U.S. Department of State

Overview for 2002

The U.S. campaign against global terrorism in 2002 highlighted the importance of our international drug control programs. As the single greatest source of illegal revenue, the drug trade has long been the mainstay of violent political insurgencies, rogue regimes, international criminal organizations, and terrorists of every stripe. Whether through the heroin that financed the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan or the cocaine that sustains the decades-old insurgency in Colombia, the drug trade generates the money that is the lifeblood of the violence that increasingly threatens global peace and stability.

In 2002, despite a host of obstacles and setbacks, ranging from the hazards of operating in a dangerous war zone to the vicissitudes of domestic politics in drug source and transit countries, we made progress in critical areas. Working with our allies, our programs helped key governments weaken the drug trade at critical points. This included attacking crops on the ground, destroying processing facilities, interdicting drug and precursor chemical shipments, and breaking up trafficking organizations. We provided our partners with essential training assistance to strengthen their law enforcement and judicial systems and improve their extradition procedures, while working with them to reduce drug consumption in their own countries. At the same time, closer international cooperation among governments and financial institutions is systematically closing the loopholes that have let the drug trade legitimize its enormous profits through sophisticated money laundering schemes. The establishment of the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM) has strengthened counternarcotics cooperation within the hemisphere. The MEM is a peer review system managed by the Inter American Drug Abuse Control Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS/CICAD) to assess national and hemispheric performance and to identify ways in which that performance can be improved.

Cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and synthetic amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), in that order, are the illicit drugs that most concern the United States. All the cocaine and heroin, as well as the bulk of the ATS drugs, originate outside the United States. Therefore, cutting off their flow to the United States remains our principal international counternarcotics goal. Though U.S. consumption has declined, cocaine still poses the greatest drug threat. Each year an estimated 300 metric tons or more enter the country, feeding addiction, fueling crime, and harming the economic and social well being of the United States. Since nearly all cocaine originates in the Andean countries of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, we targeted the bulk of our resources toward the Andean region.

Under the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, our central focus in 2002 was again Colombia, the world’s leading producer and distributor of cocaine and a significant supplier of heroin to the United States. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s cocaine hydrochloride (HCl) is processed in Colombia, the majority from indigenous Colombian coca crops, plus a limited amount from Peruvian and Bolivian cocaine base. Although Colombia grows less than two percent of the world’s opium poppy, virtually all of its heroin production is destined for the United States market.

Cocaine and heroin revenues fuel terrorism and the decades-old civil war in Colombia. All the insurgent and paramilitary groups depend upon them. They fund the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the hemisphere’s largest and oldest terrorist group, the National Liberation army (ELN), and the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The AUC and the FARC control areas that have the densest levels of coca and poppy cultivation in the country.

Since these drug crops are the “green gold” that keeps the civil war alive, the Colombian government is engaged in a long-term commitment to reduce and ultimately eliminate both coca and poppies. In 2002, Colombian counternarcotics forces carried out record levels of aerial eradication operations. As a result, coca cultivation fell to 144,450 hectares, a 15 percent drop from 2001. This was the first time in a decade that Colombia has seen a significant drop in its coca crop. At year’s end, Colombian forces had sprayed nearly 123,000 hectares of coca, a 45 percent increase over 2001, itself a record year. If all this coca leaf had been harvested and converted to cocaine it could have yielded approximately 500 metric tons of cocaine base or HCl. With each ton of HCl worth $100 million ($100/gram) at U.S. street retail prices, this activity theoretically kept as much as $50 billion worth of cocaine from entering world markets.

Colombian aircraft also sprayed over 3,000 hectares of opium poppy, a 67 percent increase over the previous year’s total. This was nearly half the 6,500 hectares of opium poppy detected at the end of 2001. Such spraying totals are especially impressive, given that most of these operations take place in dangerous zones in which minimally armored crop dusters must regularly take hits from rebel ground fire.

Despite aggressive eradication programs in 2002, coca cultivation rose modestly in Bolivia, and Peru. Year-end data on Colombia were not available at the time of publication. The Bolivian crop is believed to have jumped nearly 23 percent to 24,400 hectares of coca, notwithstanding eradication of approximately 12,000 hectares, a near-record annual eradication total. In Peru, there was an estimated eight percent rise to 36,600 hectares, although the government achieved its eradication goal of 7,000 hectares. These numbers remain relatively small compared to those of 1994, when Peru led the world with 108,000 hectares of coca and Bolivia had over 48,000. Nonetheless, any upward shift in cultivation trends is always a warning signal to all governments concerned.

Colombia faced several significant impediments to its counternarcotics efforts. In Colombia, the replant rate may range as high as 6,000 to 9,000 hectares per month. The GOC was eradicating at a higher rate than the replant rate in the latter part of the year, and the 2003 eradication is expected to continue at a rate in excess of the replanting rate. However, a sustained aggressive pace of spraying will be needed to break the replanting cycle. In Colombia, the drug trade has a clear advantage since the bulk of its coca and opium grows in zones that fall beyond the firm security control of the central government. Constant hits from insurgent ground fire frequently hinder eradication operations. All the insurgent factions have a life-or-death stake in the survival and expansion of the crops. Drug revenues finance the civil war. Without this income, the insurgents could buy neither arms nor influence and would become vulnerable. With their survival dependant on coca and opium, we can expect the insurgent groups to use all their firepower and ingenuity to protect and expand existing crops.

In Bolivia and Peru, political, economic and cultural battles have become obstacles to coca control. In both countries, radical movements have seized upon the historical tradition of coca cultivation as a rallying cry for indigenous rights against the dominant urban political culture. In Bolivia, by equating coca eradication with an attack upon both the poor in general and the indigenous rural poor in particular, a burgeoning anti-establishment political front has coalesced around the cocaleros (coca growers) movement. Since the organization’s leader finished second in the June 2002 presidential elections, the government cannot ignore the cocaleros. The existence of this movement will complicate—and probably raise the costs of—coca eradication plans.

In Peru, a coca growers’ movement modeled on Bolivia’s cocalero organization staged a number of large protests during 2002. In response, the government of Peru signed agreements to halt coca eradication temporarily in certain regions, as well as to include cocalero representatives in the discussions of revisions to Peru’s counternarcotics law.

The Peruvian government has not approved eradication in areas such as the Apurimac and Monzon valleys, two key sources of coca leaf. To compound the Peruvian government’s problems, the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso—SL) organization, which was forcibly disbanded in 1992, has reappeared on the scene. Before its suppression, this violent Maoist movement, which was financed by cocaine, engaged in a brutal guerrilla campaign that killed an estimated 30,000 people in the 1980s and early 1990s. The incipient resurgence of one of the world’s most brutal terrorist movements, which is once again linked to coca cultivation, poses new challenges for the Peruvian government and worries for the region.

A further factor in the resurgence of coca cultivation in Peru has been the increase in price for coca leaf and base. This was due to the increased pressure on cultivation in Colombia and the alternative routes to moving the product from Peru once an effective Air Bridge Denial program had been put in effect in the mid-1990s. During the five years that joint U.S.-Colombian and U.S.-Peruvian operations limited narcotics traffickers’ ability to use air routes to transport Peruvian cocaine base to Colombia for refining, Peru’s coca cultivation fell precipitously. The disruption of this “air bridge” made most Peruvian coca unmarketable and caused an abandonment of coca fields and an exodus of coca farmers from the major coca growing areas. Peru, until then the largest coca producing country, plunged dramatically and has been replaced by Colombia as the largest coca growing country. In the aftermath of the program’s suspension, the drug trade in Peru has been slowly increasing. Coca cultivation has risen to the 24,000 hectares detected in 2002 as Peruvian drug traffickers have expanded their operations towards Brazil, Bolivia and maritime shipments of the Peruvian coast.

Although Colombia and Mexico account for less than five percent of the world’s estimated opium production, most of the heroin detected in the United States originates in those two countries. Since eliminating poppy cultivation can have a very significant impact on the flow of U.S.-bound heroin, we support opium poppy eradication programs in both countries, as well as increased law enforcement initiatives, such as the installation of x-ray machines at all international airports.

As insurance against an aggressive eradication program, Colombian drug traffickers have been planting opium in neighboring countries. Narcotics traffickers supply farmers in neighboring countries with seeds, technical assistance, and cash loans. For example, a steady rise in opium latex seizures by the Peruvian National Police in 2002 confirmed the expansion of poppy cultivation and opium trafficking in Peru.

In Mexico, U.S. experts estimate that an area totaling 13,500 hectares of opium poppy was under cultivation during 2002 (a decrease from 14,600 in 2001). Given the favorable climate and terrain, two to three harvests per year were possible in the primary growing regions. Mexican government personnel eradicated 19,600 hectares in 2002 (up from 17000 in 2001). The remaining area, some 2700 hectares (down from 4400 in 2001) produced an estimated 47 metric tons of opium gum (which could have produced 5.6 metric tons of pure heroin—or 11 metric tons of black tar heroin). This figure is down substantially from 71 metric tons of opium gum (or 8.5 metric tons of pure, or 16 metric tons of black tar, heroin) in 2001.

In 2002, Afghanistan once again became the largest source of illicit opium. Following the removal of the Taliban regime, Afghan farmers in the country’s traditional growing areas replanted the crops that had been briefly eliminated by the draconian measures of the Taliban authorities. Afghan farmers have since turned to poppy cultivation as a risk-avoidance response to a continuing drought (poppy is hardy), lack of credit or farm inputs for licit agricultural products, not to mention the vast difference in income among any licit choice and opium. At the end of 2002, USG surveys detected 30,750 hectares of poppy, with a potential opium yield of 1,278 metric tons.

With Afghanistan’s re-emergence as the world’s largest producer of illicit opium, Burma fell to second place in 2002. A joint USG/government of Burma survey found that the maximum potential yield for opium in Burma in 2002 totaled only 630 metric tons, down 235 metric tons (or approximately 26 percent) from 2001. The area under cultivation dropped to 78,000 hectares, down from 105,000 hectares in 2001. Over the past six years, opium production in Burma is estimated to have declined by more than 75 percent, from an estimated 2,560 metric tons in 1996 to only 630 metric tons in 2002.

The greatest threat over the next few years may not come from cocaine and heroin, but from man-made equivalents. Demand for synthetic ATS, which include methamphetamine and MDMA (“ecstasy”), has shot up both in the industrialized nations and in most countries of the developing world. Methamphetamine now competes with cocaine as the stimulant of choice in many parts of the globe, including the United States. In Southeast Asia, methamphetamine vies with heroin as the principal illegal drug for consumption and export. In Burma, the heart of heroin production, methamphetamine has become a major source of income for the drug trade. The relative ease of manufacturing synthetics from readily available chemicals appeals as much to small drug entrepreneurs as to the large international syndicates. It eliminates reliance on vulnerable crops, such as coca or opium poppy and is not dependent on climate or growing season. Synthetics allow individual trafficking organizations to control the whole process, from manufacture to sale on the street. They generate large profits and can be manufactured anywhere. There are centers of methamphetamine production in a wide-range of countries, including Burma, China, North Korea, Mexico, and Poland.

Methamphetamine is one of the fastest-growing drug threats in the United States today. Well-established drug trafficking organizations, based in Mexico and California, control a large percentage of the U.S. methamphetamine trade. While Mexico is still the principal foreign supplier of methamphetamine and ATS precursors for the United States, Operation “Mountain Express III”—unveiled by DEA, U.S. Customs and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in January 2002—demonstrated that traffickers had begun to use Canada as a diversion point for substantial quantities of pseudoephedrine used in domestic methamphetamine production.

Ecstasy, an amphetamine analogue, is now a very popular drug in the United States. It is the nickname for 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA. Ecstasy’s rise was closely linked to the 1990’s “rave” dance culture that swept up Europe’s younger generation. Ecstasy’s stimulant properties provided a chemical boost allowing participants to dance for hours at all-night dance parties (“raves”). Ecstasy now has its own international cult following, evident from the numerous Internet sites that give detailed information on everything from how to make and use MDMA “safely” to discussions of possible dangers and medical consequences. Much of the MDMA available on the international drug market—and most of that seized in the United States—is manufactured in clandestine laboratories in the Netherlands. The government of the Netherlands has undertaken an intensive campaign to break up the ecstasy industry. That Dutch criminals are shifting some manufacturing operations to nearby Belgium suggests the campaign is bearing fruit. Wholesale distribution of the drug is dominated by Israeli criminal organizations operating in Europe and to some extent in the United States.

As seizure data in various INCSR chapters indicate, throughout the world ecstasy has become the drug of choice for young people in their late teens and early twenties. In 2002, authorities in countries as distant and distinct as Costa Rica, Iceland, and South Africa reported marked increases in ecstasy consumption and seizures. Ecstasy’s most pernicious quality, however, is that many of its young users view it as a performance enhancer instead of as a dangerous drug. Its proponents bill it as a non-addictive stimulant without lasting side effects. When an addictive drug develops a reputation for being relatively benign, efforts to suppress it become correspondingly difficult.

In the case of ecstasy this is especially disturbing. Brain imaging research in humans indicates that MDMA/ecstasy causes injury to the brain, affecting neurons that use the chemical serotonin to communicate with other neurons. The serotonin system plays a direct role in regulating mood, aggression, sexual activity, sleep, and sensitivity to pain. Many of the risks users face from MDMA/ecstasy are similar to those found with the use of cocaine and amphetamines. More alarmingly, however, research by the USG’s National Institute for Drug Abuse (http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/ecstasy.html) has linked MDMA/ecstasy use to possible long-term damage to those parts of the brain critical to thought and memory. One primate study showed that exposure to MDMA for four days caused brain damage that was evident six to seven years later.

Marijuana production and consumption is a serious problem in many countries—including in the United States. More than 10,000 metric tons (MT) of domestic marijuana and more than 5,000 metric tons of marijuana is cultivated and harvested in Mexico and Canada and marketed to more than 20 million users in the United States. Smaller quantities of marijuana are also produced in Colombia, Jamaica, Paraguay and other countries. The high-potency indoor grown marijuana, which is produced on a large-scale in Canada (and has also been found within the United States), is a particular concern. In many cases, this marijuana is grown in laboratory conditions—with specialized timers, ventilation, moveable lights on tracks, nutrients sprayed on exposed roots and special fertilizer—all designed to maximize the THC levels in the marijuana. The resulting drug is particularly powerful, dangerous and addictive. Although in the past some have suggested that marijuana was harmless, the latest scientific information indicates that marijuana produces withdrawal symptoms and is associated with learning and memory disturbances.

In 2002, governments in key source and transit countries struck at important drug syndicates by targeting their key figures and operatives. For example: in Colombia, drug enforcement authorities working with their U.S. counterparts conducted a joint operation against the Garcia-Giraldo organization, a heroin trafficking enterprise that shipped an estimated quarter of a ton of heroin annually to New York and Philadelphia. They arrested 30 criminals, including Garcia himself, and are believed to have dismantled the organization.

In Mexico, law enforcement agencies and military personnel significantly reduced the capabilities of the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) cartel by arresting Benjamin Arellano Felix, along with the AFO’s chief of operations and logistics. They also arrested 43 allegedly corrupt police officers who had provided protection to the AFO. The AFO was further disrupted by the death of Ramon Arellano Felix in a shoot out. The Mexican military also arrested Jesus Albino Quintero Meraz, a top lieutenant in the powerful Gulf Cartel.

Such arrests of high-level traffickers and government officials in their pay demonstrate—to the criminals and to the governments fighting them alike—that over time even the strongest syndicates are highly vulnerable to coordinated and sustained international pressure. They also demonstrate the commitment of our partners to root out the drug-related crime and corruption that threatens their own national security.

We have long-term programs with many governments to strengthen critical institutions, such as judicial and banking systems, to eliminate opportunities for penetration and manipulation by the drug trade. Judicial systems are particularly vulnerable, since in many countries the fate of a major drug criminal depends on the decision of a single judge. In some countries, judges receive low salaries and enjoy little or no protection from criminal retaliation. Not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies in source and transit countries have successfully jailed prominent traffickers, only to see them released after a seemingly indefensible or inexplicable decision by a single judge.

Thanks to U.S. assistance, that dynamic is gradually changing. In 2002, several countries continued to modify their laws and professionalize their court systems. These include reforms ranging from installing more modern equipment to changing the way judges are appointed and improving the security protection they can expect in the event of threats. Though there are still instances of judges arbitrarily dismissing evidence against or releasing well-known drug traffickers, the number of such cases is declining, thanks to courageous action on the part of individual judges and the governments that are improving their efficiency and safety.

Extradition to stand trial in the United States is one of the most effective tools to help other governments break up trafficking organizations. The long sentences imposed in the United States on notorious drug criminals are vivid reminders of what can happen to even the most powerful drug cartel leaders when they can no longer manipulate their environment through bribes and intimidation. Extradition, especially of nationals, has always been a very sensitive issue in a number of countries concerned over the perception that extraditing their citizens to the United States might be viewed as a derogation of national sovereignty. Willingness to extradite has therefore been a key indicator of political will and mutual trust. Although several countries still prohibit the extradition of their nationals, we believe that extradition of nationals can be made acceptable to most governments, as long as treaty provisions are reciprocal and balanced.

We saw excellent cooperation in extradition matters in 2002, especially in the Western Hemisphere where it is a sensitive but critical issue. Colombia was among those countries that cooperated most on extradition matters. Colombia extradited over 40 fugitives to the United States in 2002, nearly twice the number for 2001. Thirty-seven of these were Colombian nationals (including one person who was a dual U.S.-Colombian national). While in 2002, Mexico extradited to the United States 17 fugitives facing drug charges (including the major drug trafficker, Jorge Mario Rios Laverde), Mexico’s October 2001 Supreme Court decision that held that Mexico cannot extradite fugitives who face possible sentences of life imprisonment has made it much more difficult to extradite fugitives from Mexico, and has actually discouraged certain states from seeking to extradite the fugitives at all.

Cocaine, heroin and synthetic drugs must be manufactured. This process requires chemicals, many of which are subject to governmental control. Cocaine and heroin refining operations generally require widely available “essential chemicals.” Substitutes for unavailable chemicals can be used for most of the chemicals used in the manufacturing process, but there are some key chemicals—potassium permanganate for cocaine and acetic anhydride for heroin—for which there are few easily obtainable substitutes. Synthetic drug manufacture requires even more specific “precursor chemicals,” such as ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, or phenylpropanolamine. These chemicals, used mainly for pharmaceutical purposes, have important but fewer legitimate uses. They are commercially traded in smaller quantities to discrete users. The United States, other major chemical trading countries, and the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board worked in 2002 to improve an informal, multilateral system for exchanging information with respect to these chemicals. The goal was to improve controls on the key cocaine and heroin chemicals, and those necessary for synthetic drugs. Countries must have efficient legal and regulatory regimes to control chemicals, without placing undue burdens on legitimate commerce.

Our mission is to reduce and ultimately cut off the flow of illegal drugs to the United States. To do so, we attack drug supply at critical points along a five-point grower-to-user chain linking the consumer in the United States to the grower in a source country. In the case of cocaine or heroin, the chain begins with the growers cultivating coca or opium poppies, for instance, in the Andes or Burma. It ends with the cocaine or heroin user in a U.S. town or city. In between, lie the processing (drug refining), transit (shipping), and wholesale distribution links.

Our international counternarcotics programs target the first three links of the grower-to-user chain: cultivation, processing, and transit. The closer to the source we can attack, the greater the likelihood of halting the flow of drugs altogether. Crop control is by far the most cost-effective means of cutting supply. If crops are destroyed or left unharvested, no drugs enter the system. We are in effect removing a malignant growth before it can metastasize into the system. In a Utopian world, with no drug crops to harvest, no cocaine or heroin could enter the distribution chain; nor would there be any need for costly enforcement and interdiction operations.

Real world conditions are more complicated. Destroying a lucrative crop, even an illegal one, carries enormous political, economic and social ramifications for the producing country. It inevitably means attacking the livelihood of a large—and often the poorest—sector of the population. Democratic governments that take away vital income without any quid pro quo seldom survive for long. Implementing lasting crop control programs takes time, as governments must develop viable alternatives for the affected population. Therefore, we also focus upon the other links: the processing and distribution stages of laboratory destruction and interdiction of drug shipments.

Though it is the most efficient way of eliminating a drug crop, massive eradication is neither legally nor politically feasible in many countries. Our programs must have the flexibility to shift resources to those links where we can achieve both an immediate impact and long-term results. As our experience over the past few years in Peru and Bolivia has demonstrated, the right combination of effective law enforcement actions and alternative development programs can also deliver truly remarkable results. We work closely with the governments of the coca growing countries to find the best way to eliminate illegal coca within the context of each country’s unique situation.

Large-scale coca cultivation takes place in only three countries—Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Modern technology allows us to locate the growing areas precisely and attack them—a much less difficult task than trying to stop drugs once they are in the transportation pipeline. It is easier to eradicate a stationary target such as a coca field than to seek out and destroy the equivalent amount of finished cocaine distributed among trucks, boats, and aircraft. Eliminating coca on the ground is also highly cost-effective. USG studies conducted in the early 1990s indicate that in Bolivia and Peru, where the alkaloid content of the coca leaf is high, every 200 to 250 hectares of coca taken out of production deprives the drug trade, on average, of roughly one metric ton of refined cocaine. Even manual eradication can make a difference. By this measure, the estimated 12,000 hectares eradicated manually in Bolivia, combined with the estimated 7,000 hectares eliminated in Peru, kept the equivalent of between approximately 76 and 95 metric tons of cocaine from entering the system.

High-speed agricultural spray aircraft, however, are many times more efficient than other forms of eradication. If those planes that have been spraying Colombian coca fields had unobstructed access to all the principal coca plantations, they could destroy a large percentage of the coca crop in a matter of months, using environmentally safe herbicides. With the shift of the bulk of coca cultivation into the rebel-controlled zones in Colombia, our aircraft have faced a more difficult situation. Though dense concentrations of coca cultivation in a geographically confined area give the planes a better target, the planes are also exposed to a level of hostile gunfire for which they were not designed.

Inevitably, questions arise over the environmental risks of regular spraying of illegal drug crops. Colombia is at this time the only country that allows aerial spraying of coca and opium poppy. The Colombian government has authorized the herbicide that is being used to conduct aerial eradication in the growing areas. The only active ingredient in the herbicide used in the aerial eradication program is glyphosate, one of the most widely used agricultural herbicides in the world. It has been tested widely in the United States, Colombia, and elsewhere in the world. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved glyphosate for general use in 1974 and re-registered it in September 1993. EPA has approved its use on food croplands, forests, residential areas, and around aquatic areas. It is one of the top five pesticides, including herbicides, used in the United States.

In the past two decades, coca cultivation in the Andean region has led to the destruction of approximately six million acres of rainforest. Working in remote areas beyond settled populations, coca growers routinely slash and burn virgin forestland to make way for their illegal crops. As tropical rains erode the thin topsoil of the fields, growers must regularly abandon their parcels to prepare new plots—increasing soil erosion and runoff, depleting soil nutrients, and, by destroying timber and other resources that would otherwise be available for more sustainable uses, decreasing biological diversity. Traffickers also destroy jungle forests to build clandestine landing strips and laboratories for processing raw coca and poppy into cocaine and heroin.

Many of these illicit coca growers are negligent in their use of fertilizers and pesticides. Seeking to maximize their incomes and being largely ignorant about the consequences of indiscriminate use of strong chemicals, coca growers dump large quantities of highly toxic herbicides and fertilizers on their crops. These chemicals include paraquat and endosulfan, both of which qualify under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s highest classification for toxicity (Category I) and are legally restricted for sale within Colombia and the United States.

Finally, toxic chemicals are used at each stage of cocaine production. USG studies conducted in the early 1990s in Bolivia and Peru indicated that one kilogram of cocaine base required the use of three liters of concentrated sulfuric acid, 10 kilos of lime, 60 to 80 liters of kerosene, 200 grams of potassium permanganate, and one liter of concentrated ammonia. These toxic pesticides, fertilizers, and processing chemicals are then dumped into the nearest waterway or on the ground. They saturate the soil and contaminate waterways, poisoning water systems and dependent species in the process.

The most powerful weapon in fighting the drug trade is an intangible: political will. The best-trained counternarcotics force, equipped with state-of-the-art police and military hardware, cannot succeed without the full commitment of the country’s political leadership. When political leaders have had the courage to sacrifice short-term economic and political considerations in favor of the long-term national interest, we have seen the drug trade weaken. Conversely, when they have succumbed to the lure of ready cash, the drug syndicates have prospered accordingly.

The drug trade flourishes when it can establish an economic modus vivendi with a weak or complacent government. In exchange for the short-term benefits of large infusions of drug money into the economy (or into personal secret accounts or political treasuries), corrupt government officials can limit counternarcotics operations to those sectors least likely to harm a given set of trafficking interests. If drug cultivation needs protecting, a government can focus on interdiction rather than eradication. Government forces can also eradicate some crops while drug syndicates exploit corrupt enforcement and timid judicial systems to stay in business. Government officials may also launch anti-trafficking campaigns, but in offshore financial centers promote bank secrecy and lax incorporation laws that facilitate money laundering. In every case, the price of these short-term gains is the long-term entrenchment of drug interests. Therefore, a basic objective of U.S. counternarcotics policy is to prevent drug interests from becoming entrenched by strengthening the political will in the key source and transit countries. When political will wavers, corruption creeps in, subverts the rule of law, and puts democratic government in jeopardy.

The fight against the drug trade is part of a broader struggle against corruption. Drug organizations possess a very powerful instrument for corruption: money, vast quantities of it, generated by drug trafficking. There is currently no widely available, easily renewable commodity more lucrative than illegal drugs. In most cases, they are relatively cheap to produce and offer enormous profit margins that allow the drug trade to generate criminal revenues on a scale without historical precedent. For example, assuming an average U.S. retail street price of one hundred dollars a gram, a metric ton of pure cocaine is worth a $100 million on the streets of the United States; twice as much if the drug is cut with additives. By this measure, the 100 or so metric tons of cocaine that the USG typically seizes each year could theoretically be worth as much as $10 billion to the drug trade—more than the gross domestic product of some countries. Similarly, the estimated 123 metric tons of cocaine products seized by Colombia in 2002 would have a theoretical U.S. street value of over $12 billion. Even if only a portion of these profits flows back to the drug syndicates, we are nonetheless speaking of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.

To put the scale of these sums into perspective, in FY 2002 the State Department’s budget for international drug control operations was approximately $892 million. That equates to roughly nine metric tons of cocaine; the drug syndicates have lost that amount in a single shipment without any indication that they felt the loss.

Wealth on this scale gives large trafficking organizations a practically unlimited capacity to corrupt, particularly in countries where government and law enforcement officials are poorly paid. For Colombia, where anti-democratic insurgents control and feed upon income from the drug trade, the threat is obvious. But even in economically weak countries without revolutionary movements, the drug trade’s wealth makes it as great a threat to democratic government as an armed insurgency. Guerrilla armies or terrorist organizations overtly seek to topple governments by force; drug syndicates, like termites, prefer to destroy them surreptitiously from within. When a country’s interior or defense minister, attorney general, or even president, is on its payroll, the drug trade can count on a secure operating environment. Once this form of corruption has become deeply entrenched, it is difficult to eliminate without damaging many of the healthy institutions of an already weak democracy.

The ultimate worry of democratic leaders in countries where the drug trade is strong should be that one day traffickers might take de facto control of a country by putting a majority of elected officials, including the president, on its payroll. Although such a scenario has yet to play out, there have been enough close calls to suggest that it could happen, were it not for the sort of collective effort we are undertaking with our partners.

Battling the international drug trade is a complex, dynamic process. Contrary to expectations, it does not get easier with time. Every time we score a major success—and over the past decade we have scored many—the drug trade learns from it. As successful counternarcotics operations eliminate the less agile drug syndicates, those that survive get smarter and more sophisticated, adopting ingenious new strategies for concealment and survival. We have seen this already with the emergence of hundreds of small, less targetable syndicates that filled the void left by the destruction of Colombia’s Medellin and Cali cartels. This type of forced natural selection eventually leaves us with a very astute adversary.

The drug trade itself also evolves naturally over time. We are now confronting second-generation multinational drug syndicates that have adopted modern management techniques, use state-of-the-art communications, and have sophisticated technical and financial expertise. As we have noted, they also have nearly unlimited financial resources to draw upon. The international counternarcotics effort, therefore, will require even greater tactical adaptability and flexibility, closer coordination between governments across the whole spectrum of diplomacy and law enforcement, and significant resources.

Yet, for all its sophistication as a criminal organization, the drug trade is still a business, an extremely prosperous and dangerous business. As a criminal organization it can hide safely in the shadows; but to prosper as a business, it must emerge into the daylight of the legitimate world. There it becomes vulnerable. It needs raw materials, processing chemicals, transportation networks, and, most important of all, a means of getting its profits into legitimate commercial and financial channels. A business that cannot reinvest its profits soon goes bankrupt. Since governments ultimately control the global financial system, they can also render it almost impossible for drug and other criminal revenues to enter the system. But it only takes one or two entry points, such as storefront banks in small isolated countries, for dirty money to enter legitimate commerce. If we want to bankrupt the most lucrative criminal enterprise in history, we will have to seal those portals. That must be our goal for the years ahead.

Our demand reduction strategy encompasses a wide range of initiatives. These include efforts to prevent the onset of use, intervention at “critical decision points” in the lives of vulnerable populations to prevent both first use and further use, and effective treatment programs for the addicted. Other aspects encompass education and media campaigns to increase public awareness of the harmful effects of drugs. This latter effort involves the development of coalitions of private/public social institutions, the faith community, and law enforcement entities to mobilize national and international opinion against the drug trade and to encourage governments to develop and implement strong counternarcotics policies and programs. The demand reduction program also provides for evaluations of the effectiveness of these efforts and for “best practice” research studies to use these findings to improve similar service provided in the U.S.

In 2002, INL funded bilateral training at various locations throughout the world on topics such as community/grassroots coalition building and networking, science-based drug prevention programming, and treatment within the criminal justice system. INL also continued to sponsor sub-regional demand reduction academies in Medellin, Colombia and Sao Paulo, Brazil, and co-funded with Lions Club International the establishment of a new academy in the Czech Republic. It co-sponsored the 4th Global Drug Prevention Network (GDPN) summit in Penang, Malaysia. The purpose of the summit was to develop an enhanced communications system for coordinating the participation of 7,000 drug prevention organizations from over 70 countries.

INL continued to fund comprehensive, multi-year scientific studies on pilot projects and programs. The demand reduction program also provides for evaluations of the effectiveness of these efforts and for research studies to use these findings to improve similar services provided in the U.S. The Spring/Summer 2002 issue of the Journal of Social Work Research and Evaluation, a professional publication that address international social research programs, published a 12-page article on INL-funded training. Research continues on prevention programs in selected countries that have developed promising prevention and anti-violence modalities from INL-funded training.

How Much Do We Know? The INCSR contains a variety of illicit narcotics-related data. These numbers represent the United States Government’s best effort to sketch the dimensions of the international drug problem at this time. The numbers range from cultivation figures, relatively hard data derived by proven means, to crop production and drug yield estimates, data that become softer as more variables come into play. As in previous years, we publish these data with an important caveat: the yield figures are potential, not final numbers. Although they are useful for determining trends, even the best are ultimately approximations.

Each year, as we get better data through field research, we revise our estimates. This type of field research is far from easy. The clandestine, violent nature of the illegal drug trade makes it difficult to develop precise information. At the same time, the harsh terrain on which many drugs are cultivated is not always easily accessible This is particularly relevant given the tremendous geographic areas that must be covered, and the difficulty of collecting reliable information over diverse and treacherous terrain.

What We Know With Reasonable Certainty. The most reliable information we have on illicit drugs is how many hectares are under cultivation during any given year. For a decade and a half, the United States Government has estimated the extent of illicit cultivation in a dozen nations using proven statistical methods similar to those used to estimate the size of licit crops at home and abroad. We can therefore estimate the area under cultivation with reasonable accuracy.

What We Know With Less Certainty. The picture is less clear where crop yields are concerned. How much of a finished product a given area will produce is difficult to estimate. Small changes in factors such as soil fertility, weather, farming techniques, and disease can produce widely varying results from year to year and place to place. Moreover, most illicit drug crop areas are not easily accessible to the United States Government, making scientific information difficult to obtain. Therefore, we are estimating potential crop available for harvest. Not all of these estimates allow for losses, which could represent up to a third or more of a crop in some areas for some harvests. The value in estimating the size of the potential crop is to provide a consistent basis for a comparative analysis from year to year.

Harvest Estimates. We have gradually improved our yield estimates. Our confidence in coca leaf yield estimates, as well as in the finished product, has risen in the past few years, based upon the results of field studies conducted in Latin America. In all cases, however, multiplying average yields times available hectares indicates only the potential, not the actual final drug crop available for harvest.

While farmers naturally have strong incentives to maximize their harvests of what is almost always their most profitable cash crop, the harvest depends upon the efficiency of farming practices and the wastage caused by poor practices or difficult weather conditions during and after harvest. Up to a third or more of a crop may be lost in some areas during harvests.

In addition, mature coca (two to six years old) is more productive than immature or aging coca. Variations such as these can dramatically affect potential yield and production. Additional information and analysis is allowing us to make adjustments for these factors. Similar deductions for local consumption of unprocessed coca leaf and opium may be possible as well through the accumulation of additional information and research.

Processing Estimates. The wide variation in processing efficiency achieved by traffickers complicates the task of estimating the quantity of cocaine or heroin that could be refined from a crop. These variations occur because of differences in the origin and quality of the raw material used, the technical processing method employed, the size and sophistication of laboratories, the skill and experience of local workers and chemists, and decisions made in response to enforcement pressures. (See the various INCSR chapters for specific information.)

Figures Change as Techniques and Data Quality Improve. Each year, research produces revisions to United States Government estimates of potential drug production. This is typical of annualized figures for most other areas of statistical tracking that must be revised year to year, whether it be the size of the U.S. wheat crop, population figures, or the unemployment rate. For the present, however, these statistics represent the state of the art. As new information becomes available and as the art improves, so will the precision of the estimates.

The yield figures in the INCSR are theoretical. They are estimates of potential production—the quantities that the United States Government estimates could have been produced if, and only if, all available crops were to be converted into finished drugs. These estimates do not always make allowance for losses, so actual production is probably lower than our estimates. The figures shown are mean points in a statistical range.

Potential Opium Production. In Southeast Asia, opium poppy cultivation and potential opium production decreased in 2002. The cultivated area fell to 102,590 hectares from 130,120 hectares the previous year. Potential opium gum production fell to 831 metric tons from 1,086 metric tons in 2001. This could yield approximately 83 metric tons of heroin, if all the gum were processed.

Opium poppy cultivation rose in Southwest Asia in 2002. Total hectares for Afghanistan and Pakistan increased to 31,372. Total potential opium gum production for both was 1,283 metric tons, or roughly 120 metric tons of heroin.

In the Western Hemisphere, the opium poppy growing countries have maintained active crop control efforts. In Colombia, the last United States Government estimates that there were 6,500 hectares, enough to yield an estimated 60 metric tons of opium gum, or a little more than six tons of heroin, assuming no losses. Data for 2002 were not available at the time of publication. In Mexico, there were an estimated 2,700 hectares of opium poppy in 2002, after eradication. Assuming no losses, the estimated potential yield was 47 metric tons of opium gum, or approximately 5.6 metric tons of heroin. Though no specific data was available, there is evidence of opium poppy expansion in Peru.

Coca Cultivation. Worldwide coca cultivation figures were not available at time of publication, since the annual survey for Colombia, the largest producer, was not complete. It is likely, however, the 2002 crop will be larger than the 2001 estimate of 136,200 hectares. In Bolivia, there were 24,400 hectares of coca detected. Because of weather conditions, surveys in Bolivia now cover the period June-June, rather than January-December. Peru’s coca crop increased slightly to 36,600 hectares at the end of 2002. It is likely that there is coca in inaccessible areas of Brazil, but its extent is unknown. Ecuador has negligible amounts of coca.

The cocaine yield figure is offered with the same caveat as the crop harvest yield data: it is a figure representing potential production. It does not in every case allow for losses or the many other variables that one would encounter in a “real world” conversion from plant to finished drug. In fact, the amount of cocaine HCl actually making it to market is probably lower. Efficiencies vary greatly from country to country

The United States Government estimates that in 2002, 660 metric tons of cocaine were potentially available from Colombia, 140 metric tons from Peru and 60 metric tons potentially available from Bolivia. In publishing these figures, we repeat our caveat that these are theoretical numbers, useful for examining trends. Though every year research moves us closer to more precise cocaine yield estimate for Latin America, we do not yet know for certain the actual amount available for distribution.

Most of the chapters in this report contain some user or consumption data. For the most part, these are estimates provided by foreign governments or informal estimates by United States Government agencies. There is no way to vouch for their reliability. They are included because they are the only data available and give an approximation of how governments view their own drug abuse problems. They should not be considered as a source of data to develop any reliable consumption estimates.

According to USG estimates, net marijuana production in Mexico in 2002 was 7,900 metric tons of cannabis from 4,900 hectares of cultivation. In Colombia’s traditional cannabis growing zones, cultivation is estimated to be about 4,000 hectares. We recognize that there may be considerable amounts of undetected cannabis cultivation in Central and East Asia, and on the African continent, though there is no evidence that any of this cannabis significantly affects the United States. As we gather more accurate information, we will report significant findings in future INCSRs.

Worldwide Illicit Drug Cultivation
1995–2002 (All Figures in Hectares)

¹Beginning in 2001, USG surveys of Bolivian coca take place cover the period June to June.

Worldwide Illicit Drug Cultivation
1987–1994 (All Figures in Hectares)

Worldwide Potential Illicit Drug Production
1995–2002 (All Figures in Metric Tons)

¹Beginning in 2001, USG surveys of Bolivian coca take place cover the period June to June.
²Since leaf calculation is by fresh leaf weight in Colombia, in contrast to dry weight elsewhere, these boxes are blank.

Worldwide Potential Illicit Drug Production
1987–1994 (All Figures in Metric Tons)