cooperation has been developed. Thirty-four democracies that attended the Miami Summit of the Americas in 1994 signed an action agenda that has been implemented over the past three years. All governments endorsed the 1996 Anti-Drug Strategy in the Hemisphere and the 1995 Buenos Aires Communiqué on Money Laundering, which specified principles for cooperation. In addition, all of the Summit countries have now ratified or acceded to the 1988 UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
Hemispheric anti-drug officials, working under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS), elaborated recommendations for implementing the principles outlined in the OAS's hemispheric anti-drug strategy. The OAS' Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) developed model legislation against money laundering and chemical diversion, as well as a system of data collection for supply and demand statistics. CICAD also sponsored several meetings and seminars on a range of issues and helped to conclude negotiation for a regional mutual legal-assistance agreement.
The United States will expand the International Law-Enforcement Academy, which provides professional development for Central American officers and establish, in collaboration with other nations, a Judicial Center in Latin America to train judges and court personnel.
The U.S. process of annually certifying the counter-drug performance of narcotics-producing and transit countries will continue to encourage international cooperation. By law, the President is required to determine whether countries have cooperated fully with the United States or taken adequate steps to meet the counter-narcotics goals and objectives of the 1988 UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. Denial of certification involves foreign assistance sanctions, as well as a mandatory U.S. vote against multilateral development bank loans.
Bilateral Cooperation with Mexico:
The U.S. and Mexico have made significant progress in joint efforts to address the drug problem. President Zedillo has identified drug trafficking as the principal threat to Mexico’s national security. Under his leadership, Mexican drug seizures have increased notably, with marijuana seizures up 40 percent over 1994 and opium-related seizures up 41 percent. Cocaine, methamphetamine, and precursor chemical seizures also rose significantly. No other nation in the world has eradicated as many hectares of illegal drugs as has Mexico.
USG extensive
bilateral counterdrug cooperation occurs under the rubric of the U.S./Mexico
High Level Contact Group for Drug Control.
This bilateral policy group was established in April 1996 and has
enabled the U.S. to advance our collective effort to thwart drug trafficking
and the demand for drugs in both nations.
Our two nations face difficult drug problems, but we have resolved to
address them forthrightly while affirming their commitment to the principles of
international law, particularly national sovereignty, territorial integrity,
and nonintervention in the internal affairs of other countries.
Regional Cooperation against the Andean Airbridge:
One of the most promising initiatives is the regional effort to disrupt the narco-airbridge that links coca-growing areas in Peru with cocaine labs in Colombia. Peru as source of most of the world’s coca leaf, and Colombian labs are thought to produce as much as 80 percent of the world’s cocaine. The airbridge, which links the source of raw material in Peru with the production process in Colombia, is vital to the health of this illegal industry.
At the Southern end of the airbridge, the joint U.S.-Peruvian air interdiction campaign
(with the active regional participation of Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and
Ecuador) forced down, seized, and/or destroyed twenty-three narcotics aircraft
in 1995. As a result, narcotics-related flights decreased by 47 percent
compared to 1994. The continuation of
this campaign last year caused coca base-prices to fall to record low levels,
disrupting the cocaine economy of much of Peru. We believe this development was an important contributing factor
in the Peruvian government’s success at reducing coca cultivation by 18 percent
in 1996 and 27 percent in 1997.
Colombian law enforcement and counterdrug military forces should be enormously proud of their sacrifice, commitment, and courage displayed daily to protect the Colombian nation from the threat of the most sophisticated international criminal organizations that the world has ever known. These dedicated professionals have mounted significant efforts against drug production and trafficking infrastructures that poison our communities and threaten our children. The will and determination on the part of the Colombian National Police (CNP) and military counterdrug units in confronting the drug criminal organizations is an example to all of us concerned about the corrupting power of the cartels and the narco-violence that they spread. Especially praiseworthy is the determination by the CNP to expand coca and opium eradication despite significant challenges, including physical threats and lack of proper resources. Increased cooperation between the courageous and resolute Colombian military and National Police in counternarcotics operations will lead to more effective efforts against drug cultivation and trafficking. Specific positive developments, which have been noted by our government, include:
Pressure is
being maintained on drug cartel leaders. Within the last two years the
Colombian National Police, working in cooperation with military counterdrug
units, arrested and incarcerated all eight of the major Colombian international
drug traffickers. Specially trained CNP
and military personnel are keeping pressure on narcotrafficking organizations
through searches and seizures causing continued progress in the arrest and
prosecution of important international criminals.
Targeting
International Drug Trafficking :
Pressure on illegal drug organizations is paying off. The Colombian National Police (CNP), working in cooperation with military counterdrug units, have arrested, incarcerated, or killed eight of the most important Colombian drug traffickers within the last two years. In Mexico, the leadership of two major organizations has been disrupted. Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the kingpin who organized multi-ton cocaine shipments using airliners, died following radical appearance-changing surgery. Juan Garcia Abrego, head of the Gulf Cartel and one of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" fugitives, has been convicted by U.S. courts and is serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary.
Following
the Money:
The billions of dollars Americans spend on illegal drugs every year fuel the drug trade. They also generate enormous profits that are either invested within the United States or repatriated. In most cases, traffickers seek to disguise drug profits by converting ("laundering") them into legitimate holdings. Trafficking organizations are vulnerable to enforcement actions because of the volume of money that must be processed. The retail value of the cocaine available for consumption in the United States each year is between forty and fifty-two billion dollars. Drug dealers seek to place these funds in the financial system as close to drug-dealing locations as possible.
The Department of Treasury works extensively with U.S. banks wire remitters, vendors of money orders and travelers' checks, and other money service businesses to prevent placement of drug proceeds. The federal government uses the provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act to detect suspicious transactions and prevent laundering. Federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies also target individuals, trafficking organizations, businesses, and financial institutions suspected of money laundering. The Geographical Targeting Order issued by the Department of Treasury in 1996 to prevent drug-related wire transfers from the New York City area and Dog’s prosecution of such cases are examples of effective interagency counter-measures. Private-sector support of anti-laundering measures is critical. Compliance with money-laundering regulations is essential for the credibility of financial institutions competing in a global economy.
The United States also is participating in global efforts to disrupt the flow of illicit capital, track criminal sources of funds, forfeit ill-gained assets, and prosecute offenders. For example, with the assistance of Colombian law enforcement and the private sector, the United States has imposed economic sanctions pursuant to the International Economic Emergency Powers Act against more than four hundred businesses affiliated with Colombian criminal drug organizations. Finally, U.S. experts have helped draft regulations to protect foreign financial sectors.
Seizing can also attack drug profits and forfeiting illegally gained assets ("asset forfeiture"). The Department of Justice consulted and assisted in the drafting of asset-forfeiture legislation in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay; and coordinates international forfeiture cases in Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Controlling
Precursor Chemicals:
The twenty-two chemicals most commonly used in the production of cocaine have extensive commercial and industrial uses. Illegal drug production can be disrupted if essential chemicals are denied to drug producers. The importance of controlling precursor chemicals has been established in international treaties and laws. Article 12 of the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, for example, establishes the obligation of parties to the treaty to institute controls to prevent the diversion of chemicals from legitimate commerce to illicit drug manufacture. The tracking of international shipment and the investigation of potentially illegal diversions are a demanding task. Yet, major strides have been made in international efforts to prevent the illegal diversion of chemicals. In 1997, the United States and the European Union signed an agreement to enhance cooperation in chemical diversion control. In Brazil, the government regulates the sale of gasoline, which can be used as a precursor chemical and to fuel trafficker aircraft and boats in the Amazon Region. The United States continues to urge the adoption and enforcement of chemical-control regimes by governments that do not have them or fail to enforce them. The goal is to prevent diversion of chemicals without hindering legitimate commerce.
Reducing
Corruption
Corruption is a serious impediment to expanded bilateral and multilateral cooperation. The widespread existence of corruption engenders a lack of confidence among law-enforcement agencies in various countries that might otherwise be able to attack drug-trafficking organizations by sharing information and coordinating operations. Ruthless trafficking organizations, with deep pockets for bribes and a demonstrated readiness to use violence, have penetrated the highest reaches of government in some nations. Corruption weakens the rule of law, erodes democratic institutions, and sometimes threatens the lives of U.S. officials. A decade ago, corruption was all-too-often ignored or tolerated. Today, the world's democracies are beginning to take steps to confront the problem. The United States will continue supporting multilateral efforts to fight corruption such as the OAS Hemispheric Convention against Corruption.
Breaking
Cocaine Sources of Supply:
Coca, the raw material for cocaine, is grown in the South American countries of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. Regional efforts have attained a 9.6 percent net reduction in total regional coca production over the last two years. For the past several years, the United States, Colombia, and Peru have targeted drug-laden aircraft flying between coca-growing regions of Peru and processing laboratories in Colombia. As a result of these campaign and development projects that provide economic alternatives to coca farmers, coca cultivation in Peru (once the source of over half the world's coca cultivation) decreased 40 percent during the last two years. Potential cocaine production also declined by 13 percent in Bolivia over the same period. U.S.-funded alternative development programs reinforced Bolivian coca-control efforts in the Chapare region. Hectarage now devoted to licit crops in the Chapare is 127 percent greater than in 1986.
Progress in Bolivia and Peru over the last two years, however, has been offset by a 56 percent expansion in coca cultivation in Colombia in that same period. This expansion primarily occurred in areas controlled by guerrilla and paramilitary forces. Colombia is attacking this trend with an U.S. supported aerial herbicide spray campaign that has destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of illicit coca and poppy cultivation in recent years. During the next year, the United States will continue to support the eradication and regional air bridge interdiction campaigns, expand anti-trafficking efforts to maritime and riverine routes, support alternate development, provide training and equipment to judicial systems, law enforcement agencies, and security forces, and encourage greater regional cooperation.
Breaking
Heroin Sources of Supply:
International efforts to reduce heroin availability in the United States face significant challenges. Worldwide illicit opium production was estimated at 4100 metric tons in 1997, of which approximately 88 percent is produced in Burma and Afghanistan where the U.S. has limited access or influence. Moreover, the U.S. heroin market consumes perhaps only 3 percent of the world's production. The existence of widely dispersed organizations and diversified routes and concealment methods makes interdiction difficult without adequate intelligence and resources.
Still, progress is achievable if governments have access to the growing area and the commitment and resources to implement counternarcotics programs. U.S.-backed crop control programs have eliminated or are reducing illicit opium cultivation in countries such as Guatemala, Mexico, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. In Afghanistan, the United States and UN are prepared to test the Taliban's commitment to narcotics control. The United States is funding a small alternative development project through a non-governmental organization and the UN is planning a larger one in return for a Taliban commitment to ban poppy cultivation. In Burma, the government has shown initial signs of a stronger counternarcotics interest. While legislation prohibits the use of U.S. Government resources to assist Burmese Counternarcotics efforts, we do support UN drug control programs there and encourage other countries to press the Government of Burma to take effective anti-drug action. In Colombia, U.S.-supported eradication efforts have stabilized poppy cultivation. The United States also supports numerous law enforcement programs including establishing counternarcotics police units, improving information collection, and providing equipment in heroin producing and transit countries.
Domestic heroin demand-reduction programs are essential due to the difficulties in attacking heroin sources of supply. They will, nevertheless, be supported by domestic and international heroin-control measures. Coordinated federal, state and local anti-heroin efforts will be encouraged. The ad-hoc task force established in Plan, Texas is an excellent example of this approach. It consists of representatives from numerous area sheriffs' offices and police departments, as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety, the U.S. Attorneys' Offices, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI, and DEA. U.S. law-enforcement agencies will use strategic information about domestic heroin distribution rings to pursue international criminal organizations. The United States will also help strengthen law-enforcement efforts in heroin source and transit countries by supporting training programs, information sharing, extradition of fugitives, and anti-money-laundering measures. Finally, the United States will work through diplomatic and public channels to increase international cooperation and support the ambitious UNDCP initiative to eradicate illicit opium poppy cultivation in ten years.
Denial
of Safe Haven to Criminals and Fugitives:
Extradition agreements are essential to international anti-trafficking efforts. The United States is currently party to more than a hundred such treaties, having signed seventeen new ones in 1997. The U.S. government will continue to expand these agreements and sign bilateral treaties where none exist. Extradition requests are becoming more frequent. In 1996, the U.S. government sought the extradition of 2,894 criminals, up from 1,672 in 1990. Extradition between domestic jurisdictions is also increasingly frequent as trafficking organizations operate across state lines. As an example, the Department of Justice assisted in the extradition of more than 140 drug criminals did in 1996.
Checking
the Spread of Methamphetamine:
The apparent decline in methamphetamine use may be the result of increased prevention, law enforcement, and regulatory efforts. However, domestic manufacture and importation of methamphetamine pose a continuing public-health threat. The manufacturing process involves toxic and flammable chemicals. Abandoned labs require expensive, dangerous clean up. Between January 1, 1994 and September 30, 1997, the DEA was involved in the seizure of over 2,400 methamphetamine laboratories throughout the country, including 946 labs in the first nine months of 1997. State and local law-enforcement authorities, especially in California but increasingly in other states, were involved in thousands of additional clandestine lab seizures.
The 1996 National Methamphetamine Strategy (updated in May of 1997) established the federal response to this problem. It was buttressed by the Comprehensive Methamphetamine Control Act of 1996, which increased penalties for production and trafficking while expanding control over precursor chemicals (like ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine). Federal, state, and local investigators and prosecutors are targeting methamphetamine-dealing organizations and companies that supply precursor chemicals. The DEA also supports state and local law-enforcement agencies by conducting training in Kansas City and San Diego. Many retailers are adopting tighter controls for over-the-counter drugs containing ingredients that can be made into methamphetamine. Useful actions include educating employees, limiting shelf space, and capping sales.
Internationally, the United States is promoting controls of precursor chemicals. For both methamphetamine and the related stimulant amphetamine, cooperation with Mexico is crucial because powerful methamphetamine trafficking organizations are based there. A bilateral chemical-control-working group oversees cooperative investigation of cases of interest to both countries and exchanges information on legal and regulatory matters. In late 1997, Mexico passed a comprehensive chemical-control law, which, once implemented, should bring the country into compliance with the 1988 U.N. Convention Against Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
With regard to reduction of the demand for methamphetamine, efforts are underway to develop effective treatment and prevention regimes for methamphetamine. The Department of Health and Human Services has embarked on a Methamphetamine Research Initiative to advance our knowledge of the drug and the effects of its use. In 1998, a search will begin for alternative treatment for methamphetamine users.
1.3.1.1.1.1
Conclusions:
Reducing demand in the United States will not solve the global drug-abuse problem. The number of drug-users in America and the quantity of drugs they consume account for but a fraction of the worldwide demand for illegal drugs. The 800,000 plus U.S. heroin addicts constitute only two percent of the world’s opium addicts. Likewise, Americans consume only about a third of the cocaine produced each year. As the United States decreases its demand for drugs, the traffickers of cocaine, heroin, and the other drugs of abuse actively seek new markets. Those new markets, and the addiction and devastation that accompany them, will increasingly be found in countries that produce and traffic in drugs.
The problem is that drug-users generate enormous illicit profits. U.S. citizens spend about fifty billion dollars a year on illegal drugs. At U.S. ports of entry, the retail value of cocaine (estimated at three hundred metric tons) is thirty billion dollars annually. These huge sums are the reason criminal organizations dominate the international traffic in illegal drugs, threaten our communities, and attack our institutions.
To reduce the availability of drugs in the United States, we cooperate in bilateral, regional, and multilateral supply-reduction efforts against every link in the drug chain from cultivation to production and trafficking. Over the past years, the USG have worked with hemispheric nations to curtail the production of illicit drugs, drug trafficking, and the laundering of drug money. Tens of millions of dollars.
The anti-drug strategy adopted by the countries of
the hemisphere during the 1998 special session of the United Nations General
assembly represents a major commitment to address the multi-faceted nature of
the drug problem and must be complemented with the efforts of other regions of
the world. The twenty first century draws near, the countries of the
hemisphere, convinced of with the problems the importance of the efforts our
countries are making to deal created by the abuse and the illicit production,
traffic and distribution of drugs, and their modalities, and at the same time
realizing that it is imperative to modernize and improve the strategies and
measures in this area, have decided to formulate the present Hemispheric
Anti-drug Strategy, which shall be applied in accordance with the following:
·
The problem of drugs, which has become increasingly important in the
world, manifests itself as a complex, shifting and global phenomenon.
·
The problems of drug abuse and the demand for drugs, and the illicit
production, distribution and trafficking of drugs, including synthetic or
“designer” drugs, continue to be grave and interrelated. Sources of special
concern are the negative consequences of illicit drugs and other controlled
substances, and related offenses, which pose a serious threat to the health and
integrity of the individual and the normal development of society, and at the
same time impose enormous social, economic and political costs on countries.
Also meriting attention is the abuse of licit psychoactive substances such as
alcohol and tobacco, psychotropic drugs and inhalants, which have proven to be
dangerous to health.
·
The countries of the hemisphere express their concern over trends that
promote the acceptance of drug abuse and its associated problems. Controlling
illicit drugs must be part of a comprehensive anti-drug policy, which along
with preventing drug abuse and helping to rehabilitate those affected, must
ensure through appropriate laws and policies that illicit drugs and drugs
diverted to the illegal market are not available and that drug traffickers
receive proper sanctions.
·
In view of the complexity and the global nature of the problem, the
countries of the hemisphere recognize the need to strengthen international
cooperation and for constant review and improvement of national policies, taking
into account the particular circumstances of the phenomenon as it appears in
each country.
·
In order to facilitate and lend consistency to anti-drug efforts, the
countries of the hemisphere agree on the importance of the actions of the
respective National Drug Control Commissions, situated at a high political
level which results in coordinating the planning and implementation of
respective national anti-drug plans, which include, among others, prevention,
treatment, assistance, alternative development and law enforcement.
·
The Hemispheric Anti-drug Strategy addresses the drug problem from a
global and multidisciplinary perspective. All countries of the hemisphere
recognize that they share a responsibility for ensuring that a comprehensive
and balanced approach is taken on all aspects of the phenomenon, taking into
account their available capabilities and resources. The measures suggested will
take cognizance of the socioeconomic and cultural contexts and be carried out
in strict observance of the internal legal order of the countries of the
hemisphere.
·
The countries of the hemisphere agree that the application and
compatibility of the relevant national laws, the signing of and adherence to
conventions and other international instruments, and the conclusion of
bilateral agreements on the subject are irrefutable signs of their resolve to
join forces to overcome this problem. They also agree on the importance of
implementing the international cooperation mechanisms provided for in the
United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances (1988 Vienna Convention).
·
In the development of this hemispheric Anti-drug Strategy, the
countries reaffirm the important role that corresponds to the Inter-American
Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) as the competent regional forum. They
also recognize the need to implement this Strategy in harmony with the plans
and programs of other concerned multilateral institutions.
·
The Strategy constitutes a hemispheric effort to frame guidelines, of a
recommendatory nature, for cooperation that will enable our countries to adopt
a set of measures and actions whose implementation will strengthen the national
efforts.
·
In the implementation of this Strategy, the states reaffirm their
commitment to respect the principles of international law, in particular those
of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and nonintervention in the
internal affairs of countries.
Selected Bibliography:
a.
National
Drug control Strategy: The White House,
1989-1999
b.
Krarr,
Louis. “The Drug Trade.” June 20, 1988.
c.
Office
of the National Drug Control policy.
National Interdiction Command and Control plan. Washington D.C., 1997.
d.
The
NNICC Report, 1996. The Supply of
Illicit Drugs to the United States, July 1997.
DEA-97024.
e.
Mendel,
William and Munger. Strategic Planning
and the Drug Threat, August 1997.
f.
Interagency
Interdiction Efforts Against the Drug Flow (ONDCP, 1997-98).
g.
Major
Coca and Opium Producing Nations—Cultivation’s and estimates, 1993-1997,
Defense Intelligence Agency.
h.
Counterdrug
Analysis Activities, July 1997, DIA.
i.
Estrategia
Nacional para el Control de Droga- Oficina de Politica Nacional para el Control
de Drogas, La Casa Blanca, Washington D.C., 1998.
j.
US/Mexico
Bi-National Drug Strategy, February 1998, ONDCP.
k.
Bolivian
Strategy for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking—With Dignity, 1998, Republica
de Bolivia.
l.
Report
to Presidents Clinton and Zedillo: America’s Record of Success in reducing drug
Abuse, November 14, 1997, Washington, D.C.
m.
International
Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998, United State Department of Bureau of
International Narcotics and law Enforcement.
n.
Bilateral
and Multilateral Responses to the Global Drug Threat, October 20, 1997, ONDCP.
o.
Drugs
of Abuse, 1996 Edition, and U.S. Department of Justice, DEA.
p.
National
Youth Anti-Media Campaign, December 1997, ONDCP.
q.
FY
1999 Budget Highlights on Federal control programs, ONDCP.
r.
Inter
American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), 1998 Web Page.
s.
Office
of the National Drug Control Policy 1998 Web Page.
t.
Presentation by Peru’s President, Alberto Fujimori, March 8, 1999,
Lima, Peru.
u. Presentation by General Fernando Tapias Stahelin, GeneralCommander of the Armed Forces, Bogota Colombia, March 10, 1999.
v.
Narcoguerrilla in Colombia, A Global Threat, Santa Fe de Bogota,
Colombia, Colombian Security Agencies, 1999.