INTERNATIONAL DRUG TRAFFICKING AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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STAT
ARTICLE APP WASHINGTON QUARTERLY
ON PAG Fall 1985
International Drug Traffidcing
and U.S. Foreign Policy
Ethan A. Nadelmann
THE "DRUG PROBLEM" in the
United States has existed, in one form
or another, for more than the past few
decades.' So have the media hype and
political rhetoric which are tradition-
ally drawn to this concern. One aspect
of the problem, however, which is rel-
atively if not entirely new is the prom-
inent attention given to the foreign
sources of many of the drugs con-
sumed here.' Within the U.S. govern-
ment, increased attention and re-
sources have been devoted to
controlling international drug produc-
tion and trafficking (hereafter abbre-
viated as IDC). These efforts, and the
obstacles which confront them, are the
subject of this article.
U.S. IDC policy has been primarily
concerned with three drugs: heroin,
cocaine, and marijuana. Although the
difficulties encountered in reducing
the availability of those drugs vary
quite significantly, the broad objec-
tives of the policy can be described as
two-pronged: elimination of the drugs
themselves before they reach the bor-
ders of the United States; and elimi-
nation of the traffickers who produce
the drugs for the U.S. market. More
specifically, the objectives within the
first prong include reduction of opium,
Ethan Nadelmann is a NOMOS Fellow at
Harvard University's Center for International
Affairs, a PhD candidate in the department of
government at Harvard, and a member of the
Massachusetts bar.
coca, and marijuana production by a
combination of incentives and penal-
ties, destruction of crops before they
are harvested, capture of the drugs at
different points in their refining pro-
cess, and interdiction of the drugs be-
fore or as they enter the United States.
The objectives within the second
prong, which overlap inevitably with
those of the first, include apprehen-
sion, prosecution, and imprisonment
of drug traffickers, and confiscation of
their assets. It aims at both reducing
the incentive to engage in drug traf-
ficking by increasing the costs associ-
ated with it, and reducing the flow of
drugs to the United States by elimi-
nating individuals from the business
of trafficking and disrupting trafficking
organizations and routes. Both prongs
clearly aim at not only reducing the
amount of drugs entering the United
States but also increasing their cost to
the consumer.
Despite the overlap between the
two prongs, there is good reason to
distinguish them. The first is that dif-
ferent agencies focus on one or the
other. Most efforts involving the crops
before they are processed are super-
vised by the Agency for International
Development (AID), the State De-
partment's Bureau of International
Narcotics Matters (INM), and by in-
ternational agencies such as the
United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse
Control (UNFDAC). Interdiction ef-
forts, depending upon the location and
seed
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mode of transportation, are dominated
by the Coast Guard, the military (since
the congressional amendment to the
Posse Comitatus Act of 1981 allowed
them to assume a significantly en-
hanced role in enforcement of civilian
laws), and the Customs agency. And
efforts against internaional drug traf-
fickers are dominated by the Drug En-
forcement Administration (DEA),
which has over 200 agents and 60 of-
fices in some four dozen countries.
These efforts are supplemented do-
mestically by the FBI, U.S. Customs,
IRS, the U.S. Attorneys' offices, and
the lawyers in the Justice Department.
To be sure, DEA agents are also busily
involved in making seizures and oc-
casionally involved in crop eradication.
Conversely, State Department offi-
cals-both in the embassies and in the
Legal Adviser's Office-are often in-
volved in arranging for legal assistance
and extradition in narcotics cases, but
by and large each agency's focus is
distinguishable. As for the CIA, its ef-
forts are largely restricted to informa-
tion gathering, mostly although not
entirely by satellite. In the past, its
agents sometimes became involved in
operations against drug traffickers, but
for a number of reasons they have
largely left such activities to the DEA
in recent years.' Criticisms in the late
.1970s of the CIA's less reputable op-
erations caused the agency to curtail
the span of its operational interests.
Bureaucratically, a specialty in inter-
national drug control has not been a
favored field of career advancement.
And realistically, CIA agents have pre-
ferred to risk the danger of being de-
clared persona non grata by a hostile
state to that posed by the more ruth-
less drug traffickers. Their intelli-
gence efforts are sun Igmented by an
alvsts in the DEA. Customs, and other
intelli = a en i.eS. The entire IDC
effort is loosely coordinated by the
White House.
A second reason to distinguish be-
tween the two prongs is that the in-
dividiuals who are apprehended with
the drugs on hand, whether they be
the growers or the "mules" (i.e., cour-
iers), are of slight interest to DEA op-
erations which target high-level traf-
fickers and their organizations. DEA
strategy is predicated on the assump-
tion that the number of criminal or-
ganizations with the resources, sophis-
tication, and connections necessary to
refine and transport significant
amounts of drugs to the United States
is inherently limited, and that their
destruction is the most effective way
of combatting international drug traf-
ficking.
A third reason is that foreign gov-
ernments are often far more receptive
to requests for cooperation against traf-
fickers as opposed to producers, in part
because they see the apprehension of
traffickers as more closely tied to their
own conceptions of their national in-
terests. To begin with, apprehending
traffickers is an indirect way of drying
up the (traffickers') demand for farm-
ers' illegitimate produce without di-
rectly incurring their political wrath.
Secondly, although the trafficker tar-
gets may be harder to identify than
the producers, they are fewer in num-
ber and often foreigners who are less
significant politically. Thirdly, while
production of opium, coca, and mari-
juana is often legal, or officially toler-
ated, in many countries, trafficking in
those products is clearly not. Whereas
farmers' sales of their produce repre-
sent an illegal extension of an other-
wise legitimate or semi-legitimate ac-
tivity, traffickers' purchases and sales
are clothed in no such ambiguity.
Thus both the government percep-
tion, and the self-perception, of the
traffickers' activities are devoid of the
complicating considerations of en-
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forcement efforts against producers.
For all these reasons, focusing on traf-
fickers as opposed to producers con-
stitues a less costly, if less effective,
way of appeasing U.S. demands.
Foreign governments have an addi-
tional, and more self-interested, mo-
tive for apprehending and prosecuting
traffickers that stems from their need
to maintain effective control of their
populations. This operates on two lev-
els. On the broader level, govern-
ments have an interest in maintaining
both the semblance and reality of a
legal order presided over by the cen-
tral government. On a more focused
level, governments have an interest in
preventing any individual or group
from attaining such power that it can
challenge, or even appear to chal-
lenge, governmental authority within
any portion of the national territory.
On occasion, such individuals or
groups are politically or ideologically
motivated and traffic in drugs to gain
revenues with which to buy weapons
and support. More often, however,
their motivations are largely financial
and related to political power primarily
insofar as protection of their material
interests and self-aggrandizement are
concerned.
Nonetheless, there is a crucial ca-
veat to the above assertion that foreign
governments often prefer to punish
traffickers as opposed to producers; in-
deed, it may represent the most fun-
damental obstacle to the United
States' IDC efforts. It is that through-
out Latin America, the Caribbean and
Asia, high-level government officials,
including politicans, judges, military
and police figures, and even cabinet
ministers-as well as their friends and
relatives-are deeply involved in prof-
iting from the traffic in drugs. Al-
though these officials are often coop-
erative insofar as prosecution of
traffickers who are not affiliated with
them is concerned, their own interests
pose often insurmountable obstacles
to U.S. efforts. Even when the in-
volvement of such officials in drug
trafficking is exposed, whether by po-
litical opponents, the media, or the
DEA, their vulnerability is limited and
their punishment nil. Of course, this
type of corruption merely represents
the pinnacle of long-standing business
and political traditions throughout
much of the less developed world.
That it appears worse today than in
the past no doubt reflects the impov-
erished nature of much of that world's
economies, and the incredibly lucra-
tive opportunities presented by the
traffic in drugs.
One factor which complicates IDC
efforts, and presents virtually insuper-
able obstacles to reliable evaluation of
the effectiveness of those efforts, is
the high degree of speculation associ-
ated with calculating the quantity of
drugs being produced, imported, and
consumed.; The principal reason for
this is the illegality of the process from
the initial point of production to the
final point of consumption. At the one
end, CIA satellites and human intel-
ligence cannot peek into every nook
and cranny in which farmers attempt
to hide their illegal produce. At the
other end, Gallup polls and emer-
gency room (DAWN) data can hardly
obtain reliable evidence on Americans'
purchases of illegal goods. And in be-
tween, the estimates of the drugs
wasted, stockpiled, or consumed by
foreign populations are even more un-
reliable than estimates of domestic
drug consumption. In the case of her-
oin and cocaine, relatively easily ob-
tained evidence on drug price and pu-
rity at the street level may provide
some indication of the results of IDC
efforts (although in the case of Mi-
ami's cocaine market, where the retail
price of cocaine dropped by half in the
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early 1980s despite the Reagan admin-
istrations's initiatives, the nexus is
highly suspect). With marijuana, how-
ever, the absence of a purity indicator
and the presence of a domestic pro-
duction factor render the reliability of
estimates even more suspect.
Slightly greater certainty exists in-
sofar as the identities of the producing
countries are concerned. Satellite and
human intelligence suggest that Bo-
livia and Peru dominate in the pro-
duction of coca leaf, with southern
Colombia and Brazil contributing a
small share of the total. Northern Col-
ombia is regarded as the principal
source of marijuana imported into the
United States, with estimates of its
share in recent years going as high as
80 percent. Jamaica and Mexico sup-
ply most of the remainder, with some
of the Central American countries,
most notably Belize, adding a tiny
share. The unknown variable, how-
ever, is domestic U.S. production.
Current estimates place that share at
10 percent of the market, though some
analysts speculate that it may be much
greater. As for the heroin consumed in
the United States, intelligence de-
rived from the DEA scientists' "heroin
signature analysis" suggests that
roughly half originates in Southwest
Asia, one-third in Mexico, and the re-
mainder in Southeast Asia.'
Intelligence on the identities of traf-
fickers, their refineries, and trafficking
routes is similarly limited. It is as-
sumed that most maijuana arrives in
the United States from Colombia by
sea, and that most cocaine is refined
in Colombia and exported by plane
(most often via the Bahamas) to this
country. The heroin business is easily
the most diversified, with refineries lo-
cated in both producer countries and
transit countries (such as France and
Chile in the early 1970s and Turkey,
Syria, Lebanon, and perhaps Italy in
the 1980s). Likewise, the modes of
transportation are incredibly varied,
ranging from hidden "traps" in cars
and suitcases, to food containers, to
body cavities and corpses. But beyond
those broad generalizations, and the
extensive data banks of the DEA and
INTERPOL, there is insufficient in-
formation on all the options available
to traffickers. Indeed, it would be ac-
curate to say that, with the exception
of a few sub-Saharan African coun-
tries, there is hardly a single country
that has not served as a transit point
for drugs en route to the United
States. The same can probably be said
regarding the diversity of nationality
of those involved in international drug
trafficking.
Insofar as the first prong of the IDC
strategy is concerned, most of the ex-
penditures on crop reduction and de-
struction, and the diplomatic efforts
which accompany them, have been
met with lip service. The principal ex-
ception was Turkey, which responded
to the Nixon administration's induce-
ments and pressures first by banning
opium production and then, when that
proved politically unpalatable, by
strictly regulating the harvest of opium
to prevent its conversion into heroin.6
Potential violators were discouraged
from reverting to poppy plant produc-
tion by the promise of stiff penalties,
reportedly including collective sanc-
tions against a violator's village. The
other supposed success story was Mex-
ico, were the central government con-
ducted an extensive chemical destruc-
tion program with the assistance of
U.S. funds and equipment. Among
the Mexicans' incentives to cooper-
ate-beyond ameliorating their north-
ern neighbor-was that the same
equipment could be used to destroy
marijuana, which unlike heroin was in-
creasingly being viewed as a domestic
problem.
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5
With respect to the second prong,
there have also been a couple of suc-
cesses amidst the ocean of frustrations.
perhaps the two most notable were the
severance of the French Connection
in the early 1970s, and the elimination
of Chile as a refining and transit coun-
try following the overthrow of the Al-
lende government by Pinochet.
Smaller successes have also occurred
from time to time, such as when major
traffickers have been extradited, ex-
pelled, or abducted to the United
States, or when governments have
been persuaded to mount major crack-
downs, but these have not had the
effect of eliminating the host country
as a source or transit country.
With most foreign governments,
however, the incentives to cooperate
have been substantially outweighed
by a lack of power, will, and desire to
eradicate drug production within their
borders. More often than not, the lip
service approach has served their in-
terests in three ways. It has usually
appeased the Americans, who have
rarely regarded the issue as warranting
sacrifices of other more security-ori-
ented concerns. It has been adequate
to avoid the opprobrium of the inter-
naitonal community, to whose drug
control conventions these govern-
ments are usually a party. And it has
sufficed for purposes of domestic po-
litical control by conveying the mes-
sage to the populace that the central
government's authority was not over-
shadowed by, or subservient to, that
of the most influential drug traffickers.
In many cases, the foreign govern-
ment's lack of power has been indis-
tinguishable from its lack of willing-
ness to use that power. In the cases of
Bolivia, Peru, and Jamaica, for in-
stance, central governments have
been extremely reluctant to undertake
extensive eradication efforts for at
least four reasons: tens of thousands
of farmers are involved in, and profit
from, the sale of their crops for foreign
consumption; domestic consumption
of the drug is a powerful cultural tra-
dition; powerful figures in the govern-
ment-and their friends and rela-
tives-have a significant financial
stake in the drug traffic; and revenues
from the sale of those crops constitute
one of the primary sources of foreign
exchange (if not the primary source)
in countries with few other natural re-
sources and economies in rather des-
perate straits. As a consequence, po-
litical leaders in these countries are
fearful that a widespread eradication
effort would dangerously fuel popular
discontent and perhaps even stir up
revolutionary feelings. They respond
to U.S. pressures with small-scale
eradications and slightly more vigorous
efforts at apprehending large-scale
traffickers.
Jamaica in particular has cracked
down on traffickers who seem to be
getting too powerful, or who are trad-
ing drugs for guns. In Peru, the gov-
ernment has been wary lest crop erad-
ications lead to propaganda victories
for the radical Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path) guerrilla movement. It
has also suspected, but produced little
proof of, guerrilla involvement in the
cocaine traffic.' Bolivia represents a
case in which the government allowed
the power of traffickers to grow un-
impeded until they were so powerful
that they actually overthrew the gov-
ernment in 1980. Even after domestic
and international-most notably
U.S.-pressures forced the "cocaine
regime" out of power, the successor
government has been reluctant to try
to eliminate the by now well-en-
trenched high-level traffickers, many
of whom have small private armies at
their disposal and extensive connec-
tions in the government.' Even the
coca growers themselves have orga-
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w
nized, no doubt backed by funds from
the traffickers, to resist U.S.-sup-
ported eradication programs.
The problems presented by opium
production in Southwest and South-
east Asia are somewhat different. In
Afghanistan, Iran and Laos, the
United States is presented with hostile
regimes whose concern is primarily
with domestic consumption of opium.
Unlike more capitalist governments,
they view the prospect of foreign ex-
change earnings from opium sales with
greater wariness, insofar as it under-
mines their efforts to maximize the
control of the central government.
Were it not for the great instability in
those states at the present, which limit
the effectiveness of their control ef-
forts, their interests would likely co-
incide with the objectives of the
United States more so than those of
America's allies. A case in point is the
Afghan rebels' role in transporting op-
ium from the Soviet occupied country
to Pakistan, where it is reportedly
traded for arms and other supplies,
and eventually sent in refined form to
the West. If narcotics control was the
primary objective of the United
States, it would no doubt support So-
viet efforts to restrict transit across the
border.
In Pakistan, Thailand, and Burma,
the problem of opium control has been
closely linked to the central govern-
ment's inability to assert its political
authority over all its territory. In Pak-
istan, the central government has been
engaged in a gradual effort to "settle"
areas of the Northwest Frontier Prov-
ince by providing inducements to
tribal leaders to accept its authority. It
has had some success in controlling
opium production and trafficking in
those areas but virtually no success in
the tribal areas. Law enforcement of-
ficials sent to those areas to close down
refineries or arrest traffickers have
often failed to return in one piece.
The incredible resistance of the Af-
ghan tribes to Soviet efforts to subdue
them suggests that their brothers
across the border would be no more
amenable to another government's ef-
forts to control their trade. Accord-
ingly, the government has preferred to
negotiate with the tribal leaders and
to use carrots rather than sticks as in-
ducements. In response to U.S. pres-
sures, it has limited its cooperation to
suppressing opium cultivation only in
those areas where foreign or interna-
tional development programs are in ef-
fect. Its primary objective has been to
avoid pushing the tribal leaders into
open resistance to its formal authority.
In the Golden Triangle, the rela-
tionships between the central govern-
ments and the insurgent armies which
traffic in opium have been more
openly hostile.' The Shan United
Army, the Lahu National Liberation
Army, the 3rd and 5th Chinese Irreg-
ular Forces (which are remnants of
Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang) and,
to a lesser extent, the Burmese Com-
munist Party have all proclaimed po-
litical and autonomist objectives but
have been primarily, and often solely,
concerned with maximizing their local
power and profits. The Burmese cen-
tral government has been reluctant to
waste its resources against its elusive
opponent and has sought primarily to
contain its influence. The Royal Thai
government has been similarly reluc-
tant, in part because of those armies'
assistance in suppressing anti-govern-
ment insurgencies by more politically
motivated groups. Both governments
have responded to U.S. pressures by
creating poppy-free regions and
mounting occasional military opera-
tions. But their central objective has
been not so much to eliminate the op-
ium traffic as to contain the trafficking
groups' power and insurgent activities.
i
l;~ Oftw
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In the case of Thailand, rampant cor-
ruption at virtually all levels of govern-
ment has also served to frustrate most
U.S. efforts.
Certainly the two countries of great-
est concern to U.S. officials involved
in IDC are Colombia and Mexico. Un-
til little more than a year ago, it ap-
peared that Colombia represented one
of the basket cases of international
drug control and Mexico one of the
relative success stories. Two murders,
however, have thrown the drug situa-
tion in both countries into a state of
flux the outcome of which is difficult
to predict. Until recently, Colombia
exemplified all the challenges which
the U.S. IDC effort confronts around
the world. There was the desperate
need for foreign exchange, the wide-
spread benefits of the drug business to
hundreds of thousands, the indepen-
dent streak of the drug producers-in
Colombia's case the Guajira Indians-
the pervasive corruption, and the
strong tradition of trafficking in con-
traband of all sorts. Moreover, anti-
government guerrilla organizations,
such as the M-19, were known to be
involved in the drug traffic. Where
Colombia had come to differ, how-
ever, from other drug-producing and
trafficking countries was in the extent
to which drug traffickers resorted to
violence against all levels of govern-
ment officials. The culmination of this
violence, following just a few weeks
after the greatest drug bust in recorded
history, was the murder of the Justice
Minister, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, on
April 30, 1984. Given the choice of
surrendering to the authority of the
traffickers or responding vigorously
after years of benign tolerance, the Be-
tancur government launched an un-
precedented crackdown, arresting
known drug traffickers, eradicating
fields, increasing surveillance of the
borders, and finally consenting to the
extradition of Colombian traffickers to
the United States.10 It remains to be
seen whether this turn of events will
have any lasting impact." At present,
the more infamous traffickers who re-
main unapprehended have been
forced to flee abroad or go into hiding.
Increased narcotics activity has been
detected in those parts of Venezuela,
Brazil, Ecuador, and Panama which
border on Colombia, and cocaine re-
fineries have been discovered in Flor-
ida, all of which suggest that the traf-
fickers are looking for safer havens
until the storm passes, or in case it
does not.
Until approximately last year, Mex-
ico's success story was pointed to as a
potential model for Colombia. Like
Colombia, Mexico possessed many of
the same attributes which are common
to most drug-producing countries.
Mexico's nationalist sensitivities were
no less delicate than Colombia's when
pricked by U.S. pressures. It was not
particularly upset about the foreign ex-
change entering the country, particu-
larly as it filtered both down to the
poorer segments of society and up to
the more powerful elements. Simi-
larly, it was concerned with domestic
drug abuse problems and with domes-
tic insurgencies which were profiting
from the drug trade and using their
revenues to finance anti-government
activities. And as in most drug pro-
ducing states, corruption permeated
much of the political and law enforce-
ment establishment. Nonetheless,
with strong political support from the
central government, Mexico was able
to eradicate a great proportion of its
drug produce in the mid-1970s by es-
tablishing a small paramilitary force
which it could immunize from cor-
rupting influences. This unit under-
took extensive chemical spraying by
air and search-and-destroy missions by
foot. The United States contributed
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equipment, training, and informa-
tion.12
There are, however, two caveats to
the Mexican success story. The first is
that Mexico's model did not prove
readily applicable elsewhere.13 Unlike
many other drug-producing countries,
Mexico's government exercised a
greater degree of authority over its ter-
ritory, both politically and militarily,
than most other governments could
claim. (The same was true of Turkey,
particularly when ruled by military re-
gimes.) Secondly, revenues from drug
production provided a smaller propor-
tion of Mexican foreign exchange than
in most other major drug producers.
And thirdly, the central government
never lost the upper hand or allowed
the drug producing sector of the econ-
omy to acquire a legitimacy or author-
ity of its own.
The second caveat is that the Mex-
ican success has hardly been lasting.
Mexican opium growers have adapted
to the eradication program by reducing
the average size of their opium fields
to one-tenth of what they were in
1976, and by mixing their poppy
plants in with other crops. This has
made the poppy plants harder and
more costly to find, and has required
that eradication efforts destroy legiti-
mate produce with the opium plants.
(The same adaptations have character-
ized Jamaican, and to a lesser extent,
Colombian production.) The result is
that Mexico retains more than one-
third of the U.S. heroin market. And
while the Mexican share of the U.S.
marijuana market has dropped from an
estimated 70 percent in 1975 to an
estimated 10 percent today, that may
be as much a reflection of two byprod-
ucts of the eradication program as of
the program itself: the Mexicans' use
of paraquat to destroy marijuana plants
prompted a de facto boycott by U.S.
consumers; and the Colombian grow-
ers who cornered the market after the
initial successes of the Mexican cam-
paign secured their competitive ad-
vantage against a resurgence of Mexi-
can production by developing a
stronger strain of marijuana.
During 1984, evidence mounted
that the Mexican government was be-
ginning to lose control of its eradica-
tion program. Rumors surfaced that
government helicopters were spraying
fertilizer rather than herbicide on op-
ium and marijuana crops, or were pur-
posely spraying in the wrong places or
at the wrong times. U.S. intelligence
revealed unusually large marijuana
fields being harvested, suggesting that
officials were being bribed or threat-
ened to look elsewhere. And known
drug traffickers were becoming in-
creasingly brazen in their activities. In
March 1985, matters came to a head
following the torture and murder of a
DEA agent and contract pilot, report-
edly at the order of two well-known
traffickers. When members of the
Mexican Federal Police proved un-
cooperative during the investigation,
reflecting the fact that they were in
the employ of the traffickers, strong
diplomatic pressure from the United
States, abetted by a border crackdown
by U.S. Customs, eventually induced
heightened cooperation from the Mex-
ican government." Whether the de-
velopments which have followed
since, including the arrest and inter-
rogation of the traffickers and a shake-
up in the Mexican Federal Police and
other government agencies, will have
any lasting impact remains to be
seen.''
This analysis clearly suggests that
many governments in drug-producing
countries will tolerate extensive drug
activity, even given the resources to
curtail it, until they are pushed too far
by the traffickers. At that point, U.S.
pressures will jibe with a heightened
fwd
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sense of self-interest and self-preser-
vation on the part of the government
and lead to some degree of crackdown.
Whether that crackdown will merely
restore the earlier balance of power, or
make a lasting dent in the production
and traffic of drugs, depends on any
number of factors, ranging from the
state of the economy to the capabili-
ties of the law enforcement agencies
co the underlying power of the traf-
fickers.
At the same time, it is also impor-
tant to note the limitations on U.S.
IDC efforts, many of which are to
some extent self-imposed. One exac-
erbating factor is that U.S. credibility
is undermined by foreign govern-
ments' perceptions that the U.S. gov-
ernment suffers from the same lack of
will and power as they do. How else,
in their view, can one explain the de-
criminalization of marijuana by many
state governments, the failure to im-
prison most drug consumers and small-
scale dealers, and the ban on paraquat
spraying in the United States? Fur-
thermore, they may well ask, why is
it that while the United States spends
billions on interdiction and domestic
law enforcement efforts, the State De-
partment's international crop reduc-
tion and substitution budget remains
at a measly 50 million dollars? And
finally, they are entitled to query why
they should crack down on drug pro-
duction-sacrificing valuable foreign
exchange, farmer employment and po-
litical support-when the United
States is unable or unwilling to pres-
sure other drug producers to curtail
their production.
Clearly, the willingness of the
United States to apply pressure in sup-
port of its IDC policy has been tem-
pered by the need to avoid sacrificing
other objectives or interests. Only in
rare cases, such as the takeover of the
Bolivian government by cocaine traf-
fickers, has the United States been
willing to sacrifice all other objectives
to that of drug control. In some cases,
the limitation has been one of not
wanting to deplete limited political
capital which could be necessary to the
accomplishment of other objectives.
In other cases, the limitation has been
concern not to oblige the foreign gov-
ernment to deplete its own political
capital when so doing would endanger
other U.S. interests. Both limitations
have frequently been intertwined in
drug-producing countries, since most
possess governments which are both
essentially friendly to the United
States and which view an eradication
of drug production as politically and
economically costly. Whether seeking
oil and political support from Mexico,
or attempting to bolster a pro-U.S.
capitalist regime in Jamaica, or urging
cooperation on strategic and refugee
issues to the Pakistani government,
the U.S. government has more often
than not perceived other objectives as
more immediate and demanding than
IDC. This has particularly been the
case in the White House and the State
Department, which have resisted
congressional proposals to cut off all
U.S. aid to countries which fail to co-
operate fully in controlling drug pro-
duction.
Both prongs of U.S. IDC policy
have devoted most of their resources
to the above coutries, in which pro-
ducers and traffickers are often closely
bound and often indistinguishable.
These efforts, however, have been
supplemented by extensive law en-
forcement efforts in other countries
through which the drugs are smuggled
and in which they may be refined for
ultimate transit to domestic or U.S.
consumers. In some cases, producing
countries also serve as transit points,
as in the case of South American co-
caine and marijuana smuggled through
t Jobw
9
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Mexico, or of Afghani or Iranian op-
ium smuggled through Pakistan. In
most cases, however, transit countries
have merely been waystops for drugs
en route to the United States where
direct transport by boat or plane from
the producing country has been
deemed inadvisable by traffickers.
Until recently, foreign law enforce-
ment officials have had few incentives
to disrupt such trafficking routes and
have left most of the job to customs
officials. Whether in Europe, the Mid-
dle East, Southeast Asia, or Latin
America, the problem has been
viewed as incidental to local law en-
forcement concerns. Traffickers were
often foreigners or resident aliens (not
infrequently diplomatic officials)
whose activities involved relatively
few personnel and possessed few im-
plications for the societal well being of
the country. The drug problem in the
United States was viewed as a distant
and unique phenomenon, with few
implications for their countries. The
past decade, however, has witnessed a
rather dramatic transformation in these
attitudes as domestic drug abuse has
soared. One significant consequence
has been an exceptional increase in
resources devoted to narcotics enforce-
ment, as well as substantially en-
hanced cooperation with the DEA and
other foreign narcotics agencies.
Indeed, the increase in drug abuse
in foreign countries, including produc-
ing countries, may prove to be far
more significant than diplomatic pres-
sures in inducing cooperation with
U.S. IDC efforts. The Mexican ex-
perience showed that a relatively
strong central government faced with
a growing domestic drug abuse prob-
lem-in this case, marijuana-would
cooperate almost regardless of U.S. in-
ducements or pressures. There is hope
that other governments may follow
suit. In Jamaica, the traditional toler-
ance of marijuana has waned some-
what as marijuana consumption among
children has grown and as harder drugs
(cocaine and heroin) have become
more commonplace in Jamaican soci-
ety. In Colombia, the tremendous
abundance of cheap cocaine has given
rise to an increasingly pervasive con-
sumption of bazuco (cocaine base) cig-
arettes, which are more addicive than
the powder "snorted" in the United
States. In the Bahamas, a similar phe-
nomenon has occurred with the large
amount of cocaine skimmed off ship-
ments transiting the islands. 16 In Thai-
land, where opium smoking has been
traditionally widespread and tolerated
(as it is in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan,
and Egypt), surplus opium supplies
have been refiined into heroin as U.S.-
style consumption grows among Thai
youth. A similarly dramatic rise in her-
oin abuse has also occurred in Paki-
stan, where the Zia regime recently
outlawed consumption of opium. The
susceptibility of dislocated and alien-
ated shantytown populations to drug
addiction cannot be lost on the gov-
ernments of these Third World na-
tions. Their heightened willingness to
devote greater resources to apprehen-
sion of drug traffickers, and to impose
harsh penalties on them, may repre-
sent the greatest hope for the United
States' IDC policy.
In Europe, the perception of the
problem may be even more acute.
The drug abuse problem, which until
recently was largely confined to non-
European residents and workers in
Europe, has now increased among na-
tive youth. In some cases, the increase
has been as dramatic as that which
occurred in the United States in the
late 1960s, albeit on a smaller scale.
Although cooperation between Euro-
pean law enforcement officials, at
times aided by resident DEA agents,
has been extensive, their efforts have
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11
been complicated by varying drug laws
and law enforcement techniques, na-
tionalist sensitivities and essentially
open borders. The heightened politi-
cal presures to do something about the
growing problem have helped to over-
come some of these obstacles, most
notably by legislating more stringent
penalties, giving law enforcement
agencies greater power and attaching
a higher priority to international co-
operation in narcotics enforcement.
One notable development has been
the willingness of European govern-
ments to bilaterally aid drug eradica-
tion and enforcement efforts in pro-
ducing countries.
Virtually every European country
has been involved in the consumpion,
refining, and transit of drugs, primarily
heroin from Southwest Asia and hash-
ish form the Middle East. The num-
ber of trafficking routes has multiplied
since the heroin supply was disrupted
in 1972 by the Turkish government's
ban on poppy plant production and the
French government's severance of the
Corsican-controlled French Connec-
tion. Turkey has since emerged as a
major transit country, and the Sicilian
mafia has taken over much of the re-
fining and trafficking activity from the
Corsican organizations. Turkish work-
ers in Germany and Asian residents in
Holland have also involved their host
countries in large amounts of traffick-
ing. More recently, large numbers of
Nigerians, Sri Lankan Tamils, Pakis-
tanis, Indians, and Lebanese have
been found to be involved in drug traf-
ficking. Many of them have been able
to benefit from the growing presence
of their co-nationals in Europe. Some,
such as the Tamils and the Lebanese,
have also been involved in smuggling
arms on their return trips. The Bul-
garians also seem to have become in-
volved in the drug traffic to the West.
Suspicions have arisen-although the
evidence reportedly remains inconclu-
sive-concerning connections be-
tween Bulgarian intelligence. Turkish
smugglers and various terrorist organ.
izatons such as the Grey Wolves 1' is widely assumed that their motive for
involvement in the drug traffic, as with
the numerous North Korean diplomats
who have been apprehended, is to oh-
tain foreign currency to subsidize their
intelligence activities. Given the tense
state of relations between the United
States and Bulgaria, Washington has
looked to other governments in Eu-
rope to make its concerns known more
forcefully in Sofia.
The fundamental point on which
most analysts of the international drug
situation agree is that given the extent
of the demand in the United States for
illegal imported drugs, there is vir-
tually nothing that the U.S. govern-
ment can do to stop the flow. Despite
all the increased law enforcement ef-
forts of recent years, the supplies of
heroin, cocaine, and marijuana to the
United States have been little af-
fected. Although the latter half of the
1970s witnessed a decrease in purity
and increase in the price of heroin to
U.S. consumers, those trends ap-
peared to have ceased and perhaps
even reversed during the 1980s. Mar-
ijuana's price and availability have not
changed much, although the availabil-
ity and popularity of more potent
brands of marijuana such as sinsemilla
seems to have increased. And despite
all the attentions focused on Miami
and the cocaine traffic over the past
few years, cocaine remains widely
available for the millions willing to pay'
the price.
Given the persistence of the flow,
and the government's seeming inabil-
ity to curtail it, one is forced to ask
whether the entire IDC effort is worth
it. The answer to that question re-
quires that one look realistically at
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lot
what the IDC effort has accomplished,
what its benefits and its costs are, and
how it fits into the entire government
effort to reduce drug abuse. More
broadly, one is also obliged to consider
the underlying assumptions of the en-
tire anti-drug program. The remainder
of this article briefly addresses each of
these issues.
To be sure, the IDC effort has been
successful insofar as most drugs con-
tinue to be relatively expensive and
not readily available to the society at
large. It is probably true that in the
absence of this effort, drugs would be
cheaper and more plentiful in Ameri-
can society. After all, it is the risks
posed to drug trafficking by drug en-
forcement laws and operations that ac-
count for the many hundred-fold
markup in price between the original
producer and the eventual consumer
in the United States. Thus, the
United States' IDC effort can best be
described as a relatively successful
price and availability maintenance
strategy. Because the relationship be-
tween availability and demand re-
mains highly uncertain-although we
can probably assume some correla-
tion-we can only speculate as to the
extent to which supply is limited by
either demand or the government's
IDC efforts. Nor can we do more than
speculate as to the relationship be-
tween demand and the illegality of the
drugs. The underlying premise of the
government's drug abuse prevention
strategy, however, has been that the
best means to reduce drug abuse is to
reduce drug use, in part by making
certain drugs illegal and reducing their
availability to potential consumers.
An IDC policy is deemed a requisite
component of such a strategy for legal,
political and practical reasons. Legally,
Congress has required that an IDC
policy be incorporated into the United
States' overall foreign policy, in part
by making economic assistance con.
ditional on foreign countries' cooper-
ation. The United States has also
joined most other states as a signatory
to various international conventions on
drug control. Politically, the tempta-
tion to point to the drug producing
countries as the source and principal
cause of the drug problem in the
United States has often been irresist-
ible. Practically, the IDC effort has
been a logical component of the gov-
ernment's overall effort to reduce the
availability of drugs. It can fairly safely
be assumed that the greater the effort,
the lesser the availability of foreign
drugs in the United States.
One question which must be asked
is whether there is anything more that
the United States can do to reduce the
supply of drugs into this country? Cer-
tainly, history has so far shown that
the United States' power to reduce the
supply of drugs from abroad is limited
in two significant ways. On the one
hand, there are limits not only on the
U.S. government's ability to pressure
other governments to crack down on
drug production, but also on those
governments' ability to crack down
even if they wanted to. On the other
hand, even when the United States
has been somewhat successful, as in
Turkey in the early 1970s or in Mexico
in the mid-1970s, the global conse-
quences of those successes have been
transitory at best. Indeed, it may be
that the disruption of supplies which
followed the Turkish crackdown is no
longer replicable because of the dis-
persion of sources and trafficking
routes which have emerged since that
time. It seems that traffickers have re-
sponded to that cutoff just as U.S. oil
companies responded to the Arab oil
boycott a few years later-by better
distributing the sources of their prod-
uct. This is not necessarily to say that
the United States should abandon its
"RAW
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1'
pursuit of an IDC policy, since that
policy does maintain a floor price and
reduce overall availability. But there
are severe limits as to what the United
bor-
States accomplish outside
ders. Indeed, it mlaybethat absent a
devastating drought or disease in drug
producing regons, only a fortuitous
confluence of events (which seems un-
likely in the forseeable future) could
substantially reduce the flow of drugs
to the United States. This is particu-
larly the case with heroin, of which it
has been said that the entire annual
consumption in the United States
could be produced wihin a poppy field
of 10 square miles. Cocaine may differ
from heroin and marijuana, however,
inasmuch as its source is more geo-
graphically concentrated, the U.S.
share of the market is relatively large,
and the option of domestic production
is not, to my knowledge, a practical
one.
It is possible, of course, that the
United States could make a substan-
tial, and even significant, dent in the
flow of drugs to this country. But this
would require radical extensions of
present policies and abandonment of
numerous restraints. Other foreign
policy objectives, including the stabil-
ity of otherwise friendly regimes,
would have to be risked. Respect for
the sovereignty of foreign nations
would have to be downgraded. And
other norms of international law would
have to be violated. Theoretically, the
United States could engage in either..
covert or overt chemical warfare
against drug-producing countries.
Drug traffickers and corrupt foreign of-
ficials could be "eliminated" with U.S.
funds or even agents. (Indeed, this
idea was bandied about by former CIA
operatives who had ioined the DEA in
the mid-1970s, but was apparently re-
jected by higher-level officials. Similar
proposals are now being considered by
officials in the Reagan administration
concerned with preempting and pun-
ishing terrorists.) Foreign govern-
ments which protected or profited
from drug trafficking could be desta-
bilized and overthrown. (This may
have actually been the case with the
previous Bolivian regime.) And the
waters and skies of foreign countries
could be penetrated by U.S. military
craft in pursuit of drug smugglers. If
the war against drugs were truly re-
garded as such, such options might re-
alistically be considered and imple-
mented. But it is not a war as such,
nor is it likely to become one. U.S.
laws and opinion, and the established
norms of the international system, will
likely remain overwhelming obstacles.
On a more realistic level, the United
States could make some small impact
on the price and availability of drugs
by spending a good deal more money
abroad. It oculd offer governments
substantially greater financial incen-
tives to crack down on drug production
and force farmers to shift to other
crops. But such expenditures, to make
any impact, would easily have to
mount into the billions, and would in
effect reward those countries which
have done little so far while giving
nothing to those otters which have
honored their international obligations
without being paid off. Expanding in-
ternational cooperation in narcotics
law enforcement would probably be
the most cost-beneficial improvement.
Increasing the DEA presence over-
seas, negotiating extradition and mu-
tual legal assistance treaties, and sub-
sidizing and providing training to
foreign police agencies would all have
the effect of raising the risks of engag-
ing in drug trafficking. Lastly, encour-
aging the legislation of asset forfeiture
laws around the world, and creating an
international exception to the inviola-
bility of bank secrecy laws in the case
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I
of narcotics investigations, would both
help to take the money out of drug
trafficking. Indeed, all of these ave-
nues are currently being pursued by
the U.S. government, if not always
with the same urgency and priority
that the law enforcement community
would like to see.
An evaluation of the IDC policy's
costs and benefits is both a difficult
and intrinsically subjective exercise.
One reason is that the process of
weighing and identifying costs and
benefits is heavily value-laden. A sec-
ond is that one often cannot be sure
of the relationship between the policy
and what are perceived as its conse-
quences. And a third is that one per-
son's or nation's benefit may be anoth-
er's cost. That being said, there are
certain observations which can be
made with some degree of objectivity.
Beyond its intended objective of
keeping drug prices high and avail-
ability limited, perhaps the greatest
positive byproduct of the IDC policy
has been the stimulation which it has
given to international efforts to in-
crease overall cooperation in law en-
forcement matters. New extradition
treaties and treaties to facilitate coop-
eration in criminal investigations and
prosecutions are being negotiated at
an unprecedented pace. DEA's inter-
national training program has exposed
thousands of foreign law enforcement
officials to more sophisticated tech-
niques. DEA's extensive presence
around the world, such that it is re-
garded by many as a type of interna-
tional agency (which often proves
faster and more responsive than IN-
TERPOL), has helped broaden the
willingness of governments to treat
criminal matters non-politically. Over
the long run, it is possible that the
enhanced cooperaion in transnational
criminal matters stimulated by the
concern over drug trafficking and drug
abuse will have even greater impact in
dealing with other forms of criminal
activity, most notably terrorism and
various types of economic fraud.
Foreign countries have also received
some benefit from the U.S. IDC pol-
icy. Those countries which are con-
cerned about domestic drug abuse
have utilized U.S. assistance in attack-
ing their own problems. U.S. devel-
opment aid has been useful in build-
ing infrastructure and increasing
agricultural production in remote and
impoverished regions. But for U.S.
concern over their poppy, coca, or
marijuana production, these countries
might well have been passed over in
the granting of U.S. aid. Another in-
teresting byproduct has been the re-
cipient countries' use of U.S. equip-
ment and information against
domestic insurgencies, some of which
have also been involved in drug traf-
ficking.
There is even greater subjectivity
involved in assessing the costs of the
IDC policy. The most obvious cost has
been in terms of other U.S. foreign
policy objectives. Obviously, the ap-
plication of pressure on foreign gov-
ernments to do something that they
are not otherwise particularly ken on
doing has never been cost free. When
the United States has chosen to pres-
sure foreign governments on the drug
issue, it has sacrificed political capital
which might otherwise have been
available for other objectives. In this
sense, the analogy to U.S. human
rights policy is appropriate. As the ac-
tive human rights policy of the Carter
administration demonstrated, imposi-
tion of unwelcome demands on for-
eign governments risked antagonizing
those regimes, to the detriment of
other foreign policy objectives.
Another cost, of particular concern
to civil libertarians, has been the
amendment to the Posse Comitatus
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pct, which increased military involve-
ment in enforcement of civilian laws.
This narrowing separation between
military and civilian authorities has
been viewed warily by those who fear
the potential consequences of increas-
ing the government's powers of sur-
veillance.18 On the other hand, those
military units which have become in-
volved in tracking and pursuing drug
traffickers in the Caribbean have re-
ceived useful training in the event of
more serious forms of conflict or smug-
gling.
One of the more conspicuous vic-
tims of the U.S. IDC policy has been
the apprehended producer of the ille-
gal crops abroad. (The unappre-
hended producer has been a benefi-
ciary.) He has frequently suffered a
drastic cut in income and the destruc-
ton of his legitimate produce. Of
greater concern, however, has been
the failure of U.S. aid programs or for-
eign governments to follow through on
the latter half of crop substitution proj-
ects. The result has been that farmers
who have refrained from planting their
illegitimate crops have been left with
no source of income in following years,
with their lands often lying fallow. For
the local government, the conse-
quences have been to incur farmers'
wrath, to eliminate valuable sources of
foreign exchange and employment,
and to create further dependence on
governmental resources.
Ultimately, any analysis of the U.S.
IDC policy must be viewed within the
context of the U.S. government's
overall policy toward illegal drugs.
Analysis of that policy is inevitably a
far more subjective enterprise than
considering merely its international
component. That is so for a number
of reasons. The first is that the over-
whelming rhetoric which attaches to
the policy breeds loose analysis, as
well as a fair degree of cynicism and
hypocrisy. Too many high-level offi-
cials and politicians, including a few
presidents and attorney generals, have
decreed the "drug problem" the
"number one threat facing America"
without honestly considering the ac-
tual nature of the problem. One result
has been a general failure to distin-
guish drug use from drug abuse. An-
other has been the failure to acknowl-
edge that the corrupting influence of
the drug trade on government and so-
ciety stems in good part from the il-
legality of products that remain in
great demand by millions who are cyn-
ical of, or indifferent to, their illegal
status. A third result has been a virtual
self-imposed censorship among politi-
cians and government officials-in-
cluding many who have analyzed or
been involved in combatting drug traf-
ficking for many years-who have
grave reservations as to the current
policies and propaganda which char-
acterize this area. This silence stems
not only from a fear of losing their
jobs, but from a fear of being inaccu-
rately labeled and a sense that dissent
in this area is not respected.
A second reason why analyzing drug
policy is so subjective is that alterna-
tive policies, such as various legaliza-
tion regimes accompanied by govern-
ment regulation, have never been
tried so that there is little to which to
compare the present policies. Com-
parison with the nineteenth century,
when there were few drug laws, is of
limited help for any number of rea-
sons, not the least of which is the lack
of information. The closest compari-
son is probably with the imposition
and lifting of Prohibition in the first
part of this century. That experience
suggested that making a broadly de-
sired product such as alcohol illegal to
buy, sell, and consume would reduce
both the use and abuse of the sub-
stance. But it also revealed that a pro-
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hibition policy would not eliminate
the supply of, and market for, the
product. Rather, a somewhat reduced
market would merely be driven un-
derground, where criminal organiza-
tions would make untaxed billions
supplying the demand. The additional
billions spent by the government on
enforcement efforts would have the
principal effect of merely increasing
the profits of those criminals who man-
aged to evade the law. Among the
other byproducts of the prohibiton
policy were the corruption of law en-
forcement and other public officials,
as well as a growing cynicism of a gov-
ernment and law enforcement estab-
lishment which enforced such laws
where it was not corrupted. Perhaps
the most indeterminate, but certainly
substantial, cost of all is the effects
which such laws had on the tens of
millions of Americans who considered
themselves law-abiding citizens, but
whom the law identified as criminals
because they consumed-often with-
out abusing-the illegal substance.
A third reason-perhaps the central
one-for the inevitable subjectivity of
the analysis is that at its core it con-
cerns the fundamental queston of
what role government should play in
attempting to protect people from
themselves and their own weaknesses.
That, after all, is the bottom line of
what drug laws are all about. In that
sense, they are similar to laws against
gambling, prostitution, and pornogra-
phy, and different from laws against
murder, assault, robbery, extortion,
fraud, and other laws which punish
people for hurting not themselves but
others. Although one of the principal
justifications for the drug laws has
been that consuming drugs causes
people to commit violent crimes, there
has been a paucity of evidence sup-
porting such claims, particularly as far
as marijuana and cocaine are con-
cerned. Of all drugs, it is the principal
legal one-alcohol-which has been
most associated with inspiring violent
crimes.
My conclusion, therefore, is a
mixed one. On the one hand, there is
no reason not to continue to pursue
and prosecute the criminals who profit
from the drug trade, particularly inso-
far as they are involved in all sorts of
other criminal activities. Similarly,
even greater efforts are warranted in
identifying and seizing their ill-gotten
gains. On the other hand, there is a
strong need to be more honest and
open minded in our analysis of the
drug problem. The rhetoric and pro-
paganda which emanate from govern-
ment could be toned down, perhaps
increasing the credibility of its worth-
while drug education programs. More
honest consideration could be given to
the questions of hypocrisy which arise
from the fact that the two most widely
consumed legal drugs-alcohol and to-
bacco-are each responsible for more
economic loss, physical suffering, and
death than all of the illegally con-
sumed drugs combined. More recog-
nition could be given to the fact that
millions, perhaps even tens of mil-
lions, of Americans use illegal drugs
without abusing them and without
harming anyone else. Greater efforts
could be made to distinguish the costs
of drug abuse from the many costs
which arise from the illegality of the
drugs. These include the untold ef-
fects on the millions of non-abusing
drug consumers; the existence of pow-
erful and violent drug trafficking or-
ganizations; the loss of tens of billions
of dollars into an untaxed, under-
ground economy; and the billions of
taxpayers' dollars spent on catching,
prosecuting, and imprisoning drug
traffickers as well as mere drug con-
sumers. Lastly, it is time for both the
public and the government to give re-
newed, and more honest, considera-
tion to the question of what costs we
want the government to incur and im-
pose in order to prevent a substantial
minority of our country from consum-
ing what are now illegal drugs.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680001-1