Posted on 10/09/2004 3:08:23 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
By DAN MOLINSKI, Associated Press Writer
BOGOTA, Colombia - Amid record seizures of cocaine and massive spraying of coca plantations, a senior U.S. official says the "tipping point" in the war on drugs has finally been reached. But skeptics are unconvinced and say the war remains unwinnable.
At first glance, the drug warriors have a lot to crow about:
_ Last month, the U.S. Coast Guard (news - web sites) and U.S. Navy (news - web sites) seized 28 tons of cocaine from two fishing boats off the coast of the Galapagos Islands (news - web sites). State Department officials said they were the largest seizures on record during a one-week stretch.
_ In 2003, 160 tons of cocaine were seized — breaking all previous annual records, State Department officials said.
_ A U.S.-financed campaign in Colombia to fumigate coca crops, the main ingredient of cocaine, has cut the number of acres under cultivation to about half of 1999 levels, about 212,000 acres last year, according to the United Nations (news - web sites).
"I've been at this for 15 years and I have truly never been more optimistic than I am right now," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert B. Charles, the State Department's top anti-narcotics official, said from Washington in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Charles claimed the drug war is "at a tipping point both in Colombia and the region" and predicted authorities would "break the backs" of drug cartels within the next two years.
But another key indicator has stubbornly refused to conform, casting doubt on the claims of victory: cocaine prices in the United States remain stable, and availability has even surged in some areas.
Some 388 tons of cocaine were available in U.S. markets in 2002, according to the most recent U.S. government figures, and officials say this flow remained steady into 2004.
According to simple market theory, if less cocaine is entering the United States from Colombia, by far the world's biggest producer of the drug, then availability on the streets should be going down and prices should be going up.
"These guys are delusional to think they're close to winning the so-called drug war," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based nonprofit group Drug Policy Alliance.
Nadelmann said, and drug agents agree, that in addition to street prices being stable, the purity of cocaine on U.S. streets has remained the same for years — so smugglers are not diluting the cocaine more than they normally do to make up for a supply reduction.
Washington officials say prices are unchanged because traffickers have stockpiled tons of cocaine along smuggling routes.
But Francisco Thoumi, an economics professor and an expert on drug trafficking at Bogota's Rosario University, doubts that.
"That's a hard theory to swallow," Thoumi said. "If there's one business in the world in which stockpiling isn't such a good idea, it's cocaine."
Thoumi said traffickers would want to keep their cocaine flowing through the smuggling networks and not cache tons of cocaine along the way because it would have to be guarded and could be stolen by rivals or discovered by police.
Thoumi said "significant advances have been made this year" in the war on drugs, especially in the record number of seizures and a rise in drug traffickers being sent to prison. He said he is "puzzled" that cocaine prices have remained unaffected.
One possible factor, he said, is that growers are reportedly planting their coca more densely together. So although more acres have been fumigated, the plots that have escaped being sprayed are producing more cocaine.
Also, coca farming is increasing elsewhere. It is the so-called balloon theory: squeeze production in one area and it pops up in another.
Coca cultivation has risen 8 percent in Bolivia since 1999, to 59,000 acres last year, the United Nations said. And in Peru, coca cultivation has jumped 14 percent from 1999, to 109,000 acres, the U.N. report said.
Still, cultivation in the Andean region has dropped overall by about 30 percent in the past five years, the U.N. said, and continued to fall in 2004.
Fears that Ecuador and Venezuela would also begin producing large amounts of coca have not come to pass. A 2004 U.S. State Department report says coca cultivation is still "not significant" in Ecuador, and less than 600 acres of coca or other drug crops are being cultivated in Venezuela.
BWHAHAHAH!!!
Oh, goody. A WOD thread.
Pinging our dearly departed drug war thread dude, under whatever pseudonym under which he now dwells.......
What more need be said?
I guess I tend to be a libertarian on the drug war, insofar as I see no reason for the government to be given or to excercise ever-increasing power to monitor what people do in private when it refuses to enforce its laws against people who commit crimes in public. Sure if the government raids a crack-house it won't be too long before another springs up. And once that's raided another will spring up somewhere else. But eventually the drug dealers will start to realize that the only way to avoid all the moving around that's bad for business is to clean up their act sufficiently to ensure that their activities don't bother their neighbors.
Otherwise, for the government to demand all sorts of surveillance powers while refusing to acknowledge open-air drug markets just reeks of hypocrasy.
Except for the election, I can't figure out why there would be a declaration of near victory right now. Those usually come around appropriations time, as a spur for more funding.
If I were peddling lies like this, I'd want them to avoid using my name as well. "A Senior US Official" indeed.
Terrorists in South America, Arabia and Asian are using the illegal drug trade to finance their mass murders. Re-legalize drugs and take the hyper-profits out. Dry up terror and crime funding. It's the only answer, which will only be tried, once everything else has been tried over and over and over.
The payload of a Boeing 747 is about 100 tons in round numbers - in other words the entire US supply could be flowin in in 3 747's or 28 fishing boats or 13 20ft containers. The smugglers only have to get lucky a few times. Those who would stop the flow of cocaine must be lucky every time. The smugglers can afford large losses because the difference between manufacturing costs and street value are enormous.
This may be a naive and simple-minded suggestion, but if both supply and demand go down, wouldn't the price remain stable?
Yep. Just a few more troops and a couple million more in funding, and we'll have this thing wrapped up by Tet.
Legalizing drugs will not remove a problem, it will just rename one. While the Drug Policy Alliance has been pushing false numbers and false logic on the mainstream for years, the fact remains that drug addiction is a serious problem, legal or not.
It is a problem that affects millions of people each year and not just those who use drugs. it affects their families, their children, their coworkers and anyone else they come into contact with. Drug users are more likely to abuse their families, they are more likely to endager their children and they are more likely to harm their coworkers. Making illicit drugs legal would not erase these problems, it would increase them.
I agree that the war on drugs is filling our prison cells at a rate faster then we can handle, but i would rather have full prison cells than full morgues.
I worked for three months in an addiction treatment center, which taught me clearer than anything, that looking at drug use as a non-issue because it is something someone does in private could not be further from the truth. No man is an island. When you have seen the emotional trauma in the eyes of a child trying to come to grips with a parent who is getting high, it can no longer be considered a "private" problem. When you have seen the physical and emotional scars that spouses of drug users carry, it is hard to argue that it is a "private" problem.
Is the war on drugs expensive? Yes. is the War on drugs difficult? Yes. But is it worth it? Absolutely.
Thank you ping
I am surprised to learn that the demand for cocaine is still there. I thought it was an "80's" drug that had pretty much dropped off in usage.
If the purpose of the WOD is to stop drug abuse, your post is proof enough that it's failing.
Oh no, should I sell my Wackenhut stock yet?
Gee whiz !! Surely you must be talking about meth and ice cooked up right here in your local rural trailer home. Much worse problem than coke. That shit is really hurting people and LEA is overwhelmed by it. So what to do ? I'd like some real answers.
Is a "tipping point" like a "light at the end of the tunnel?"
It's all in the history. This has been done numerous times already.
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