Price, Purity, and Supply
In its report entitled Illegal Drug Price and Purity Report (Washington, DC: DEA-02058, April 2003, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/intel/02058/02058.html), the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reached the conclusion that cocaine was readily available in the United States: "Cocaine prices at the kilogram level remained relatively low in the primary importation/distribution centers, such as Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City, as well as in most other major U.S. cities.… Cocaine prices nationwide have remained relatively stable over the time period [1998-2001], particularly for ounce and gram quantities, suggesting that cocaine was readily available to the user."
Price ranges going back to 1993 from a 2003 DEA report and from an earlier report by the National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee (NNICC) are shown in Table 6.6. The data suggest that prices have been fairly stable, with a slight decline since 1993. In 1993, for instance, a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cocaine went for $10,500 to $40,000 on average nationwide. In 2001 the average price was $10,000 to $36,000. Cocaine prices per gram were $20 to $200 nationwide in 2001 and lowest in New York where the price range was $20 to $30 per gram.
The U.S. government's policy of drug control is three-pronged: public education to prevent drug use before it happens; interdiction of supply is aimed at producers and distributors of drugs; and demand reduction is aimed at the user, employing law-enforcement on the one hand and treatment/rehabilitation on the other. If
TABLE 6.4
Worldwide illicit drug cultivation, 1996–2003
[In hectares]
| 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2,000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | |
| Opium | ||||||||
| Afghanistan | 61,000 | 30,750 | 1,685 | 64,510 | 51,500 | 41,720 | 39,150 | 37,950 |
| India | 3,100 | |||||||
| Iran | ||||||||
| Pakistan | 622 | 213 | 515 | 1,570 | 3,030 | 4,100 | 3,400 | |
| Total SW Asia | 61,000 | 31,372 | 1,898 | 65,025 | 53,070 | 44,750 | 45,300 | 44,450 |
| Burma | 47,130 | 78,000 | 105,000 | 108,700 | 89,500 | 130,300 | 155,150 | 163,100 |
| China | ||||||||
| Laos | 18,900 | 23,200 | 22,000 | 23,150 | 21,800 | 26,100 | 28,150 | 25,250 |
| Thailand | 750 | 820 | 890 | 835 | 1,350 | 1,650 | 2,170 | |
| Vietnam | 1,000 | 2,300 | 2,300 | 2,100 | 3,000 | 6,150 | 3,150 | |
| Total SE Asia | 66,030 | 102,950 | 130,120 | 135,040 | 114,235 | 160,750 | 191,100 | 193,670 |
| Colombia | 6,500 | 6,500 | 7,500 | 6,100 | 6,600 | 6,300 | ||
| Lebanon | ||||||||
| Guatemala | ||||||||
| Mexico | 2,700 | 4,400 | 1,900 | 3,600 | 5,500 | 4,000 | 5,100 | |
| Total other | 9,200 | 10,900 | 9,400 | 11,100 | 11,600 | 10,600 | 11,490 | |
| Total opium | 127,030 | 143,522 | 142,918 | 209,465 | 178,405 | 217,100 | 247,000 | 249,610 |
| Coca | ||||||||
| Bolivia* | 28,450 | 24,400 | 19,900 | 14,600 | 21,800 | 38,000 | 45,800 | 48,100 |
| Colombia | 144,450 | 169,800 | 136,200 | 122,500 | 101,800 | 79,500 | 67,200 | |
| Peru | 31,150 | 36,600 | 34,000 | 34,200 | 38,700 | 51,000 | 68,800 | 94,400 |
| Ecuador | ||||||||
| Total coca | 59,600 | 205,450 | 223,700 | 185,000 | 183,000 | 190,800 | 194,100 | 209,700 |
| Cannabis | ||||||||
| Mexico | 3,900 | 3,900 | 3,900 | 3,700 | 4,600 | 4,800 | 6,500 | |
| Colombia | 5,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 |
| Jamaica | 527 | |||||||
| Total cannabis | 5,000 | 8,900 | 8,900 | 8,900 | 8,700 | 9,600 | 10,117 | 12,027 |
| *Beginning in 2001, U.S. government surveys of Bolivian coca take place over the period June to June. | ||||||||
interdiction was successful while heavy demand continued, prices would be expected to go up. If demand for the drugs decreased because people gave up their habits, prices would be expected to drop. Prices in 2001 continued a slight downturn, while at the same time 858,000 more people reported having used cocaine in the past year based on the National Survey conducted annually by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA). Since demand has not softened the steady or decreasing prices suggest increased supplies and/or decreased purities. Distributors, of course, can increase supplies by diluting the active ingredient.
Cocaine purity decreased from 1993 to 2001. (See Table 6.7.) At the kilogram level, purity was 82% in 1993 and had declined to 69% by 2001; at the ounce level the drop was from 70% to 53% and at the gram level from 63 to 56% from 1993 to 2001. At lower weights, purity usually declines because more filler is added to the drug.
Making and Distributing Cocaine
The coca plant, from which cocaine is produced, is grown primarily in the Andean region of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, with Columbia's production increasing from 1991 to 2001 while that of Peru and Bolivia has decreased. (See Figure 6.3.) According to the INCSR, 930 metric tons of cocaine were potentially available from the Andean region in 2001, 125 metric tons more than the year before. (See Figure 6.4.) More than three-quarters (78.5%) of the base came from Colombia, which produced 730 metric tons. The Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (BINLA) stresses the fact that these quantities are "potentials" and that actual results may be lower. The same estimating methods are used, however, one year to the next, suggesting that cocaine supplies were increasing.
Once the cocaine is converted into base, it is then transported from the jungles of Bolivia and Peru to southern Colombia, where it is processed into cocaine
TABLE 6.5
Worldwide potential illicit drug production, 1996-2003
[In metric tons]
| 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2,000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | |
| Opium gum | ||||||||
| Afghanistan | 2,865 | 1,278 | 74 | 3,656 | 2,861 | 2,340 | 2,184 | 2,174 |
| India | 47 | |||||||
| Iran | ||||||||
| Pakistan | 5 | 5 | 11 | 37 | 66 | 85 | 75 | |
| Total SW Asia | 2,865 | 1,283 | 79 | 3,667 | 2,898 | 2,406 | 2,299 | 2,296 |
| Burma | 484 | 630 | 865 | 1,085 | 1,090 | 1,750 | 2,365 | 2,560 |
| China | ||||||||
| Laos | 200 | 180 | 200 | 210 | 140 | 140 | 210 | 200 |
| Thailand | 9 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 16 | 25 | 30 | |
| Vietnam | 10 | 15 | 15 | 11 | 20 | 45 | 25 | |
| Total SE Asia | 684 | 829 | 1,086 | 1,316 | 1,247 | 1,926 | 2,645 | 2,815 |
| Colombia | 61 | 66 | 63 | |||||
| Lebanon | ||||||||
| Guatemala | ||||||||
| Mexico | 47 | 71 | 21 | 43 | 60 | 46 | 54 | |
| Total other | 47 | 71 | 21 | 118 | 121 | 112 | 118 | |
| Total opium | 3,549 | 2,159 | 1,236 | 5,004 | 4,263 | 4,453 | 5,056 | 4,285 |
| Coca leaf | ||||||||
| Boliviaa | 17,210 | 19,800 | 20,200 | 26,800 | 22,800 | 52,900 | 70,100 | 75,100 |
| Colombiab | 583,000 | 437,600 | 347,000 | 302,900 | ||||
| Peru | 52,700 | 52,600 | 54,400 | 69,200 | 95,600 | 130,200 | 174,700 | |
| Ecuador | ||||||||
| Total cocac | 17,210 | 72,500 | 72,800 | 664,200 | 613,400 | 586,100 | 547,300 | 552,700 |
| Cannabis | ||||||||
| Mexico | 7,900 | 7,400 | 7,000 | 3,700 | 8,300 | 8,600 | 11,700 | |
| Colombia | 4,000 | 4,000 | 4,000 | 4,000 | 4,000 | 4,133 | 4,133 | |
| Jamaica | 356 | |||||||
| Belize | ||||||||
| Other | 3,500 | 3,500 | 3,500 | 3,500 | 3,500 | 3,500 | 3,500 | 3,500 |
| Total cannabis | 3,500 | 15,400 | 14,900 | 14,500 | 11,200 | 15,800 | 16,447 | 19,689 |
| aBeginning in 2001, U.S. government surveys of Bolivian coca take place over the period June to June. | ||||||||
| bSince leaf calculation is by fresh leaf weight in Colombia, in contrast to dry weight elsewhere, these boxes are blank. | ||||||||
| c2002 and 2001 totals do not include Colombia. See footnote 2 above. | ||||||||
TABLE 6.6
Cocaine price ranges, 1993-2001
[In dollars per kilogram]
| Year | National | Miami | New York City | Chicago | Los Angeles |
| 1993 | 10,500-40,000 | 16,000-24,000 | 17,000-25,000 | 20,000-30,000 | 14,000-20,000 |
| 1994 | 10,500-40,000 | 16,000-22,000 | 16,000-23,000 | 21,000-25,000 | 15,000-20,000 |
| 1995 | 10,500-36,000 | 15,000-25,000 | 17,000-27,000 | 21,000-25,000 | 15,000-20,000 |
| 1996 | 10,500-36,000 | 14,000-25,000 | 16,000-25,000 | 18,000-25,000 | 12,500-20,000 |
| 1997 | 10,000-36,000 | 12,500-28,000 | 17,000-42,000 | 18,000-32,000 | 12,000-17,500 |
| 1998 | 10,000-36,000 | 12,500-28,000 | 15,300-30,000 | 21,000-25,000 | 13,000-17,000 |
| 1999 | 9,000-40,000 | 17,000-20,000 | 16,000-24,000 | 21,000-25,000 | 13,000-18,000 |
| 2000 | 9,000-42,000 | 17,000-29,000 | 21,000-28,000 | 18,000-25,000 | 12,500-18,500 |
| 2001 | 10,000-36,000 | 16,500-23,000 | 20,000-30,000 | 18,000-25,000 | 12,500-18,000 |
TABLE 6.7
Cocaine purity, 1993-2001
[Annual national average in percent]
| Year | Kilogram | Ounce | Gram |
| 1993 | 82 | 70 | 63 |
| 1994 | 83 | 74 | 63 |
| 1995 | 83 | 65 | 61 |
| 1996 | 82 | 67 | 61 |
| 1997 | 80 | 64 | 64 |
| 1998 | 82 | 69 | 69 |
| 1999 | 79 | 63 | 63 |
| 2000 | 72 | 56 | 59 |
| 2001 | 69 | 53 | 56 |
hydrochloride (white powder) at clandestine drug laboratories. Recently, small, independent Bolivian and Peruvian trafficking groups have also been processing cocaine. After processing, the powder is shipped to the United States and Europe.
Caribbean and Central American countries serve as transit countries for the shipment of drugs into the United States. Drug traffickers shift routes according to law enforcement and interdiction pressures. Recently, drug flow has been steadily increasing through the Central American countries. In the late 1990s Central American governments stepped up antidrug operations in response.
The Colombian government has disrupted the activities of two major drug-trafficking organizations, the Medellin and Cali cartels, by either capturing or killing their key leaders. Nonetheless, this disruption has not reduced drug-trafficking activities. Independent traffickers, as well as splinter groups from the Cali cartel, have increasingly moved into the market, and huge volumes of cocaine are still being shipped to the United States through the Caribbean.
MOST COCAINE ENTERS THE U.S. THROUGH MEXICO.
Much South American cocaine is sent to Mexican traffickers who smuggle the drug into the United States. As Mexican traffickers have become more sophisticated, it is suspected that many are bypassing their Colombian contacts and dealing directly with Peruvian and Bolivian producers.
Almost all drugs, especially cocaine, once entered the United States through Florida. Florida was a major entry point mainly because of its thousands of miles of coastline, where boats could secretly dock, and the millions of acres in the Everglades, where planes could covertly land. Though intensive law enforcement efforts make it more difficult to land drugs in Florida, cocaine continues to be transported through the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti to Florida from Colombia. According to the DEA's Drug Trafficking in the United States (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/drug_trafficking.html), Haiti and Jamaica are growing transport points for Colombian cocaine destined for eastern U.S. markets. Because of Jamaica's location between South America and the United States, it is increasingly significant. Cocaine is smuggled into Jamaica primarily by sea, then into the Bahamas, and finally to the Florida coast using speed-boats, pleasure craft, and fishing vessels.
Because of efforts to cease drug flow to Florida, nearly 65% of the cocaine sold in the United States today passes through Mexico and across the Mexico–U.S. border. The two-thousand-mile border is patrolled by a relatively small number of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officers, who must divide their limited time between illegal aliens trying to cross the border and drug traffickers trying to smuggle drugs into the United States. The United States has introduced soldiers into the area to assist the INS, although some observers question whether soldiers trained to fight wars have the correct preparation to patrol a border populated by farmers and ranchers.
Mexico, the main transit and distribution hub for drugs moving to the United States, now rivals Colombia for dominance of the Western Hemisphere drug trade. Powerful Mexican drug syndicates have become dominant in the cocaine trade and the U.S. wholesale market. The Mexican government has intensified its investigations of the four largest drug-trafficking organizations—the Juarez cartel, the Tijuana cartel, the Gulf cartel, and the Caro Quintero organization.
Most cocaine destined for the United States is transported from South American countries to northern Mexico. In the early 1990s traffickers used aircraft to deliver cocaine, but over the past few years they have shifted to the maritime movement of drugs. According to U.S. law enforcement officials, most drugs enter Mexico via ship or small boat through the Yucatan Peninsula and Baja California regions. In addition, more drugs are moving overland into Mexico, primarily through Guatemala.
After the drugs have been unloaded, the cocaine is transported, usually by truck, to warehouses in cities such as Guadalajara or Juarez, which are operating bases for the major drug organizations. Mexican smugglers, often with experience smuggling illegal workers, and who frequently have family or friends in the United States, are paid to carry the drugs across the border. Sometimes the drugs are carried across the
FIGURE 6.3
Andean net coca cultivation, 1991-2001
Andean potential cocaine production, 1995-2001
In Mexico, where unemployment is high and the value of the peso dropped sharply in the mid-1990s, the hundreds or thousands of dollars to be earned from drug smuggling can be very attractive. Few of the smugglers know any more about the makeup of the drug ring than the identity of the individual who gives them the drugs; capturing them does not significantly restrict the flow of drugs.
Drug syndicates have become very powerful in Mexico, and Mexican traffickers use their vast wealth to corrupt and influence public officials. For example, in 1997 the head of Mexico's National Institute to Combat Drugs, General Jesus Gutierrez Rebello, was arrested for taking money and gifts from drug dealers. General Barry McCaffrey, the U.S. drug coordinator at the time, had recently praised the general for his integrity and commitment to the drug war.
Mexican drug organizations have been implicated in dozens of political assassinations in Tijuana since the mid-1990s. In 1994 a presidential candidate and Tijuana's police chief were assassinated, and a second police chief, Alfredo de la Torre Marquez, was assassinated in 1999. In 2000 the murders of two federal prosecutors and an army captain were among the many that American officials suspect were ordered by drug cartels. Other high-profile victims have included lawyers, police officers, judges, and prosecutors—anyone who might stand in the way of the high-stakes trafficking enterprise.
A major obstacle to joint law enforcement and prosecution efforts is the widespread corruption of Mexican officials, especially police. According to the INCSR, the Mexican authorities arrested forty-three corrupt police officials in 2002 who had been providing protection to the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO), another powerful drug cartel. The AFO was known to have made payments amounting to $1 million a week to Mexican federal, state, and local officials. A number of high-ranking AFO operatives were also arrested, and one was killed in a shoot-out. But corruption is very difficult to root out because drug profits are high and poverty widespread.
SMUGGLERS WILL USE ANY METHOD.
In 1993 Mexican police discovered an elaborate cocaine-smuggling tunnel that extended fourteen hundred feet from Tijuana, Mexico, to the outskirts of San Diego, California. Short tunnels have been found in the past, but nothing like this air-conditioned, well-lighted tunnel that would have provided a secret, comfortable route for transporting tons of cocaine. Those involved in smuggling find innumerable ways to get cocaine into the United States. The profits from even relatively small amounts of the drug are considered worth the risk of being caught.
Drug couriers will go to extreme lengths, including swallowing packets of drugs and excreting them after they have entered the United States. One courier had half a pound of cocaine surgically implanted under the skin of each of his thighs. Panamanian cocaine smugglers have developed a new technology that combines cocaine with vinyl, which is then incorporated into luggage and sneakers. The cocaine is separated after it reaches its destination.
The U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seized several kilograms of cocaine within a shipment of boa constrictors. The smugglers had wrapped the cocaine in rubber containers and forced them down the snakes' throats. Cocaine was found implanted in dogs' stomachs, and liquid cocaine was discovered in a shipment of tropical fish.
Cocaine may be hidden in the walls and support beams of cargo containers or mixed in with legal cargo such as coffee. Fishing vessels with hidden compartments often conceal cocaine. Cocaine is hidden in the walls of planes flying regularly scheduled flights. Other smugglers drop the cocaine by parachute to waiting accomplices below. Some traffickers have bought old, propeller-driven airplanes to fly in cocaine. And, with the price of aging jet aircraft dropping sharply, some smugglers have even bought Boeing 727 jets to haul in large amounts of drugs. Sixty-five pounds of cocaine was once found hidden inside the cockpit of an American Airlines Boeing 757 jetliner.
AFTER COCAINE REACHES THE UNITED STATES.
The primary entry ports into the United States are southern Florida, southern California, Arizona, and Texas. Colombia-based traffickers continue to control wholesale-level distribution throughout the northeastern United States and along the eastern seaboard in cities such as Boston, Miami, Newark, New York City, and Philadelphia, often employing Dominican criminals as subordinates. Mexico-based traffickers operate out of Chicago and control the western and midwestern United States in such cities as Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle.
From these distribution cities, drug carriers transport cocaine throughout the country in commercial and private vehicles, including trains, buses, airplanes, and even postal trucks. U.S. law enforcement officials have encountered smuggling operations that use concealed compartments within campers, recreational vehicles, tractor trailers, and vans. Modern communications have made it difficult to catch the drug dealers. They keep in touch using beepers and pay phones in efforts to avoid getting caught.
Many observers note that drug traffickers have little difficulty funneling drugs north through Mexico because
TABLE 6.8
Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and cannabis seizures, by the federal government and selected foreign countries, 1989-2003
[In kilograms]
| Cannabis | |||||
| Year | Cocaine | Heroin | Methamphetamine | Marijuana | Hashish |
| 1989 | 114,903 | 1,311 | — | 393,276 | 23,043 |
| 1990 | 96,085 | 687 | — | 233,478 | 7,683 |
| 1991 | 128,247 | 1,448 | — | 224,603 | 79,110 |
| 1992 | 120,175 | 1,251 | — | 344,899 | 111 |
| 1993 | 121,215 | 1,502 | 7 | 409,922 | 11,396 |
| 1994 | 129,378 | 1,285 | 178 | 474,856 | 561 |
| 1995 | 111,031 | 1,543 | 369 | 627,776 | 14,470 |
| 1996 | 128,555 | 1,362 | 136 | 638,863 | 37,851 |
| 1997 | 101,495 | 1,624 | 1,099 | 698,799 | 756 |
| 1998 | 118,436 | 1,458 | 2,559 | 827,149 | 241 |
| 1999 | 132,063 | 1,151 | 2,779 | 1,075,154 | 797 |
| 2000 | 106,619 | 1,674 | 3,470 | 1,235,938 | 10,867 |
| 2001 | 105,748 | 2,496 | 4,051 | 1,214,188 | 161 |
| 2002 | 102,711 | 2,773 | 2,521 | 1,100,439 | 621 |
| 2003 | 115,725 | 2,351 | 3,573 | 1,224,213 | 155 |
| —Data not available. | |||||
of Mexico's weak political and law enforcement institutions, but traffickers appear to have an equally easy time moving drugs across the United States.
HOW MUCH COCAINE IS SEIZED?
To give an idea of how enormous the challenge is to find smuggled drugs, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (a part of the Department of Homeland Security created via the 2003 merger of the U.S. Customs Service and the Border Patrol) reported in its annual report (Performance and Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2003, Washington, DC: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, http://www.customs.gov/linkhandler/cgov/toolbox/publications/admin/accountability_report_2003.ctt/cbpAnnualReportMarch04.pdf) that during fiscal year 2003, 70.9 million people entered the country on commercial airlines. Another fifteen million came by sea and 327 million by land through more than three hundred ports of entry. The Service also handled over 130 million trucks, aircraft, boats, and ships.
Customs and Border Protection estimates that two-thirds of all cocaine entering the United States crosses through a border facility manned by a government agent. Most of it is hidden in some way in the huge number of tractor trailers and passenger vehicles. Customs estimates that it seizes only 10% of smuggled drugs. Many experts believe it seizes much less.
For the United States, interdiction, or stopping drugs at the border, has been a high-priority, high-visibility effort in the war against drugs. In 2003 all federal cocaine seizures were 115,725 kilograms. (See Table 6.8.) In fiscal year 2003 the Customs Service seized or assisted in seizing 76,300 pounds of cocaine, a reduction from previous years due, according to the Customs Service, to lower traffic overall and heightened vigilance.
User Comments Add a comment…