Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

DRUGS-U.S.: Cocaine Price Falls Despite Supply-Side Squeeze

Eli Clifton

WASHINGTON, Apr 24 2007 (IPS) - Preliminary U.S. government data, quietly disclosed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, shows the price per gram of cocaine on the streets fell in 2006 while its purity increased, despite over 31 billion dollars spent on operations over the last decade to stem the flow of cocaine into the United States.

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) issued a report on U.S. drug policy that points to a stable 25-year trend in cocaine supply, suggesting that efforts by the ONDCP to curb the supply side of the cocaine market are failing.

Little or no change has been made in the supply side of the cocaine markets despite the 31-billion-dollar drug interdiction and crop control efforts, of which 5.4 billion dollars was spent since 2000 on eradicating coca fields in Colombia, the source of 90 percent of cocaine in the United States.

“At the beginning of this decade, coca was found in large plantations that made easy targets for spraying. Now farmers have adapted by hiding their crops among vegetation and in more remote places,” John M. Walsh, senior associate at WOLA, told IPS.

The U.S. government’s “Plan Colombia” was designed in part to fight cocaine production by assisting and funding operations in that South American country to spray coca plantations, destroy coca plants and crack down on cocaine trafficking.

In 2005, the White House drug czar’s office hailed Plan Colombia as a success, reflected by a brief cocaine price increase, but that rise in price and decline in purity has proven to be a short-term fluctuation with cocaine prices and purity returning to previous levels.

In March 2005, Robert Charles, then Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, asked: “When are you going to see the price and purity change here on the streets of America?” He answered his own question: “I think within a year or two you will begin to see palpable, measurable… changes, in price first, and then in purity.”

The stable, and possibly decreasing, price of cocaine and increase in purity suggest that the supply side of the market is strong and has felt little impact from the U.S. anti-narcotic efforts in Colombia, while demand in the United States for cocaine has remained the same.

Reports that U.S.-sponsored anti-coca operations are failing come as Colombian President Alvaro Uribe faces accusations over ties between his political allies and the far-right paramilitary groups active in that country.

Last week, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate’s state and foreign operations subcommittee, blocked 55 million dollars in military aid for Colombia, in order to discuss with the State Department concerns about the links between the paramilitary militias and high-level officials and legislators in Colombia.

Congressman Sander Levin, who chairs the ways and means trade subcommittee in the House of Representatives, said he and other Democratic lawmakers were discussing the possibility of holding hearings on Colombia.

Levin said the U.S. Congress needs “to try to figure out exactly what’s going on in Colombia, exactly what is the role of the paramilitary, how much a part of the government they are, how the government is trying to address this.”

The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere was scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday on U.S.-Colombia relations.

Large-scale corruption in Colombia has permitted drug traffickers to refine and export their cocaine to the markets in the United States.

“To one degree or another, traffickers will have the resources to corrupt and intimidate enough people to get enough of their product to market,” said WOLA expert Walsh.

The apparent failure of Plan Colombia had led prominent lawmakers to question the U.S. aid strategies for Colombia.

“The missing ingredient all along is complementing security efforts with economic development alternatives in cooperation with local communities instead of treating them as criminals,” said Walsh.

Reports from Colombia say farmers have learned to adapt to the fumigation funded by the U.S. government.

Farmers have learned to wash plants after spraying and move coca plants to areas better camouflaged by vegetation and interspersed with other plants while improving the yield of coca cultivated per hectare, according to UN estimates.