THE COCA AND THE COCAINE WAR
The current “War on Drugs” involves skirmishes in an arena with two fronts: The consumer and the manufacturer. The successes and failures of the battle are not clearly identified without first looking at how the battle can be ultimately won. When it comes to cocaine, the problem of punishing the whole instead of the individual is hard to define. Many countries use the raw ingredient, the coca plant, as part of a social and cultural structure. The only way to win the “War on Drugs” is to focus war efforts on fighting the manufacturer of the finished cocaine product.
The “War on Cocaine” has been trying to fight a battle on two fronts. The first objective of the American government is to deter the consumer from using illegal products. The genesis of punishment against users is sited in the 1914 Harrison Act, in which addicts and others that possessed drugs were punished for buying or possessing cocaine or heroin without a prescription (Bertram, 26). This act began a trend that still today allows law enforcement to arrest the user along with the supplier. The supplier (drug trafficker) is the key in this type of police action, because most of the time the user will be unaware of the exact origin of the substance or have any knowledge as to where it was purchased or manufactured. The main problem with this type of arrest is that 70 to 75 percent of the narcotic arrests per year are for possession and only 25 to 30 percent are for actual drug trafficking offenses. Although the user should not be overlooked, a greater emphasis ought to be focused on the supplier in order to reach the actual manufacturer of the illegal substances.
The other front of the battle of the “War on Drugs” comes from locating and shutting down the manufacturers of cocaine. Cocaine is manufactured from the coca plant, the drug’s main ingredient. When the government imposes sanctions on different nations for growing the coca plant, careful considerations must be made. Just like any other market, there may be underlying circumstances for growing the plant that are perfectly innocent to the illegal cocaine market.
The key influence of the coca market comes from the Andean countries of South America: Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. These countries are responsible for almost exclusively cultivating the coca plant, but Colombia is the main processing nation of the plant into cocaine, at nearly 70 percent (Stares, 2).
Paul Gootenberg. Andean cocaine: the making of a global drug. 01 Jan. 2011. 10 Oct. 2011
The drug trade is a very large and complex system. There are many different organizations involved at different levels. There are groups that operate only in growing and selling the product, and only groups that buy and distribute the drugs. In this essay I will discuss the similarities and differences of two of the largest growers and sellers in the drug trade: The Cali Cartel of Columbia and the Tijuana Cartel of Mexico.
...ent of all the cocaine consumed in Canada and the United States (Beare 1996: 86). The Colombian cartels control the bulk of the cocaine market through out most of the western world. Enforcement officials are only just begging to understand the extent and the sophistication of the Colombian cartels' criminal activities here in Canada. The links that the Colombians are making with other criminal groups could prove to be very dangerous.
address due to coca being a traditional crop and trade item, the influence and wealth of the drug traffickers opposing restrictions, and the issue of national sovereignty. Most realize the social impact of the drug trade worldwide, but few realize the environmental impact.
How the commodity chain works isn’t only on the product, there’s a responsibility needed to be reached by the organization and geographical sense as well. This however, is more difficult for the cocaine commodity chain because of its illicit status. Geographically, the growth of the coca leaf depends on what it needs to grow, therefore the leaf is grown in Peru and Bolivia. The production of the cocaine was from Cuba and Chile then smuggled into the United States for distribution. The way this commodity chain is spaced out makes a lot of sense. Peru and Bolivia, side by side countries on the coast of South America produce the coca to be shipped along the coast to Cuba and Chile to be processed. By having these places on the coast, it puts transaction costs to a minimum saving them money. By different productions being in different places in order for them to work it labels the cocaine commodity chain as a social division of labour. Once the cocaine was in the United States, there were three main groups. The main man, this guy was responsible for bringing it into the country and making the connection to Southern America to receive their shipment. Then it is brought to the wholesalers. The wholesalers are responsible for distributing large amounts of cocaine to their dealers; who then sell in smaller amounts to consumers.
Cocaine itself is derived from the coca plant commonly found in South America. For centuries, the native people of South America have used the coca plant, its leaves in particular, as a stimulant for long work hours as well as for medical purposes. It was not until 1859 that modern cocaine was developed as a drug in Germany (Crack Cocaine History, n.d.). By the late 1800’s, the medical knowledge of cocaine had spread world-wide and many American doctors began to prescribe the use of cocaine as a medical drug to cure different illnesses and ease common pain. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s, however, that the negative side effects of cocaine became apparent; these side effects included addiction and death. With such detrimental side effects, cocaine was declared a threat to the nation and in 1914, cocaine became what’s known as a controlled substance that could only be obtained by a prescription from a doctor for medical reasons only (much like today’s ‘medical marijuana’). However, by controlling access and usage of cocaine, America inadvertently gave way to an entirely new drug cartel that they weren’t prepared to deal with. In the beginning of cocaine being a controlled substance, it became less popular and one of the lesser drugs to be abused in the United States. It wasn’t until the 1960’s and 70’s that the use of cocaine became popular again. This widespread ‘cocaine boom’ affected all
The crack and cocaine epidemic of the United States has shaped America’s basis on the war against drugs. In the early 1980s, the majority of cocaine began to be shipped to the United States, landing in Miami originally coming through the Bahamas and Dominican Republic (UDOJ)”. The foreign origin from the drug made it easier for dealer to quietly return to the United States with the drug and also its receipt. “Soon there was a huge amount of cocaine powder in these islands, which caused the price to drop by as much as 80 percent (UDJ)”. Thus making it more assessable for shipment to America.
...native Indians. The native people have used the coca leafs as a medicinal drug up until the present day. Until the early 1950’s the coca leaf was readily used in soft drinks and was considered socially excitable in the United States. In the early 1960’s the United States made cocaine illegal and created a large underworld in most Latin America countries. By the mid 1960’s over sixty five percent of Bolivia’s workers made their livelihood off the coca plant. The Bolivian government had no reason to try to stop the drug trade in their country; cartel leaders were paying huge payments to government officials. During the 1980’s Ronald Regan attempted to curve the in flux of cocaine in to the United States with no real results. During 1990’s the United States started to send large amounts of funding and training for Latin America’s military to combat the cartels.
...purity has increased. “10 million people are in jail worldwide for drug-related offences, civil liberties have been widely infringed and thousands die in the drug war each year. The drug-free world so confidently predicted by supporters of the 1961 Single Convention is further than ever from realization.” Even though many believe that drugs are an evil substance, the trafficking of drugs actually has its benefits. It can generate a substantial amount of jobs. It results in employment for large amounts of peasants, creating drug profits distributed in small amounts to large numbers of people. Along with peasants, the presence of cocaine has created a large amount of jobs for those that are anti-drug like the DEA. "Our drug officials are very irresponsible in global strategies," Paul Gootenberg "They have tunnel vision. They don't look at the global implications."
Nowadays, when someone thinks of Colombia, they unfortunately almost always think of two things, coffee and cocaine (with its associated guerilla warfare). It is true that during the last 50 years these two products, one legal, and the other not, have been great monetary contributors to the Colombian economy. Coffee is Colombia’s principal agricultural product, and it is also the country’s second largest export. The production of coffee uses 300,000 farms and employs almost one million people (Steiner 6). Conversely, cocaine is a completely illegal product, but it earns almost twice as much money as coffee (Steiner 6). Also, in contrast with the production of coffee, cocaine uses fewer employees but earns more money (Steiner 6). The history of the Colombian drug trade is something relatively recent, given that it pertains to the last 50 years of contemporary Colombian history. After World War II, there is evidence of the, “exportation of drugs from Colombia to the United States…since the 1950s Medellín was an international center of drug trade…” (Salazar 78). Basically, the drug trade had its small beginnings in the 1950s, and in the 1960s the different groups of drug lords began to consolidate into drug cartels. “The activity of dealing drugs in Colombia dates back to the 1970s with the cultivation and exportation of marijuana…” (Thoumi 139). In the 1970s, drug lords like Pablo Escobar, an extremely powerful mafia-like leader of the Colombian drug ring, took control and created a completely illegal and clandestine economy centered around narcotics. Little by little, these groups of drug lords and their cohorts, who divided themselves regionally, began to gain control. Eventually the situat...
. “The illegal drug market in the United States is one of the most profitable in the world. As such, it attracts the most ruthless, sophisticated, and aggressive drug traffickers.” Throughout the years drug trafficking has been a major issue in America. These issues have impacted our economy, security, which promote new laws and policies throughout the U.S. and among our boarders. Drug Trafficking has created conflict with other countries such as Mexico. “…criminal groups operating from neighboring Mexico smuggle cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, amphetamine, and marijuana into the United States. These criminal groups have smuggled heroin and marijuana across the Southwest Border and distributed them throughout the United States since the 1970s.” (Policy Almanac).
Concerned authorities have focused essentially on criminalization and punishment, to find remedies to the ever-increasing prevalent drug problem. In the name of drug reducing policies, authorities endorse more corrective and expensive drug control methods and officials approve stricter new drug war policies, violating numerous human rights. Regardless of or perhaps because of these efforts, UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $US400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly eight per cent of total international trade (Riley 1998). This trade has increased organized/unorganized crime, corrupted authorities and police officials, raised violence, disrupted economic markets, increased risk of diseases an...
Holmes explains that, “The corrosive economic effects of Colombia’s persistently high levels of generalized political violence and the specific consequences of the cocaine trade” (104). The paramilitary seen what kind of money cocaine was bringing in and decided to join the dark side and started using the profit from the drug to run their military forces. Villoria says that, “Over the last twenty-five years this widespread violence has ceased to be a rural phenomenon and has taken on many urban features. This is due to the fact that the war between drug barons, guerrilla, and paramilitary groups and the high levels of unemployment in the countryside have forced people to abandon rural areas in large numbers” (75). Money causes people to become irrational because money buys you another day of life in Colombia. The more money you make means another day you and your family can live. Villoria says, “The culture of drug trafficking has become widely known, both inside and outside of Colombia” (p. 78). Since Colombia is so rich in coca leafs than any other country Colombia is the main supplier to all other countries for cocaine like the United States, Bolivia, and Peru. 90% of the cocaine in America is from Colombia. Colombia has even gone to extremes as building submarines to transport cocaine from one country to another, that being said; Colombia is also a major target for jealousy. Other countries are jealous of Colombia and the drug lords from other countries end up starting a war with each other. To keep the coca leaves in Bogotá safe people in the drug cartel set up land mines all over the mountains to keep others out from taking the coca leafs. Colombia has the most landmine victims in the western hemisphere. The families that lived in Bogata at that time ended up being severely injured by the mines
In 1995, the US began to fund aerial eradication campaigns in Colombia. Military planes dumped pesticides over thousands of acres of coca fields. These campaigns turned out to be counterproductive, leading to an actual increase in the amount of coca acreage. The spraying of coca only led Colombian growers to diversify their techniques, growing coca amongst other crops or in locations that were hard to identify by radar techniques. In 2002, the CI...
Most of the coca plants in the world are grown in Peru and Bolivia by Indians that have learned to make coca paste (when coca leaves are mixed with kerosene) from the plant (McFarland 31). The paste that is made is then shipped to Columbia where it is made into a "powdered substance". After the cocaine is made into powder it is shipped to the United States and other parts world (McFarland 32).