Vigorous international drug control efforts kept the drug trade on the defensive in 2005. Our long-standing, international campaign to curb the flow of cocaine and heroin to the United States advanced significantly during the year. Coordinated international enforcement programs limited drug crop expansion, strengthened interdiction efforts, destroyed processing facilities, and weakened major trafficking organizations. Drug seizures set new records for cocaine interdiction in the Western Hemisphere. Better enforcement and judicial reforms led to the arrest of several long-sought drug kingpins, while tougher enforcement of chemical control and money laundering laws in key countries further hobbled the major trafficking organizations’ ability to refine drugs and bank their profits.

The Drug Threat

Cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and synthetic amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) are the drugs that most threaten the United States. Cutting off their supply has been and will continue to be our primary international counternarcotics goal. Although U.S. cocaine consumption has been declining recently, cocaine continues to be our greatest concern. An estimated 300 metric tons or more of cocaine hydrochloride (HCl) enter the country annually, feeding addiction, fueling crime, and damaging the economic and social health of the United States. As all cocaine originates in the Andean countries of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, we have channeled a significant portion of our international resources toward eliminating coca cultivation, disrupting cocaine production, and preventing the drug from reaching the United States.

Coca and Cocaine

Colombia—the source of roughly 90 percent of the cocaine destined for the U.S. and other world markets—leads the world in coca cultivation. Peru and Bolivia lag behind, a distant second and third respectively. The USG has directed a large share of its counternarcotics resources to attacking Colombian coca cultivation, while helping to thwart a resurgence of coca cultivation in Peru and Bolivia. In 2005, USG-supported Colombian police units reported eliminating over 170,000 hectares of coca. Aerial eradication removed 138,775 hectares of this amount, while manual eradication destroyed the other 31,285 hectares. If harvested and refined, the coca eradicated could have yielded over 150 metric tons of cocaine with a street value of over $15 billion.

Bolivia and Peru, which had drastically reduced their coca cultivation in the past five years, now face campaigns to roll back these achievements. The challenge comes from increasingly active cocalero (coca grower) associations that link coca cultivation to issues of cultural identity and national pride. These farmer’s unions, often exploited by trafficking interests, glorify coca cultivation and consumption as ancient and sacred indigenous traditions that must be protected against international efforts to destroy them. They portray coca reduction programs as a means for a mainly white, urban governing minority to limit the economic advancement of a rural indigenous majority.

Cocalero influence has been greatest in Bolivia, where the Bolivian cocaleros’ founder and leader, Evo Morales, won the country’s presidency in the December 2005 Bolivian Election. Bolivia’s coca cultivation grew by eight percent in 2005 to 25,500 hectares, thanks in part to cocalero activism and the government’s desire to avoid violent confrontation. It was the fourth year in succession that the figure has risen. Between 2001 to 2005, coca cultivation in Bolivia has gradually expanded by 36 percent, from 19,500 to 26,500 hectares. Though this amount is half of Bolivia’s peak cultivation figure of 52,000 hectares in 1989, the trend is disquieting, as it shows no signs of being reversible in the short run.

In Peru, though government programs surpassed their 2005 coca eradication goal, they still may not have kept pace with expanding coca cultivation. Cocaleros in those rural valleys, where in previous years the violent Sendero Luminoso guerrillas held sway, have become more violent and better organized. New terrorist groups claiming an affiliation with Sendero Luminoso have openly identified with coca growers and drug traffickers. They have organized increasingly violent ambushes of police and intimidation of alternative development teams in coca growing areas.

USG estimates of coca cultivation for 2005 were not available at time of publication. The Government of Peru’s Office of Drug Control, however, has accepted as accurate the United Nation’s June 2005 estimate of 50,000 hectares of coca under cultivation in Peru.

Interdiction

Cocaine seizures in the Western hemisphere set new records in 2005. Colombian interdiction programs seized 228 metric tons of cocaine in the course of the year, a record for any country, including the United States. Of this amount, the Colombian National Police secured 94 metric tons, while the remaining 124 metric tons were seized by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Colombian forces destroyed 104 HCl and 773 base labs.

Other important drug-affected countries in the Hemisphere also reported seizing impressive amounts of cocaine: Bolivia, 10.7 metric tons; Peru, 15.6 metric tons; Venezuela, 54.2 metric tons; Mexico, 21 metric tons. In all, these countries seized approximately 329 metric tons of cocaine, more than the estimated 300 metric tons that enter the United States every year. Its retail value on the streets of the U.S. would have been approximately $33 billion.

Opium and Heroin

Opium poppy is the source of heroin. Containing its cultivation presents its own set of challenges. Unlike coca, which currently grows in significant amounts in only three Andean countries, opium poppy is cultivated in nearly every region of the world. In contrast to coca, a perennial which takes at least a year to mature into usable leaf, opium poppy is an easily planted annual crop with as many as three harvests per year. The gum is harvestable in less than six months. It is therefore much harder to eliminate.

Most of the heroin used in the United States comes from poppies grown in Colombia and Mexico, though their opium gum production accounts for less than four percent of the world’s total production. Mexico’s geographical location allows Mexican growers and refiner to supply some 30 to 40 percent of the U.S. heroin market, mostly west of the Mississippi River. Colombia supplies most of the remainder of the states east of the Mississippi. Since eliminating poppy cultivation in Colombia and Mexico is crucial to reducing U.S.-bound heroin flows, we have had long-standing joint eradication programs in both countries.

Colombian law enforcement and alternative development programs eradicated 2,000 hectares of opium poppy in 2005. Of these, 1,624hectares were sprayed and 376 hectares uprooted through voluntary manual eradication programs. The 2005 cultivation and production data were not available at the time of publication.

In Mexico, in the first 11 months of 2005, the Government of Mexico (GOM) reported eradicating slightly over 20,000 hectares of opium poppy, approximately the same annual level of opium eradication that Mexican authorities have reported in previous years. The 2005 cultivation and production data were not available at time of publication.

Burma is the world’s second largest producer of illicit opium after Afghanistan, accounting for most of Southeast Asian heroin. In 2005, Burma produced an estimated 380 metric tons of opium, less than eight percent of the opium produced in Afghanistan. Burma’s opium poppy is grown predominantly in the "Golden Triangle" border region of Shan State—in areas near the borders of China, Laos, and Thailand controlled by former insurgent groups (less than one percent of Burma’s poppy crop is grown outside of Shan State).

The remaining 90-plus percent of the world’s opium gum production occurs in Afghanistan. Afghanistan supplies all but a small amount of the heroin going to Europe and Russia. Because of the limited reach of Afghan law enforcement, endemic corruption, and a weak judicial system, the Afghan Government has been unable to enforce a total ban against opium cultivation. Low opium prices after a large harvest last year, threats of destruction and appeals from President Karzai to the provincial governors and the people of Afghanistan to forego the planting of opium in return for alternative development assistance appear to have resulted in major reductions in overall poppy cultivation in 2005, most notably in Nangarhar Province. The latest USG crop survey, released in November 2005, revealed that approximately 107,400 hectares of poppy were cultivated during the 2005 crop season, 48 percent less than in 2004. The crop had an estimated potential yield of 4,475 metric tons of opium, down only ten percent because favorable weather increased yields.

Synthetic Drugs

Amphetamine-Type Stimulants. Global demand for Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS), such as methamphetamine, amphetamine, and MDMA ("ecstasy’), has steadily increased throughout both the industrialized and the developing world. ATS drugs have displaced cocaine as the stimulant of choice in many countries, especially in those of Central and Northern Europe, and Southeast Asia. The relative ease and low cost of manufacturing ATS drugs from readily available chemicals appeals as much to small drug entrepreneurs as to the large international syndicates. Since they do not rely on organic sources such as coca and opium poppy, synthetics allow individual trafficking organizations to control the whole process, from manufacture to sale on the street. Synthetics can be made anywhere and offer enormous profit margins.

Methamphetamine. Methamphetamine abuse remains the fastest-growing drug threat in the United States today. Transnational drug trafficking organizations, based in Mexico and California, control a large percentage of the U.S. methamphetamine trade. Mexico is the principal foreign supplier of methamphetamine and most frequently used transit country for ATS precursors (especially Pseudoephedrine-PSE) destined for the United States. USG drug enforcement authorities believe that PSE imported into Canada continues to be diverted to the United States for illegal drug manufacture. Since Canada enacted regulations in 2002 to control PSE and other precursor and essential chemicals, a drop in seizures suggests that flows are diminishing.

Methamphetamine has displaced heroin as the principal trafficked drug in Burma and Thailand. Almost every country chapter in this year’s INCSR indicates a rise in methamphetamine or other ATS drug trafficking and consumption. Methamphetamine production in the U.S. shows no sign of slowing, as demonstrated by DEA’s National Clandestine Drug Data reporting of the seizure of several thousand U.S. methamphetamine laboratories in 2004, with the largest numbers in Missouri (2,707), and Tennessee (1,259).

Ecstasy. There continues to be substantial global demand for MDMA (ecstasy), the amphetamine analogue 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Clandestine laboratories in the Netherlands, and to a lesser extent in Belgium, are the principal suppliers of MDMA to the international market, but there also seems to be a good deal of production in Canada. The Netherlands took notable steps against the ecstasy trade in 2005, as highlighted in November when Dutch authorities dismantled the largest MDMA laboratory ever discovered in that country. Labs in Poland are major suppliers of amphetamines to the European market, with the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries among the heaviest consumers of amphetamine. In the United States, however, over the past five years ecstasy use has plummeted among the teenage population most at risk. According to the December 2005 Monitoring the Future report, annual prevalence rates among teenagers are between a half and a third of what they were in early 2001.

Cannabis (Marijuana)

Cannabis (marijuana) production and consumption is a problem in nearly every country, not least in the United States. Drug organizations in Mexico and Canada produce more than 5,000 metric tons of marijuana, which is then marketed to more than 20 million users in the United States. Colombia, Jamaica, and Paraguay also export marijuana to the United States. Of greatest concern to the USG is the high potency cannabis produced on a large scale in Canada. Plants are grown in laboratory conditions using specialized timers, ventilation, moveable lights on tracks, nutrients sprayed on exposed roots and special fertilizer that maximize THC levels. The result is a particularly powerful, dangerous, and addictive drug. The higher the THC content, the greater is the danger. Despite suggestions that marijuana use has no long-term consequences, the latest scientific information indicates that marijuana is associated with learning difficulties as well as memory disturbances and may contribute to schizophrenia.

Attacking Trafficking Organizations

The drug trade depends upon reliable and efficient distribution systems to get its product to market. While most illicit distribution systems have short-term back-up channels to compensate for temporary law enforcement disruptions, a network under intense enforcement pressure cannot function for long. Working closely with our neighbors and allies, our strategy targets the leadership of the main trafficking groups, focusing on the operations along the network that bring drugs to the United States. Our goal is not simply to disrupt these organizations, but to remove the leadership, the facilitators who launder money and provide the chemicals needed for the production of illicit drugs, and their networks. By capturing the leaders of trafficking organizations, we demonstrate both to the criminals and to the governments fighting them that even the most powerful drug syndicates are vulnerable to concerted action by U.S. and host-government authorities.

Mexican drug syndicates oversee much of the drug trafficking in the United States. They have a strong presence in most of the primary U.S. distribution centers, directing the movement of cocaine, heroin, ATS drugs, and marijuana. Three years ago, in 2003, USG and Mexican officials developed a common targeting plan against major drug trafficking organizations in both countries. We also implemented secure mechanisms for data sharing. As a result, Mexican Federal enforcement and military authorities inflicted serious damage on several important trafficking organizations.

Mexican authorities struck at the leadership and key operating figures in major drug syndicates. These included: Juan Jose Alvarez Tostado, the financial mastermind of the Carrillo Fuentes Organization; Gulf Cartel principal operator Guadalupe Eugenio Rivera "El Gordo" Mata; Jose Gustavo "El Chapulin" Contreras Lopez, the leader of an Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) cell, based in the border region of Tijuana (Baja California), and engaged in kidnappings and murders related to drug trafficking. The top target was the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, one of Mexico’s best-known drug lords and a key figure in moving cocaine from Colombia to Mexico and on to the United States. In 2005, Mexican authorities arrested Guzman Loera’s son, Archivaldo, Guzman’s brother, Miguel Angel, and an important enforcer for "El Chapo’s" organization, Joaquin Angel Rios Felix. In November in Mexico City, Mexican federal agents arrested Ricardo ("The Doctor") Garcia Urquiza, an important drug trafficker, money launderer, and associate of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. Mexican authorities have described him as one of the most important drug traffickers arrested in Mexico in 2005.

In 2005, as in previous years, Sensitive Investigative Units (SIUs) within the Mexican Federal Investigative Agency served as effective mechanisms for sharing sensitive intelligence data in both directions without compromise. They played an important role in successful investigations against drug trafficking organizations on both sides of the border.

Institutional Reform

A pivotal element of USG international drug control policy has been to help governments strengthen their enforcement, judicial, and financial institutions to narrow the opportunities for infiltration by the drug trade. In drug source and transit countries, law enforcement agencies often arrest influential drug criminals only to see them released following a questionable or inexplicable decision by a single judge.

This still occurs, but not as often. Each year, there are fewer of these abuses, as governments work for basic reforms involving transparency, efficiency, and better pay for police and judges. Reform efforts advanced in 2005. For example, the Mexican government proposed ambitious justice sector reforms to re-organize federal law enforcement agencies, introduce oral testimony at criminal trials, and create a more professional public defender system. In Colombia, USG agencies have provided training, technical assistance, and equipment to enhance the system’s capacity and capabilities and to make it more transparent to the public. Chile completed its multi-year, nationwide criminal justice reform project in June 2005, adopting a new adversarial judicial system relying on oral trials rather than document-based legal proceedings. There are similarly encouraging developments outlined in many of the country chapters of this report.

Extradition

Extradition to the United States is still the sanction international drug criminals fear most. The host of notorious foreign drug criminals serving long prison terms in the U.S. is a sober reminder to the most powerful international criminals of what can happen when they can no longer use bribes and intimidation to manipulate the local judicial process. Over the past decade, governments have been increasingly willing to risk domestic political repercussions and extradite drug kingpins to the United States.

Colombia and Mexico now extradite drug criminals to the United States on a regular basis. The number of extraditions from Colombia to the United States has increased significantly in recent years. In President Uribe’s administration, extraditions have increased dramatically, with 304 Colombian nationals and 11 nonnationals extradited by the end of 2005.

In early 2005, Colombia extradited FARC leader Anayibe Rojas Valderama (aka "Comandante Sonia") and other criminal associates for drug trafficking and terrorism charges. Colombia also extradited Cali Cartel leader Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela in 2005. Other high-ranking drug trafficking targets arrested and/or extradited include Consolidated Priority Targets and members of the North Valley Cartel’s Top 10 list, such as Gabriel Puerta Parra, Jose Rendon Ramirez, John Cano Carrera, and Dagaberto Florez

In 2005 for the fourth consecutive year, Mexican authorities extradited a record number of fugitives to the United States. As of mid December, Mexico had extradited 40 fugitives to the United States, up from 34 in 2004, 31 in 2003, and 25 in 2002. These included Mexican citizens and narcotics and money laundering defendants.

In a watershed decision in late 2005, the Mexican Supreme court removed a significant obstacle to the extradition of fugitives facing life imprisonment in the United States for major drug trafficking and violent crimes. Reversing a 2004 decision, the court ruled that life in prison without the possibility of parole did not violate the Mexican Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Criminals subject to the death penalty in the United States, however, cannot be extradited since the Mexican Constitution prohibits capital punishment.

In another departure from past practice, the Afghan Government for the first time permitted the extradition of one of its citizens for drug trafficking to a foreign country. Afghanistan will extradite Haji Baz Mohammad under the 1988 UN Drug Convention to the U.S. to stand trial on narcotics charges. Other countries that extradited criminals to the U.S. in 2005 for prosecution were the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ghana, and Paraguay.

Controlling Drug Processing Chemicals

Cocaine, heroin and synthetic drugs cannot be manufactured without certain critical chemicals, many of which are subject to international controls. 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 indispensable chemicals—potassium permanganate for cocaine and acetic anhydride for heroin—for which there are few readily 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 specific legitimate uses. They are commercially traded in smaller quantities to discrete users. Governments must have efficient legal and regulatory regimes to control such chemicals, without placing undue burdens on legitimate commerce. The United States, other major chemical trading countries, and the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board worked in 2005 to improve controls on cocaine and heroin processing chemicals, and those used for manufacturing synthetic drugs.

Bilaterally, we continued to work closely with the Canadian government in 2005 to curtail the diversion of drug processing chemicals to criminal interests in the United States. Pseudoephedrine (PSE), a common cold remedy and the main component in the manufacturing of methamphetamine, is legally imported into Canada from China, India, and Germany. U.S. counternarcotics authorities assess that a portion of those imports is diverted to the United States for the production of illicit drugs. Other precursor chemicals available in Canada and used in the production of synthetic drugs are sassafras oil, piperonal, and gamma butyrolactone (GBL). These precursors are used in the manufacturing of ecstasy (medthylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA), methylenedioxy-amphetamine (MDA), and gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB).

In November 2005, the Canadian Government implemented the first major amendments to augment the 2003 Precursor Control Regulations. These changes strengthen verification of import and export licensing procedures, require that companies requesting those licenses provide additional detail in their initial requests provide guidelines on the suspension and revocation of licenses for abusers, and add controls of six chemicals that can be used to produce GHB and/or methamphetamine.

Controlling Supply

The USG’s goal is to reduce and ultimately cut off the flow of illegal drugs to the United States. Our strategy targets drug supply at critical points along a five-point grower-to-user chain that links the consumer in the United States to the grower in a source country. In the case of cocaine or heroin, the chain starts with the growers cultivating coca or opium poppies, for instance, in the Andes or Afghanistan. It ends with the cocaine or heroin user in a U.S. town or city. The intermediate links are the processing (drug refining), transit (transport), and wholesale distribution stages.

Our international programs target the first three links of the grower-to-user chain: cultivation, processing, and transit. The closer we can attack to the source, the better are our chances of halting the flow of drugs altogether. Crop control is the most cost-effective means of cutting supply. Drugs cannot enter the system from crops that have been destroyed or left unharvested. It is the equivalent of removing a malignant growth before it can spread uncontrollably into the rest of the system. In theory, with no drug crops to harvest, there would be no cocaine or heroin for distribution, nor would there be any need for costly enforcement and interdiction operations.

In the real world, however, theory falters. Widespread (aerial and chemical) eradication is not legal in many countries. Even when eradication is feasible, destroying a lucrative crop, even an illegal one, carries enormous political, economic and social consequences for the producing country. In most cases, it means threatening the livelihood of the poorest sector of the population. Democratic governments that take away vital income without any viable quid pro quo seldom survive for long. Developing, implementing, and reaping the benefits of practical, long-term alternatives for the affected population can take decades. So we also must focus upon the succeeding links: the processing and distribution stages of laboratory destruction and interdiction of drug shipments.

Our programs can shift resources to those links where we can achieve both an immediate impact and long-term results. The right combination of effective law enforcement actions and alternative development programs can deliver truly remarkable results, as coca reductions in the Andean region demonstrate. 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 individual circumstances. Alternative development programs play a vital role in countries seeking to free their agricultural sector from reliance on the drug trade by offering farmers opportunities to abandon illegal activities and join the legitimate economy. In the Andean countries, such programs provide funds and technical assistance to strengthen public and private institutions, expand rural infrastructure; improve natural resources management, introduce alternative legal crops, and develop local and international markets for these products.

Illegal Drugs, Spraying, and the Environment

Questions inevitably arise over the environmental risks of regular use of herbicides on illegal drug crops. Colombia is currently the only country that allows regular aerial spraying of coca and opium poppy. The Colombian government has approved 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.

Environmental Consequences of Illicit Coca Cultivation

The environmental impact of approved herbicides must be weighed against the devastating potential of all aspects of coca cultivation. Coca cultivation in the Andean region has led to the destruction of approximately six million acres of rainforest in the past twenty years. Working in remote areas beyond settled populations, coca growers routinely slash and burn virgin forestland to make way for their illegal crops. Tropical rains quickly erode the thin topsoil of the fields, increasing soil runoff, depleting soil nutrients, and, by destroying timber and other resources that would otherwise be available for more sustainable uses, decreasing biological diversity. The destructive cycle continues, as growers regularly abandon nonproductive parcels to prepare new plots. At the same time, traffickers destroy jungle forests to build clandestine landing strips and laboratories for processing raw coca and poppy into cocaine and heroin.

Illicit coca growers tend to be negligent and indiscriminate in their use of fertilizers and pesticides. Largely ignorant about the consequences of indiscriminate use of strong chemicals, they 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.

The most toxic chemicals are those 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 kilograms 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 and poison water systems and dependent species in the process.

Interdiction in the Transit Zone

Despite the international community’s best efforts to attack the drug supply within source countries, the United States and our allies must continue to provide an effective presence in the transit zone, specifically for cocaine moving north out of South America. This has required a well-coordinated effort between transit zone countries and USG agencies including DOD, DHS, and DOJ. Source country intelligence combined with post seizure intelligence has improved dramatically in the last several years to yield better actionable intelligence within the transit zone. The Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-South with billeted international partners from throughout the Caribbean Basin has focused on intelligence to detect and monitor maritime drug movements while maneuvering interdiction assets into position to effect a seizure. The USG’s efforts to create and expand authorities based on bilateral agreements with Caribbean and Latin American countries have eased the burden on these countries’ law enforcement assets to conduct at sea boardings and search for contraband. These bilateral agreements have also allowed the USG to gain jurisdiction over cases and remove the corrosive pressure from large Trafficking Organizations on some foreign governments. This team effort led to unprecedented success by removing over 150 metric tons of cocaine from the maritime transit zone in 2005 by USG assets. Continued success will depend on the allocation of tightly constrained resources to improve on the inroads and agreements reached in the last several years.

Fighting Corruption

Though corruption may seem a less obvious threat than the challenge of armed insurgents, the weakening of government institutions through bribery and intimidation ultimately poses just as great a danger to democratic governments. Terrorist groups or guerrilla armies overtly seek to topple and replace governments through violence. Drug syndicates, however, work behind the scenes, seeking to subvert governments in order to guarantee themselves a secure operating environment by co-opting key officials. Unchecked, the drug trade is capable of taking de facto control of a country by essentially buying off a majority of key government officials, including a president. With a president, defense chief, and interior minister secretly on its payroll, a criminal organization can operate with near impunity behind the façade of sovereign legitimate government. While this has yet to happen, there have been several close calls in the recent past. By keeping the focus on eliminating corruption, we can prevent the nightmare of a government entirely manipulated by drug lords from becoming a reality.

Fighting the drug trade is a dominant element in a broader struggle against corruption. Drug organizations possess and wield the ultimate instrument of corruption: money. The drug trade has access to almost unimaginable quantities of it. No commodity is so widely available, so cheap to produce, and as easily renewable as illegal drugs. They offer dazzling profit margins that allow criminals to generate illicit 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 $100 million on the streets of the United States—twice as much if the drug is cut with additives. That same metric ton typically would have cost around $3,000,000 ($3,000 per kilogram) when it left Colombia. Few legitimate businesses can boast of a 30-fold return. At $100 per gram, the 329 metric tons of cocaine seized in Mexico and Latin America in 2005 could in theory be worth as much as $30 billion to the drug trade, more than the gross domestic product of many of the countries of Central America. If only a portion of these profits flows back to the drug syndicates, we are still speaking of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.

To put these sums into perspective, in FY 2005 the State Department’s budget for international drug control operations was approximately $1.2 billion. That equates to roughly 12 metric tons of cocaine. The drug syndicates have lost that amount in a single shipment, with no serious consequences, except to the unfortunate subordinate responsible for the loss.

Next Steps

The international drug trade is a complex, dynamic organism that learns quickly from its mistakes. It is nothing if not adaptable. Every time we score a major success-and over the past decade and a half we have had many-the drug trade learns from it. Successful operations weed out the weaker elements, leaving the more agile and sophisticated criminals in place. In time, this selection process eventually leaves us with a very astute adversary.

The drug trade itself also evolves naturally, like any business in a competitive market place. We are now dealing with second or even third-generation transnational drug syndicates. They embrace modern management techniques, employ state-of-the-art communications, and hire the best technical and financial expertise.

The drug trade, however, has an inherent weakness: it is simultaneously a criminal organization and a business. It has to straddle two worlds. As a criminal organization, it operates in the shadows with virtual impunity. But to prosper as a business, it must emerge into the legitimate commercial world and lose its protective cover. Once in the legitimate world, 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.

In the past twenty years, working with our international partners, we have successfully increased pressures on the drug trade and narrowed opportunities at every stage of their operations, from cultivation and production to transport and marketing. Without lessening pressure at all these points, we must now intensify our efforts to strike at the critical point-the financial end. Just as a business that cannot reinvest its profits soon fails, without a steady flow of funds, the drug trade cannot function effectively. Since governments individually control domestic access the global financial system, working together they have the potential to make it all but impossible for drug profits to enter the legitimate international financial system. Our goal is to transform that potential into a reality and reduce the drug trade from serious threat to a common nuisance.

Demand Reduction

Drug "demand reduction" aims to reduce worldwide use and abuse of illicit drugs worldwide. The need for demand reduction is reflected in escalating drug use that takes a devastating toll on health, welfare, security and economic stability of all countries. Recognizing this problem, the National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD#25) on International Drug Control Policy urges the Secretary of State "to expand U.S. international demand reduction assistance and information sharing programs in key source and transit countries". As opposed to drug production and trafficking, the NSPD addresses rising global demand for drugs as the principal threat to the U.S. As outlined in the NSPD, drug trafficking organizations and their linkages to international terrorist groups also constitute a serious threat to U.S. national security by generating money that increasingly threatens global peace and stability. Demand reduction assistance has subsequently evolved as a key foreign policy tool to address the inter-connected threats of drugs, crime, and terrorism. More recently it is recognized as a key complimentary component in efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in countries with high intravenous drug users.

Foreign countries recognize the vast U.S. experience and efforts in reducing drug demand. In return for cooperation with supply reduction efforts, many drug producing and transit countries request U.S. assistance with demand reduction technology, since drug consumption also has debilitating effects on their society and children. Demand reduction assistance thereby helps secure foreign country support for U.S. driven supply reduction efforts, while at the same time reducing consumption in that country and reducing a major source of terrorist financing.

Our demand reduction strategy encompasses a wide range of initiatives to address the needs and national security threat posed by the illicit drug trade. 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 community coalition development efforts to increase public awareness of the deleterious consequences of drug use/abuse. 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 services provided in the U.S. and around the world.

In 2005, INL’s assistance targeted the cocaine producing and transit countries in Latin America, addressed the amphetamine-type stimulant (ATS) epidemic in Southeast Asia, and addressed the heroin threat from Asia, Afghanistan and Colombia. It also focused on countries in Southeast Asia and Africa where intravenous drug use is fueling an HIV/AIDS epidemic. INL continued to fund bilateral training at various locations throughout the world on topics such as community/grassroots coalition building and networking, U.S. policies and programs, science-based drug prevention programming, and treatment within the criminal justice system. As a result of INL’s training assistance, the first counternarcotics community coalition network outside the United States was established in Peru. INL funded a symposium on Drug Demand Reduction in Kabul, Afghanistan that was attended by over 500 of the country’s senior religious leaders and resulted in a major Fatwa against drug production, trafficking and abuse in that country. INL’s training targeting predominantly Muslim populations also resulted in the establishment of mosque-based outreach drug treatment centers in 25 provinces throughout Afghanistan, 12 centers in Indonesia religious schools and a total of 6 in Pakistan, Southern Philippines and Malaysia.

INL funding has provided new updated curricula to 24 Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) programs in Latin America and Asia. INL funding also supported drug treatment training in Vietnam to address the connection between intravenous drug use and HIV/AIDS, and to reduce overall drug consumption. INL funded comprehensive multi-year scientific studies on pilot projects and programs developed from INL-funded training to learn how these initiatives can help assist U.S.-and foreign-based demand reduction efforts. An outcome-based evaluation of INL-funded, school-based D.A.R.E. training in Colombia revealed that drug use was reduced from 54 percent to 10 percent in the eight target cities participating in the program. Other recent research on the long-term impact of INL-funded treatment training in Peru revealed that overall drug use was reduced from 90 percent to 34 percent in the targeted population. A leading journal on drug addiction, Journal of Teaching in the Addictions, devoted its entire November 2005 edition to "best practices" in drug abuse treatment that resulted from INL assistance to Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

Methodology for Estimating Illegal Drug Production

How Much Do We Know? The INCSR contains a variety of illicit drug-related data. These numbers represent the United States Government’s best effort to sketch the current dimensions of the international drug problem. Some numbers are more certain than others. Drug cultivation figures are relatively hard data derived by proven means, such as imagery with ground truth confirmation. Other numbers, such as crop production and drug yield estimates, become softer as more variables come into play. As we do every year, 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, we revise our estimates in the light of field research. The clandestine, violent nature of the illegal drug trade makes such field research difficult. Geography is also an impediment, as 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 number of hectares under cultivation during any given year is our most solid statistic. For nearly twenty years, 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 extent of cultivation with reasonable accuracy.

What We Know With Less Certainty. 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. To add to our uncertainty, most illicit drug crop areas are not easily accessible to the United States Government, making scientific information difficult to obtain. Therefore, we are estimating the 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. The size of 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. 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 obviously affect production.

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, these illicit drug statistics represent the state of the art. As new information becomes available and as the art improves, so will the precision of the estimates.

Worldwide Illicit Drug Cultivation
1998-2005 (All Figures in Hectares)

	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998
Opium
Afghanistan	107,000	206,700	61,000	30,750	1,685	64,510	51,500	41,720
India
Iran
Pakistan		3,100		622	213	515	1,570	3,030
Total SW Asia	107,000	209,800	61,000	31,372	1,898	65,025	53,070	44,750
Burma	40,000	30,900	47,130	78,000	105,000	108,700	89,500	130,300
China
Laos	5,600	10,000	18,900	23,200	22,000	23,150	21,800	26,100
Thailand				750	820	890	835	1,350
Vietnam				1,000	2,300	2,300	2,100	3,000
Total SE Asia	45,600	40,900	66,030	102,950	130,120	135,040	114,235	160,750
Colombia		2,100	4,400	4,900	6,500	7,500	7,500	6,100
Lebanon
Guatemala		330
Mexico		3,500	4,800	2,700	4,400	1,900	3,600	5,500
Total Other		5,930	9,200	7,600	10,900	9,400	11,100	11,600
Total Opium	152,600	256,630	136,230	141,922	142,918	209,465	178,405	217,100
Coca
Bolivia	26,500	24,600	23,200	21,600	19,900	14,600	21,800	38,000
Colombia1		114,100	113,850	144,450	169,800	136,200	122,500	101,800
Peru	38,000	27,500	29,250	34,700	34,000	34,200	38,700	51,000
Ecuador
Total Coca	64,500	166,200	166,300	200,750	223,700	185,000	183,000	190,800
Cannabis
Mexico				3,900	3,900	3,900	3,700	4,600
Colombia		5,000	5,000	5,000	5,000	5,000	5,000	5,000
Jamaica
Total Cannabis		5,000	5,000	8,900	8,900	8,900	8,700	9,600