THE INTERNATIONAL DRUG COMPLEX (Part 1 of 2)

Repressing the supply of illicit drugs is a counterproductive strategy that
encourages illegal entrepreneurs to reorganise their activities and increase
their profits.

DYNAMICS OF CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT & THE DRUG ECONOMY (1)

The 'War on Drugs' is lost, but the struggle continues. In spite of ever
increasing resources dedicated to the reduction of supply and demand of
illicit drugs, consumption levels are still rising all over the world. The
drug industry is probably the largest and most profitable sector of
international crime. The perceived threats of drug consumption and organized
crime provide the main justifications for important impulses given in recent
years to the development of legislation and the organization of law
enforcement. Drug repression thereby increasingly acquires an international
character. Unilateral, bilateral and multilateral forms of pressure,
intervention and collaboration are proliferating between states in the name
of suffocating the ever swelling drug economy. The prohibition regime is
thereby, in a rapid pace, extended with the coercive powers of states to
intervene in national and international drug markets, but therewith also in
the sovereignty of individuals, peoples and countries.

Just as individuals might get addicted to the use of drugs, so the societies
in which they live are becoming addicted to the money that is generated in
the drug business (OGD 1995:xiii). This seems to be equally true for the
agencies that are assigned the task to control it.

The drug war can not be won, at least not by the state, as long as demand
for illicit drugs exists. Instead of keeping drug trafficking and organized
crime in check, supply repression is likely to increase the profits of
illegal entrepreneurs and to give incentives to the professionalization of
their organizations. Repression induced scarcity inflates the price of the
merchandise; consequently more people will be attracted to take the risk and
enter the business. When governments enhance their efforts to repress the
drug industry, remaining drug entrepreneurs will reorganize their activities
so as to limit the risk of detection and prosecution.

Supply reduction therefore seems a dead end strategy, as it is likely to
produce little but counterproductive effects on the supply of illicit drugs
and on the organizational strength of the trafficker networks it attacks.
There are, nevertheless, many other regulative functions for the police and
other state agencies that might merit their intervention in controlling the
problems related to drug trafficking/ distribution and drug use. Such
problems are basically related to issues of public health and public order.
Ultimately, policies aimed at supply reduction must -at least in accordance
with official policy goals-be judged by how they affect consumer demand;
through the decreased availability of drugs, through an increase in price or
through the deterrent effect of the criminal law (UNDCP 1997:237). This
picture is rather bleak. Over the last decade worldwide production of
illicit drugs has expanded dramatically. Opium and marijuana production has
roughly doubled, and coca production tripled (Perl 1994:ix). New synthetic
drugs find a burgeoning demand in countries all over the world. Nonetheless,
what is discussed in the relevant international fora is not so much if drug
policies are one the right track, but how more powers and resources can be
assigned to law enforcement agencies to suppress the drug trade. Thereby the
prohibition regime is extending its scope towards the financial sector
(money laundering), new drugs, the chemical precursor industry and the
disruption of organized crime. Moreover, it is increasingly extending its
scope across borders.

In public policy debates, human rights and anti-war on drugs perspectives
stand opposed to the belief that only by the strengthening of domestic and
international legal instruments the necessary conditions for the
democratisation of society can be brought about (Dorn, Jepsen, and Savona
1996:4). As proponents of legalization and those of intensified law
enforcement vie with one another in the media and political arenas, the two
worlds of crime and law enforcement are increasing their grip on society.
Both are extending the scope of their activities, professionalize and
internationalize their operations. Moreover, they seem to find support in
the existence of one another.

To understand the perverse dynamics of both the booming drug industry and of
proliferating state powers to control it, it is my contention that more
attention should be given to the political and economic interests related to
both the drug economy and its control. Equally, the intertwined symbiotic
and systemic interactions of the upper and the underworld, which take shape
in the international political economy, need to be more closely scrutinized.

Why people produce, traffic and consume drugs are very complex issues. Money
and the power (poverty and marginalization) that goes with it account for
trafficking and much production. But other answers that explain the
flourishing of the drug economy must be found in society. These relate to
how a society is structured, how political power is accrued and wielded
within it, how economic policy is applied, how the economy performs, and how
resistant the cultural fabric is to the use of public office for private
gain (Tullis 1991:2). To understand the policy options and policy choices of
governments we have to consider these factors as well.

Dealing with these drug related interests, and the multifarious and
interdependent dimensions of the drug problem, poses governments with very
complex policy choices. Difficult as the management of these interests in
the domestic domain may be, with the internationalization of both the drug
economy and drug law enforcement this task places governments for far
greater difficulties. No matter how good the intentions of drug law
enforcement may be, no matter how valuable their outcomes are, they are
unlikely to curb the expansion of the drug industry.

It is to this spiralling escalation between two power contenders on
different sides of the law that I want to draw attention in this article. My
quest is to understand how this failure is produced, why this policy is
continued and what its consequences are. Thereby I mainly try to explain the
escalation of the drug war and understand its underlying dynamics as
deriving from structural changes in the global political economy. I thus
look at the drug war as a response to the problems states face in dealing
with the loss of their authority in a globalizing world. Thereby I focus on
the political and economic stakes of drug trafficking and drug control, and
analyse the flourishing of both the drug industry and the crime control
industry as forms of projecting power and imposing social discipline, and as
mechanisms of wealth accumulation, more adapted to the exigencies of the
pursuit of power and plenty in the 'new world order'. My core point is that
misguided assumptions and the instrumentalization of the War on Drugs - both
in the domestic and the international domain - subvert the goals of the
prohibition regime and produce not only unintended, but also intended
consequences, that explain for its escalation.

By what I label an -as yet incipient-theory of the International Drugs
Complex, I hope to offer a deeper understanding of the mutual dynamics of
the expanding drug industry and the extension of repressive state powers,
and provide further insights in the looming and actual dangers posed by
these forces for the democratization of societies.

The theoretical concept of the International Drug Complex is chosen in
analogy with the theory of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), that was
broadly used to explain for the longevity of the Cold War, the spiralling
arms race, the persistence of ideological antagonisms, 'perverted'
priorities in state budgets and interventionist proclivities of big power's
foreign policies (Rosen 1973:1). To explain the dynamics underlying these
societal events and tendencies, the theory of the MIC focused specifically
on relations between the military establishment and the weapons industry,
that -within the social, economic and institutional fabric of specific
countries- together formed a community of interest powerful enough to lead
to such outcomes. Apart from analyzing such symbiotic relations between
different actors with common and interrelated interests (special interest
groups seeking special attention from the government), the theory of the MIC
also focused on more systemic factors that lead to the growth of both the
arms industry and the military services. Such systemic factors, the theory
asserted, exist both within a specific society and in the international
arena. In the domestic domain, even where there was no structure of interest
mediation between a confederation of business firms and military services,
and where the goals of the MIC were merely achieved through innumerable and
basically unrelated decisions, still the outcomes of these decisions taken
in the pursuit of perceived self-interests lead to the growth of both
sectors. In the international arena, the theorists of the MIC perceived
different, nationally bound, Military-Industrial Complexes to mutually
support each other, as the alleged achievements of one party in the Cold War
urged the other on to greater heights.

In a similar way, in this paper, I try to understand the underlying dynamics
of the War on Drugs, by focusing on the symbiotic and systemic relations
between the drug industry and states' drug control efforts, and from there
develop a theory of the International Drug Complex. This theory should help
to explain for the continuation -if not escalation-of the War on Drugs,
explain the predominant place the drug issue has attained in domestic and
international policies of many states, and provide a deeper understanding of
the very dynamics of the drug industry and of the state powers put in place
to control it.

I depart from the assumption that by focusing on the political and economic
dimensions of the drug industry and drug law enforcement, a more profound
understanding can be achieved of the dynamics underlying their mutual
expansion. I place the drug industry and law enforcement within the context
of both the societies and the international political-economy in which they
take shape, and thereby try to delineate their interactions and mutual
dynamics. To assess the outcomes of their mutual interactions I focus on the
distributional consequences of these interactions within and between
societies; stating these - intended and unintended -consequences in terms of
the distribution of power, wealth and security in both the domestic and the
international realm.

Below I develop three closely related themes, through which I aim to
illuminate the intertwined dynamics of the drug industry and law enforcement
practices, and so provide the building blocks for a theory of the
International Drug Complex:

The global drug industry; in which I focus on the international division of
labour in the drugs business, and on how states' laws and drug control
practices might impinge on the industries organizational structures and the
distribution of reward; The political-economy of drug law enforcement; in
which I focus on the trade-offs between drug repression and broader policy
goals of states in domestic and international arenas, and on the mechanisms
through which the intertwined dynamics of the forces of crime and punishment
influence the distribution of power, wealth and security within and between
societies; The International Drug Complex; in which I assess the underlying
dynamics of the interactions between the drug industry and drug enforcement
practices, and argue that the War on Drugs is driven by similar collusive
and systemic mechanisms as those that spurred the Cold War, with possibly no
less detrimental consequences for the relations between states and their
societies. As my focus is specifically on the international dimension of the
interactions between the drug industry and law enforcement practices, in the
next section I first clarify some of the dominant changes in the
international political economy that I see as the necessary background for
understanding the escalation of their mutual dynamics.

CRIME AND LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE NWO

The internationalization of both crime and law enforcement and therefore
also their mutual dynamics are closely related to the changes in the world
system, brought about by the end of the Cold War, globalization, regional
integration and neo-liberal reforms. The transformations these developments
and processes gave rise to are manifold. They produced new patterns of
hierarchy and dominance in the international system and changed the role of
the state in this system. Therewith we see new forms of sovereignty (e.g.
economic, multilateral, multinational) and changes in the relations between
economic and political systems (e.g. deregulation, informalization,
corruption). These changes in the world political and economic system also
lead to a diminished separation between the domestic and the international
frameworks for policy making and the management of economic affairs (Cherny
1995, Rosenau 1992). With these developments the very basis of the
accumulation of power and wealth, and the use of these resources for their
protection take unprecedented shapes. This is equally true for the forces
that try to redistribute these political and economic resources.

Globalization leads thus to a much more fragmented competition for the
sources of power and wealth, in which non-state actors play an increasingly
important role. In this context the internationalization of crime and law
enforcement takes place. In this context their interactions take shape. It
is also in this context that they influence the international political
economy, and therewith the distribution of power, wealth and security in the
international system.

Globalization, defined as the intensification of economic, political, social
and cultural relations across borders, has to a large extent been
facilitated by technological developments, and has further been sustained by
economic and political decisions to give international exchanges free-way.
Together with the partial liberalization of global markets, globalization
has offered increasing opportunities for the unfettered flow of capital,
goods, people and information over the globe. The concomitant increase in
the power of market forces and the impact of neo-liberal reforms have
debilitated states' capabilities or willingness to regulate and control
these flows. With the fall of the Berlin wall, this globalization, uneven as
it may be, is gaining truly global dimensions.

Paradoxically, together with the further integration of the world society,
these developments have also brought about disintegrative forces, which,
combined with new technological capabilities, offer unprecedented
opportunities for the expansion of transnational criminal enterprises. The
political turmoil and poverty that came with these changes in the
international political economy offer a virulent breeding ground for the
drug industry, as increasingly people seek and find in it a way to alleviate
economic distress and/ or fund their nationalist struggle through criminal
enterprise (e.g. Kurdistan, Chechenia, Kosovo).

Globalization has also fostered the expansion of networks and illegal
transactions over the globe. Migratory diasporas link relatively poor drug
producing countries to consumer markets with far greater spending power.
Financial technology makes it easier to hide the proceeds of crime, and
increasing trade in general is likely to enhance the opportunities for
smuggling and fraud.

Some criminal entrepreneurs, in more organized forms, like transnational
enterprises, extent their transnational operations; and the degree to which
their authority in world society and in the world economy rivals and
encroaches upon that of governments (Strange 1996:110). "Mafias", like the
Italian Ndragheta and Camorra, the American Cosa Nostra, Colombian drug
"cartels", Chinese and Hong Kong Triads, the Japanese Yakuza and, more
recently, many -more or less nationally or ethnically based-organizations
from former Eastern bloc countries, are only the most commonly known
examples of criminal networks extending their activities over the globe.
Amongst each other they either compete for markets or establish ways to
cooperate in their activities. Drugs may or may not be their most rentable
product, as they engage in many other legal and illegal activities (arms
trafficking, prostitution, extortion etc.) that often have a much longer
record of proven profitability. These activities not only offer them fast
profits, but also the means to exert political power.

Organizing their resources helps some drug entrepreneurs to establish a
power structure to protect themselves, to challenge the authority of states
in specific areas, or even to supplant or penetrate the power of elites
controlling a state. Such developments ultimately also may endanger other
sectors of society and the social body in general, where progressively the
rule of law and formally regulated relations between states, markets and
societies give way to informal arrangements, corruption, violence, and
intimidation.

Such consequences might, however, be brought about more by the fact that
their activities are illegal, than that their organizations are criminal.
More than the leverage power that organized crime can attain, it is the
their untouchability -that comes with the internationalization of their
activities-that makes them such a threat to a state's authority. It is my
assertion that where drug entrepreneurial networks cannot be incorporated in
local or national political and economic arrangements, their impact on
society becomes much more detrimental; a situation that is only worsened as
the state increasingly resorts to criminalization and repressive means to
control their activities.

In this context we can see a seemingly contradictory increase in both the
importance of specific criminal or criminalized activities and in the
coercive powers of states (police, military, custom agencies, fiscal and
intelligence apparatuses).

Since the end of the Cold War, the 'peace dividend' has to a large extend
been absorbed by assigning new tasks to coercive state agencies. In many
countries this was given shape by a raise in expenditure for internal
coercion, whereas the cost of defense are increasingly legitimized by the
proclaimed need to counter new external threats. In this process, especially
police forces have increased their size, their resources and their legal
powers. In many countries also the military has been given tasks in drug
repression. The United States in the 1980s and 1990s sufficiently amended
the Posse Comitatus Act, that since 1878 had prevented military involvement
in civil law enforcement, to engage in drug law enforcement at home and
abroad (Bagley 1992:130, Drug war facts). But also the Dutch, British and
French navies are patrolling the Caribbean to interdict drug shipments.

Globalization and liberalization, thus, go hand in hand with new efforts
directed at the control and regulation of markets, institutions and
societies, notably those related to illegal drugs and migration, and to a
lesser extent those controlling capital flows (Andreas 1995). Some of these
control mechanisms lay in the remit of state agencies. There is however also
a tendency to hive off part of control responsibilities to other levels of
political authority as well as to the private sector (Johnston 1992). Most
striking may be a shift from the use of administrative law to criminal law
for the maintenance of order in society and the preservation of national
security in general. Internal and external security concerns, so, become
increasingly blurred, and therewith the tasks assigned to coercive state
agencies to protect the sovereignty of the state.

The challenges to national sovereignty, posed by the consequences of
globalization, have led many governments to believe that the traditional
system for the organization of criminal justice policy - the system of
individual states - no longer suffices to deal with new problems of
international crime (Anderson et al 1995:40).

Extending and internationalizing state powers, political pressures and
foreign interventions in a state's sovereignty, and a growing share of
populations jailed on drug related charges, however, lead many people to
perceive law enforcement itself as a threat to liberal society. Out of the
roughly one million people serving jail terms in the United States [State]
Prisons, about 59,9% are casual and non-violent drug offenders (Akida
1997:607).2 In the United States of every 100.000 inhabitants 641 are in
jail, in the Netherlands, to date, this is 'only' 65 (Belenko 1998). The
'americanization' of the war on drugs is, however, also taking shape in
Europe and other countries. International Conventions, Mutual Assistance
Treaties, and institutional mechanisms set up under the three pillars of the
European integration process, combine with fastly expanding informal
networks among police agencies, intended to intensify the suppression of the
drug scourge (Sheptycki 1996).

Important changes in the international political and economic system, that
accelerated in the last decade or two, have offered unprecedented
opportunities for legal and illegal trade, and for the redistribution of
power and wealth. These developments incite states, or the elites
controlling a state, to look for new ways to accumulate such resources, to
control their societies, and manage the interface with the outside world.
Liberalizing some activities thereby seems to go in par with the
criminalization of others. The 'War on Drugs' is becoming one of the main
legitimation venues for states to enhance their capacity to intervene, both
in the national and in the international domain.

In the next sections I turn to how political and economic interests, and
interactions between the illegal drug industry and state drug control
practices shape the dynamics and outcomes of the 'War on Drugs'.

THE DRUG INDUSTRY

Drug trafficking is to a large extent a transnational business. The drug
industry consists of various stages; cultivation, refining, transport,
distribution, money laundering and investment of proceeds. In every stage of
this drug trajectory, from production to distribution, profits are made that
are consumed or invested but often demand some form of laundering to conceal
their illegal origins.

>From the marihuana, coca and poppy fields to the refining laboratories and
further on to the consumers, the drugs pass through many different routes of
transport and distribution. They thereby cross many territorial frontiers,
formal and informal jurisdictions. More sophisticated laundering techniques,
equally, use an elaborate international network of financial institutions,
trade and investment firms to hide and invest the drug profits. The various
stages of the drug trajectory and the linking of these stages involve the
participation and sometimes organization of a great many different people,
to see to the proper execution of activities, including the protection
against the encroachment of law enforcement agencies and competitors.

The transnational dimension of the drug industry therefore is not only a
function of the territorial distance between major production and
consumption regions. It also consists of the links that are made through
networks and organizations with diverse homebases that sometimes develop
transnational operations. Thereby differences in countries' legislations,
and law enforcement capabilities shape the opportunities for drug
entrepreneurs to evade the risks of interdiction and prosecution and prop
the flourishing of their business.

The variety of laws and systems of control and criminalization throughout
the world, and the disparities in ability and determination to control the
drug problem displayed by various countries, enable major drug traffickers
to take advantage of the weak points in such a patchwork' (Van der Vaeren
1995:350). We might, however, as well reverse this perspective, which than
would suggest that a state's political and/ or economic interests demand it
to create 'weak points' or shield niches in which one or more of the stages
of the drug trajectory can flourish (like coffee shops, bank secrecy, self
regulating stock markets, etc.).3

Such features explain for the existence of a very dynamic international
division of labour in the drug industry. Production centres for 'natural'
drugs (marihuana, coca, opium) and their derivatives) can particularly be
found in the 'Golden Triangle' of South East Asia, the 'Golden Crescent' in
West Asia, some Middle East and Maghreb countries and in Latin America.
These regions compete increasingly with each other, with emerging production
areas in former Eastern bloc countries and with producers in the western
world, where synthetic drugs (XTC, amphetamines) are produced. To this list
can be added many other countries where drug entrepreneurs try to conquer a
niche in national and international drug markets. Some of these have an
important transit function for drugs heading to the most lucrative consumer
markets in the United States and Europe. Others find a gainful role in the
laundering and investment of drug profits, thanks to 'liberal' banking
regulations (secrecy, confidentiality and financial investment tools). We
thus deal with a very heterogeneous competition, where different drugs,
different drug entrepreneurs/ trafficking groups and diverse jurisdictions
compete for market shares in many if not all of the subsequent stages of the
drug trajectory.

According to a recent estimate of the UNDCP, the global illegal drug
industry comprises about 8% of international trade (UNDCP 1997). Its
estimated annual turnover of $400 billion constitutes a large share of the
income from illegal activities worldwide, which the UN believes to be $1000
billion. But how to assess such data? Reminiscent of very distinct
calculations like the global accumulated production of razorblades; when
laid next to each other, said to be enough to cover the surface of the
earth, we see that what matters more than aggregate numbers is the
distribution of such profits and their rents in terms of power and wealth
and their overall impact on societies.

The drug industry does constitute the backbone of many national and local
economies, directly and indirectly offering income and employment
opportunities for millions of people around the globe. They serve the demand
of many more.

Countries like Bolivia, Morocco, Mexico, and Afghanistan derive incomes from
this industry that pairs with their formal export income. Morocco earns an
estimated $5,75 billion, 20% of its GNP from the production and export of
cannabis and hashish (Ouazzani 1996:122), supplying the lions share of
Europe's demand for these products. The Mexican drug economy, based chiefly
on the export of homegrown marihuana and poppy derivatives, and the transit
of Colombian cocaine to the United States, is valued at more than $20
billion. Important as contributions of this illicit enterprise may be to
overall income and employment levels, the real impact should be measured
from its effect on the economy at large, the distribution of its proceeds,
and the social costs in terms of health, safety, political transparency,
etc.4

Such aggregate data for developing countries, estimative and fluctuating as
they are, as an indication of the wealth and power that might be derived
from criminal sources, pail by the late-1980s consumer expenditures on
illicit drugs in the United States alone. These likely exceeded the total
gross domestic product of eighty-eight different countries (cited in Tullis
1995:2; 80 countries in Akida 1997). This tells us that probably the greater
part of drug turnovers never leaves the main consumption countries, as they
are likely to offer the most lucrative investment opportunities.

To assess the economic power and political influence of drug entrepreneurs,
and therewith the strategies that states adopt to intervene in drug markets,
it is paramount to know how these criminal markets are organized, how drug
entrepreneurs confront or collide with the legislation and political economy
of their countries of origin, and what is the scope of activities of actors
involved.

The organization of the drug trajectory involves the linking of the
different stages of the drug industry. In spite of much police rhetoric,
common wisdom, however, is not very conclusive about the extend of
horizontal or vertical integration of the drug trajectory. Are we dealing
with organized crime or with disorganized crime?5

Such organizational characteristics to a large extent determine the
distribution and accumulation of wealth derived from the industry. As the
lions share of for instance cocaine profits is made in American cities, it
makes an enormous difference to Colombian traffickers if they can control
the upstream gold mine of the retail part of the drug trajectory, or if they
have to content themselves with wholesale profits they can make through
transactions in Colombia, Mexico or in the United States. Wholesale profits
may still be considerable but rather insignificant compared to the turnover
made at the retail end.6 It is clear that law enforcement can play a role in
disrupting the drug trajectory, and doing so, can bring about important
shifts in the distribution of drug profits. This not only by taking people
out, and so creating market space for new entrants (which can be individual
entrepreneurs, institutions or whole regions), but also by increasing the
cost of maintaining links in the drug trajectory.7

Drug repression drives up the prices and so gives an enormous impulse to the
profitability of the product and the services rendered to the drug industry.
Drug entrepreneurs, be they poppy growing farmers in Pakistan, transport
companies in Turkey, or laundering exchange offices in the Netherlands, have
to protect themselves against prosecution by investigation services, and
against competitors. The costs to decentralize production, bribe state
officials, hire protection, create well camouflaged transport facilities, or
convince bankers to take a certain risk, increase with the intensity of
repression. Repression of the drug trade thus not only contributes to the
growth of the drug economy, but also incites a redistribution of the income
from the trade.

Taking this competition in the drug business and the effects of state
intervention on the division of labour in the drug industry as a starting
point, I now focus on the mechanisms through which the interactions between
states' drug enforcement practices and the drug industry become part of more
general efforts in the national and international domain to redistribute
power, wealth and security.

ENDNOTES

1. My greatest thanks are due to Yasemin Soysal, Marnix Croes, Gianfranco
Poggi and Anne Wegner for reading and criticizing an earlier draft of this
article. In a more morphological sense I may be indebted to Peter Andreas
whom I find sharing similar approaches and concerns towards the underlying
dynamics and consequences of the 'War on Drugs'.

2. Between 1980 and 1996, the number of inmates in the United States more
than tripled from 501,886 to 1,700,661 (Belenko 1998:53). 1:50 American men
are in prison; 1:20 are on parole or probation. In 1993 one in three black
Americans, who did not finish highschool, were in prison (ESB 26/6/96). The
number given by Mauer (1997) for drug offenders in American State and
Federal prisons is substantially lower than that provided by Akida. However,
he also notes a considerable shift in law enforcement priorities towards
drug law enforcement. According to his data from 1985 to 1994 drug offenders
accounted for more than a third (36%) of the increase in the number of
offenders in state prisons and more than two thirds (71%) of the increase in
federal prisoners. One of the largest increases in arrests has been for
violation of laws prohibiting drug sales, distribution and possession - up
154 percent during this time period, from 580,900 to 1,476,100 (Belenko
1998:55).

3. Naylor (1987) describes extensively how governments and financial
institutions compete with one another to attract international flows of hot
and/or dirty money to shore up bank liquidity or foreign exchange reserves.

4.The literature embarking on such assessments is extensive, especially for
producing countries. See for example the Studies on the Impact of the
Illegal Drug Trade, 6 Volumes, undertaken by UNRISD and the United Nations
University.

5. For a discussion of 'models' of the criminal firm see e.g. Peter Reuter
(1983), and Joseph Albini in Thomas Mieczkowski (ed.) (1992). Thomas Naylor
(1995) points at the important distinction to be made between forms of
organization to participate in the market and organization to control the
market.

6. An example of one of the few studies that analyze cocaine as a
transnational commodity chain can be found in Wilson and Zambrano (1994).
They assess that most profits (87 percent) remain in drug consuming
countries. They also note the selective nature of US drug policy, that
distributes the risk of participation in the trade unequally throughout the
cocaine commodity chain, as it overlooks or underfunds investigation into
the formal sectors (provision of key components like chemicals, airplanes,
arms and communication equipment) and core countries' roles in the drug
trade (money laundering, distribution net-works).

7. For example, the US Drug Enforcement Agency estimates that in 1993 the
Colombian drug cartels spent 23% of their profits on laundering the hard
earned drug money, up from 6% in the late 1980s (Foust and DeGeorge 1993).

Editor's Notes:

* Due to space constraints, we will publish the author's bibliography in our
next issue, June-July 2000. Meantime, interested readers can check the
CEDRO website or follow the link from the NEXUS website.

* Hans T. van der Veen's article is reprinted with permission from CEDRO,
the Centre for Drug Research (Centrum voor Drugsonderzoek) at the University
of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
telephone +31 (20) 525 4061 /4280 /7432, fax +31 (20) 525 4317, e-mail
CEDRO@frw.uva.nl, web-site www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/.