US COUNTER-NARCOTICS POLICY

For the last two decades or so, drug trafficking has emerged as one of the
fastest growing industries in the Americas, Southeast Asia and parts of
Southwest Asia. This problem has caused serious threats to public health,
institutional development, and political stability of the respective
regions. If not controlled and put to a halt, the issue is going to have
serious implications at the national and international levels.

The end of the Cold War and opening up of the markets has enabled this
industry to garner a great share of profiteering. With the ability of
nations to control what comes across their borders and what takes place
within them having diminished because of declining trade barriers, economic
deregulation, and revolutionary advances in information and communications
technology, the process of drug trading has become much easier.

Illicit opium cultivation in Southeast and Southwest Asia, particularly in
Burma and Afghanistan provides the raw materials for much of the world's
heroin. Trafficking patterns have continued to expand through South and
East Asia and into the Middle East, the Newly Independent States, Eastern
Europe, and Africa, as local drug trafficking organisations prosper and
develop world-wide networks. Africa, has been a nurturing ground to one of
the widely connected terrorist networks in the world, the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) too. The immense profits that are generated from
selling drugs not only provides strong incentives for the enlargement of
the market but also gives tremendous power to the principal organisations
to corrupt and intimidate public officials and institutions1 particularly
in areas of weak governance. Countries with poor governance and weak law
enforcement infrastructure fall prey to this big menace and hence, the
industry flourishes there.

US Agencies and its Anti-drug Initiatives

The Department of State is the lead agency for international narcotics
control and anti-crime policy formulation and implementation. The State
Department is responsible for coordinating the international narcotics
control and anti-crime policies of all the US government agencies operating
abroad. As per the recommendations and advice of the secretary of state,
the president sends his annual certifications to the Congress, the major
illicit drug producing countries and drug transit countries.

The Clinton Administration, as part of its efforts on anti-drug lines, sent
its annual report to the Congress on November 10, 1999. President Clinton,
in accordance with provisions of section 490 (h) of the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961, as amended, identified some of the major countries involved in
either drug producing or drug transit activities. The following are
included in this category: Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil,
Burma, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala,
Haiti, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama,
Paraguay, Peru, Taiwan, Thailand, Venezuela, and Vietnam.2 In this report,
the administration had removed Aruba and Belize from the majors list and
added Belize as part of this year's Central America region of concern;
added the entire Eastern and Southern Caribbean, including the Leeward and
Windward islands, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles, as a region of
concern, and also added North Korea as a country of concern.3

A country's inclusion in this list does not reflect the government's
counter-drug efforts or the extent of cooperation with the US, but just a
record of how serious the issue of drug trafficking in these regions or
countries is and how even the anti-drug initiatives have not been
effective. For example, Hong Kong and Taiwan have been two countries who
have excellent counter-drug records and cooperate closely with the United
States.

It would be interesting to take a little detailed look into each of the
areas. Central America has been one of the most significant trans-shipment
points for most of the illicit drugs reaching the United States. Central
America, located between South America and Mexico, with its thousands of
miles of coastline, several container-handling ports, the Pan-American
Highway, and limited law enforcement capability has made the entire region
a logical conduit and trans-shipment area for illicit drugs.4

The Leeward and Windward Islands, together with Aruba and the Netherlands
Antilles, constitute a broad geographical area through which drugs bound
for the United States may pass en route from Latin America.5 Aruba was
designated as a transit country in 1997 but has been removed from this
year's report, as there has been no proven evidence to show it as a drug
transit point.

Iran, in the past, has been a traditional opium producing country, but over
the years the Government of Iran has put a halt to the illicit opium poppy
cultivation. Whatever little production is still continuing has not made
the United States, but Europe, the ultimate destination. This prerequisite
for any country to be declared a major in the report prevents Iran from
being cited.

The United States remains concerned about the large volume of Southwest
Asian heroin moving through Turkey and neighbouring countries to Western
Europe along the Balkan route. The heroin transiting countries like Turkey,
Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia, or other European countries on the Balkan route
significantly affect the United States and may be added in the majors list
as and when necessary.

Other major cannabis producing countries like Kazakstan, Kyrgystan,
Morocco, the Philippines and South Africa are significantly important, yet
they have not been listed out as majors since the illicit cannabis is
consumed either locally or transported to countries other than the United
States and President Clinton has determined that such illicit production in
these countries does not significantly affect the United States.

The Department of Defence (DOD) has been designated as the lead agency for
detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs
into the Untied States. DOD provides training and technical assistance even
to foreign governments in conjunction with the Department of State. Other
agencies include the US Coast Guard, which is a principal maritime
enforcement agency, the Agency for International Development (AID), the
Department of Justice, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and
the US Information Agency (USIA).

US policy initiatives have been as follows:

- - Encourage countries in the region to adopt and implement strong narcotics
control legislation, arrest major drug traffickers, improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of judicial institutions to bring drug offenders to
justice, and develop bilateral and multilateral mutual legal assistance
cooperation;

- - Strengthen host nation counter-narcotics law enforcement capabilities to
deal with drug trafficking and production, money laundering, and other crimes;

- - Develop governmental and non-governmental organisation (NGO)
institutional capabilities to address the issue of drug abuse and production.6

The President's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) of the US
presents an annual report to the president and the latest one of the year
1998 puts five broad goals in its strategy.

- - Educate and enable America's youth to reject illegal drugs as well as
alcohol and tobacco;

- - Increase the safety of America's citizens by substantially reducing
drug-related crime and violence;

- - Reduce health and social costs to the public of illegal drug use;

- - Shield America's air, land, and sea frontiers from the drug threat; and

- - Break foreign and domestic sources of supply.7

The vast majority of the budget for counter-narcotics programs is applied
to the first three goals. Out of the overall budget for counter-drug
activities, a large amount $26,731 million in 1996 and $35,838 million in
1997--is allocated to research and development, which is primarily tied
down to the Counter-drug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC).8 The
remaining budget amount is spent on operations, or activities that directly
affect the daily lives of millions of US citizens. The overall budget
request for counter-narcotics operations for fiscal year 1998 (FY 1998) was
$15, 977 million. The total budget amount is split among criminal justice
system, drug treatment, drug prevention, international programs,
interdiction, research, and intelligence.

The programs undertaken by the US administration have proved to be quite
successful. The number of people 12 years and older who regularly use drugs
in the United States has dropped from 14 per cent in 1976 to just 6 per
cent in 1996. Also the number of cocaine users dropped 70 per cent a
decade, from 5.7 million in 1995 to 1.7 million in 1996.9 Drug-related
crimes too have declined considerably.

Since the process of illicit drug production, transport, and reloading take
place in different countries, international cooperation among the producing
countries, transit countries, and the final destined ones should be a very
significant component of the international anti-drug policy. It is very
important for the US government to work with international organisations
and other countries, for the network can be broken only through
multilateral actions and through cooperation of the transit countries.
Without a proper consensus among all countries, it is difficult to achieve
any success in this venture, as the network among illicit drug traffickers
is very complex.

Working with the government of Mexico since 1995, targeting the Amado
Carillo Fuentes organisation has led to more than 100 indictments in the
US, the seizure of 11.5 metric tons of cocaine, 6.9 metric tons of
marijuana, and more than $18.5 million in assets.10 The US has also
dismantled Colombian, Nigerian, and Jamaican organisations that had
resulted in multi-ton shipments of a variety of drugs into the United
States, such as heroin, methamphetamines, and marijuana. Operation
Millennium, a joint US-Colombian operation had netted 31 drug traffickers
in October 1999, including several identified by the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) and Colombian police as kingpins who moved more
cocaine to the US than Pablo Escobar of Medellin or the Rodriguez Orejuela
brothers in Cali.11

International Drug Control Initiatives

The international drug control initiatives began not at the end of the
century, but well at the beginning in 1909. The movement particularly took
shape from the situation in Eastern Asia, especially from the opium problem
in China, and the geopolitical interests there of the western powers. Sale
of Indian opium to China was profitable trade and became an integral part
of payment for the British government in India. Besides importing from
India, the crop was grown in plentiful quantities in China itself. This
opium trade caused trouble in China because the use of opium was often
cited as the cause for the nation's weakness in the face of western aggression.

Around the same time, Britain also came out with certain groups declaring
that the trade was a wrong practice and should be stopped. However, it was
only in 1906 that a government came into power in Britain who shared the
same view. Simultaneously the Chinese government too set in motion a
campaign against opium smoking and opium production in China. These two
movements further converged with another one when the US decided to invite
relevant nations to meet in Shanghai to discuss ways and means through
which the opium trade in China could be controlled. This could be said to
be the starting point of the anti-drug programs at an international level.
The International Opium Commission initially met at Shanghai in February
1909, which could not conclude in a treaty, but the later meeting that look
place at the Hague in December 1912 drafted the Hague Opium Convention, the
first treaty to control opium and cocaine through world-wide agreement.12

The League of Nations that took responsibility for the Hague Convention in
1920 did not successfully follow up due to the lack of leadership of the
USA. Further, the whole issue of drug production and consumption got
entangled into the Cold War politics, with Russia and the US always taking
opposing sides.

Anyhow, this was not the time when the US got involved in the issue of drug
trafficking. The American interest in international drug control began in
1898 with their acquisition of Philippines. The transportation of opium
from Philippines to the US started in the early 1800s and any kind of
prohibitionary measure came only by this century when this became a major
issue in the domestic legislation of the United States.

However, the major international drug control treaties are the 1961 Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs (further strengthened by the 1972 Protocol
amending that Convention), the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances,
and the United Nations Conventions against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic
Drugs and Psychotropic Substances which was adopted in 1988.

The UN member states (158 parties) came out with the 1961 Single Convention
on Narcotic Drugs to merge all the existing multilateral treaties on the
control of drugs, extension of the existing control system so as to include
even the cultivation of opium and other raw materials.13 Opium smoking and
eating, coca leaf chewing, cannabisresin smoking and the non-medical use of
cannabis have been prohibited through control convention.

The 1972 Protocol to the Convention further called for increased efforts to
prevent illicit production of, traffic in, and use of narcotics.14

The next significant treaty that came into effect was that of the 1971
Convention on Psychotropic Substances where 146 states became parties to
the treaty. This convention in particular looked at the harmful effects of
psychotropic substances such as amphetamine-type drugs, sedative-hypnotic
agents and hallucinogens like LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and
mescaline, and stimulants.

The third major treaty on this line is the one where 137 countries signed
the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances in 1988. This convention specifically included the
issue of money laundering and illicit traffic in precursor and essential
chemicals within the ambit of drug trafficking activities and called on
parties to introduce these as criminal offences in their national
legislation. Its objective was to create and consolidate international
cooperation between law enforcement bodies such as customs, police, and
judicial authorities and to provide them with legal guidelines: (a) to
interdict illicit trafficking effectively; (b) to arrest and try drug
traffickers; and (c) to deprive them of their ill-gotten gains.15 It also
takes significant steps against the illicit production and manufacture of
narcotic and psychotropic drugs by calling for strict monitoring of the
chemicals often used in illicit production. This convention also took care
of the provisions for tracing, freezing, and confiscating proceeds and
property derived from drug trafficking as well as financial and commercial
records. In this regard, it called specifically for seven areas of action:

1. Eradicate illicitly cultivated narcotic crops.

2. Monitor chemicals and equipment used in the processing of drugs.

3. Identify, seize, and forfeit illicitly generated proceeds.

4. Improve international legal cooperation by such means as extradition,
mutual legal assistance, and exchange of information relating to
trafficking activities.

5. Improve "controlled delivery" procedures (a term referring to law
enforcement cooperation through which the movement of an illicit drug
consignment can be monitored so that arrests are made at the time of
ultimate delivery).

6. Require commercial carriers to take reasonable precautions to avoid use
of their facilities and means of transport for illicit trafficking.

7. Prevent illicit traffic by sea, through the mails, or by abuse of
special rights prevailing in free trade zones and free ports.16

The seven objectives given above, more or less, take care of all aspects of
the drug trade.

The last major event has been the creation of the United Nations
International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) by General Assembly resolution
45/179 of December 21, 1990, which integrated all the existing structures
and functions of the three former UN drug control units, namely the
Division of Narcotic Drugs, the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control
and the International Narcotics Control Board Secretariat.17 (UNDCP)18,
based in Vienna has been made responsible for coordinating and providing
effective leadership to all the other UN drug control programmes.

Other UN agencies that have been associated with the drug control programme
are World Health Organisation (WHO), International Labour Office (ILO),
United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division (CPCJD) and
so on. The functioning of various organisations and the laws implemented at
the national levels have eradicated opium and cocaine to a much lower level
(see Fig. 1).

The process of eradication takes place either forcefully or by compensatory
means. Eradication of illicitly cultivated drugs can be done through
mechanical destruction (slashing or uprooting); by burning; by applying
chemical herbicides or by biological (genetic) elimination. Where the
eradication is not forcefully done, it can be through compensatory schemes
developed on the basis of payments per hectare eradicated.19

Another method of stopping the illicit cultivation of drugs is through
substitution. The process of substitution is through introduction of new
crops in place of these drugs. In many areas, when the process of
eradication takes places, the coca and opium poppy growers have shown
resistance and made protests against it as this halts a steady and
relatively stable source of income. Compensatory measures do not attract
the coca growers much because the relief that they get through these does
not sustain them a long time, whereas the market for illicit coca and opium
poppy seeds is great and there is no government infrastructure that they
need to worry about. This is where state machinery needs to take the issue
seriously and implement some measures against it. The wealth that is
generated through this means is not accountable to the government's
financial accounts and this in turn could create inflation in the market.
The running of a parallel economy run by the drug traffickers at the local
level may be helpful in the short term but it is going to create long term
hazards to the national economy. The losses outweigh the gains in the long
run. Money that is gained through the drug industry makes its way even to
the capitalisation of banks, investment in real estate business and other
legal business too. It has been argued that local investments by these drug
industrialists have been mostly in short-term speculative ventures designed
more to launder money rather than to promote sustained economic growth.
Development of the society or economy has never been their motto.

Apart from the economic costs of the drug industry, it has political and
societal costs too. Politically it affects a nation by halting or
completely derailing the process of nation-building in most of the
developing countries, where this industry has been flourishing and
providing the necessary means for it. Countries that are in a "soft state"
and have weak governments/ or no stable government at all are most
vulnerable because the very presence of the drug traffickers undermines the
authority of these governments. Far more dangerous is the situation when
corruption by the drug trafficking groups reaches the highest levels of the
government and it is hardly differentiable between licit and illicit drug
dealings. Many countries in Latin America have been branded as
"narco-democracies".20

Another way of cutting down the drug trafficking is through reduction of
the supply of illicit drugs in the market. A key component this supply
aspect is to prevent diversion of drugs from the licit to illicit market.

As Paul B. Stares correctly puts it, the effectiveness of the drug control
policy would depend largely on the international community's ability to
address a few other linked up issues of development like overpopulation,
poverty, disease, illiteracy, environment degradation, and ethnic conflict.
There is a crucial relationship between these broad issues and drug
trafficking. Unless the government decides to tackle these problems, the
great menace of drug trafficking would continue. The process of eradication
has become more difficult to implement due to the inaccessibility of
cultivated areas and through the involvement of insurgent and terrorist
groups in the protection of these plantations and also the process of
trafficking.

Why the drug traffickers' success despite tightening laws?

A news item appearing in the Washington Post reads: A new generation of
Colombian drug traffickers, light years ahead of the traditional Medellin
and Cali cartels in using the Internet and other modern technology, has
sharply increased cocaine production and smuggling in the past two years
despite growing budgets for law enforcement, according to senior US and
Colombian intelligence officials. What has led to the growth in this
industry can provide solutions to cripple it as well.

The whole new generation of drug traffickers and their high-tech gear, the
officials say, are reversing the gains of earlier years that had destroyed
the old, better known cartels. The new set of traffickers has learnt from
past mistakes of the older groups, and carry on in a very intelligent
manner. According to General Rosso Jose Serrano, Director of the Colombian
National Police who oversaw the dismantling of several major drug cartels,
the new groups maintain an extremely low profile, they mix their licit and
illicit business, they don't carry out terrorist acts, and they operate in
small, autonomous cells.22 They are much harder to fight simply for the
reason that they are harder to find.

Unlike in the past, there is no proper integrated structure under the top
leadership of an organisation, making the task more difficult for an
official to conduct investigations and get the details of the functioning
of the organisation. People are specifically called for jobs, taken on a
contract basis, and are got rid of at the end of the job, so that if an
official wants to bribe any of the lower rank workers and get any
information on the working of the organisation, it is not possible. The
groups have become far less visible and smarter by having these contract
workers who come and go on a temporary basis.

A very interesting new aspect about drug traffickers is their access to the
most modern high technology and their proficiency with it. This phenomenon
has increasingly become a feature with the terrorist organisations too. The
newly emerging phenomenon of narco-terrorism is not to be overlooked at any
cost. This new phenomenon combines the two very well—get all the finance
through drug trafficking, establish links in various countries with
established groups of that country/region, and carry out attacks on the
targeted groups without being there physically. The information and high
technology that is available with these groups make their task easier and
information is passed on within minutes and seconds. The narco-terrorists
also use sophisticated cellular phone cloning technology, stealing numbers
that were already assigned to legitimate users, using them for a short
period of time, then moving on to new numbers, so that they are never
permanently on a particular number.

The US and Colombian officials found the traffickers making use of the
latest technology to protect and advance their business. One of the most
important Colombian groups, Alejandro Bernal's operation kept in touch by
using internet chat rooms protected by fire walls that made them impossible
to penetrate. The officials reported that besides this, each part of the
operation fed its information on the day's sales and drug movements to a
computer on a ship off the coast of Mexico, so that if one computer were
taken down, it would be impossible to trace the rest of the network. The
traffickers also had access to highly sophisticated encryption technology,
which even the law enforcement authorities find difficult to decode. One US
official pointed out that it took some of their best computers 24 hours to
crack a 30-second transmission by the traffickers, making the exercise
pointless. These new techniques have helped the traffickers move tons of
cocaine before being detected. DEA officials and Colombian authorities have
estimated that Bernal's group, working with Mexican organisations led by
Valencia, shipped 20 tons to 30 metric tons of cocaine every month to the
United States.23

Along with the increasing sophistication in their mode of working, there is
a tremendous increase in the cultivation of coca--the raw material for
cocaine--in Colombian territory controlled by Marxist-led guerillas or
right-wing paramilitary groups. A senior US Justice Department official
said the estimate that Colombia produced 165 metric tons of cocaine in 1998
will at least double and may triple in 1999.24 Colombia has been scoring
high in this industry. Colombian drug traffickers now have a control on
most cocaine production from the raw material to the finished product,
which provides more control of the drug-making process and enhances their
profits when the finished cocaine is sold to Mexican delivery specialists.
There seems to be something very contradictory in the two simultaneous
processes that are taking place. On the one hand, the US government has
started helping out the Colombian President Andres Pastrana and on the
other hand, the drug traffickers have become successful in going undetected
by the authorities of either of the countries. This proves the complex and
tight network that these groups have established among themselves from
country to country at all stages from production to refinement to
transportation. In 1999, the United States provided Colombia with $289
million in aid, mostly to the police and military to fight drug trafficking.25

Thus, the ultimate answer to this big menace is for all the countries to
cooperate as it involves not just one country but several countries in the
multi processes of production, trafficking, and ultimate consumption.
International cooperation to fight this issue is very essential in order to
find a solution.

Notes

1. The idea of the illicit drugs trade flourishing particularly in regions
of weak governance has been dealt with by Paul B. Stares, Global Habit: The
Drug Problem in a Borderless World (Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution, 1996).

2. USIS, "Text: Clinton Reports to Congress on Drug-Producing Countries",
Wireless File, November 12, 1999.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. US Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs, INL Country Programs—Asia/Africa/Middle East, Fact
Sheet released by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs, March 30, 1999.

7. US Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs, Contending With Illegal Drugs at Home and Abroad, Fact
Sheet released by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs, June 4, 1998.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. "New Drug Smugglers Hold Tech Advantage", The Washington Post, November
15, 1999.

12. David F. Musto, "International drug control: historical aspects and
future challenges", United Nations International Drug Control Programme,
World Drug Report, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 165.

13. Ibid., p, 168.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., p. 169.

16. Anthony P. Maingot, "The Drug Trade in the Caribbean: Policy Options",
Drug Trafficking in the Americas, edited by Bruce M. Bagley, and William O.
Walker III (USA: North-South Center Press, University of Miami, 1996), p. 476.

17. Musto, n. 12, p. 169.

18. United Nations International Drug Control Programme, World Drug Report,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 171. The UNDCP established in
1991 has some specific objectives: (1) to coordinate and provide effective
leadership for all UN drug control initiatives; (2) to anticipate the
development of phenomenon which could create or aggravate illicit drug
production, trafficking, and abuse, and to mobilise and support remedial
measures in a timely fashion; (3) to be a world-wide centre of expertise
and respository of information by collecting, analysing and disseminating
data, information and experience in all fields of drug control; (4) to
assist CND and INCB in implementing their treaty-based functions and in
promoting new instruments as needed; (5) to provide technical assistance
through expertise and training to help governments in setting up adequate
drug control structures and to elaborate comprehensive national and
regional drug control strategies and programmes; (6) to provide technical
operation in the different fields of drug control with a view to
elaborating methodologies and approaches to be shared; and (7) to assist
governments in the developments of subregional initiatives and plans of
action with the basic concept of joint operations between concerned countries.

19. Ibid., p. 221.

20. Stanley A. Weiss, "The Global Narcotics Trade: Economic Patterns and
Implications", International Herald Tribune, July 1-2, 1995.

21. USIA, Wireless File, December 10, 1999.

22. The Washington Post, November 15, 1999.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.