The Wrong-Way Drug War

Erradicating Colombian coca bushes. Less supply increases prices, triggering more plantations elsewhere.

During the Santos-Trump meeting in Washington today, undoubtedly at the top of the agenda was the huge increase in cocaine acreage in Colombia over the last several years.

Colombia's coca leaf crop has more than doubled, reaching record levels.

Conservative politicians and commentators, such as Florida Governor Rick Scott, ex-U.S. ambassador to the OEA Roger Noriega, and a certain right-wing Wall Street Journal columnist, want Colombia to accelerate coca leaf erradication, and in particular restart aerial fumigation with glyphosate.

Coca leaf acreage has spiked in recent years.
(Graphic from Semana magazine.)

Colombia suspended aerial fumigation in mid-2015 following a report which said that glyphosate might cause cancer. Many suspected that the government's real motive was to ingratiate itself with the FARC guerrillas, who late signed a peace deal with the government. Aerial spraying is also controversial because of its impacts on the environment and on food crops. And some analysts say it doesn't produce lasting impact on coca crops, since farmers have found ways to protect their plants, and can quickly replant them, compounding the environmental impact.

But even in the best of scenarios, attacking drug crops is a losing strategy. According to analysts, coca leaf farmers receive barely more than 1% of drug trafficking's profits, meaning that destroying those crops produces little economic impact on the drug economy. Even more importantly, by reducing supply, drug crop erradication raises prices and increases the economic incentive to plant coca. As a result, when they erradicate one farmer's crop, he or another farmer will likely respond by planting someplace else.

Also, drug traffickers' profits rise. Narcos say: 'Thank you Donald Trump!

Florida state Governor Rick Scott send Trump
a letter criticizing Colombian for failing to
erradicate its coca leaf crop.

On the other hand, reducing demand, for example by treating addicts, lowers prices and reduces the economic incentive to plant coca. Yet, Trump has proposed cutting the budget of the Office of National Drug Control Policy by 95%.

Naturally, decriminalizing drugs would reduce many of their negative impacts, but that's not on Washington's policy radar screen.

Afterthought: Santos and Trump also likely agreed to condemn the Venezuelan government for its increasing authoritarianism and many human rights violations. Good enough. So, how does Trump square that with his friendship with Turkish Pres. Erdogan, who is becoming increasingly authoritarian and violates human rights?



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Let Them Plant Coca Leaf?

A graphic from El Tiempo portrays the recent jump in coca leaf acreage in Colombia. 

The reports that coca leaf acreage in Colombia leaped during 2013 - by between 15% and 39%, depending on whose counting - are a big blow to drug warriors. That's because Colombia has been the model student in the War on Drugs, employing an aggressive United States backed campaign of manual eradication and aerial spraying against the base ingredient of cocaine. 

A plane sprays herbicide
 on jungle coca leaf plots.

The war on cocaine was never a grand success, as the drug's availability on North American city streetcorners attests. However, the fact that acreage has rebounded in Colombia even as the government used aggressive aerial spraying with glyphosate against the crop is a serious sign. 

And, now, the use of glyphosate in Colombia is being challenged because of a World Health Organization report that the herbicide might cause cancer. 

Historic coca leaf production, 2001 - 10.
Colombia's production is in light blue.

Drug eradication doesn't appear to have succeeded ever, anywhere in history, perhaps because it goes against basic laws of supply and demand. As the supply of drugs is cut, prices rise, increasing profits for traffickers and incentives to plant drug crops in other locations. There have been recent reports of coca plant cultivation in Mexico, far from the plant's three traditional sources: Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. 

Replacing drug crops with licit crops would make sense, if only those legal crops were as or more profitable than coca leaf. However, because coca leaves sell for high prices and have advantages of durability and easy transport, many campesinos will always want to produce them.

Perhaps there's a better solution: End futile and expensive eradication programs, which have done much to antagonize Latin Americans against the U.S., decriminalize the drug and concentrate on demand reduction in the consuming nations. According to one RAND report, that's a much more cost-effective way to reduce demand, in any case.

Manual eradication is slower and more dangerous.

World coca flows. (Graphic: UNODC.)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Still Coca Country?

Have you ever pushed in the side of a balloon?

What happens? It bulges out someplace else.

Many observers, including The Economist magazine, say that South America's coca leaf crop is like a balloon. When erradication pressure reduces acreage in one area, more gets planted in another.

Years ago, coca was grown only in Bolivia and Peru. Governments chopped down and pulled out

the crop in those countries - and what happened? Colombia became the biggest coca leaf grower, as it has been at least until recently.

A just-released survey of coca leaf plantings by the United Nations Office on Drugs reports that Colombian acreage declined 16% between 2007 and 2008, and 60% over the past decade. But production in Peru rose 55% over the past decade. Production in Bolivia has also risen slightly. So, Colombia may have lost its first-place position among coca leaf producers. Here's a NY Times video on coca erradication in Peru.

Regional production has declined by about 5%, but that's not much to crow about, especially considering the billions of dollars spent on the drug war, and the countless lives ended and ruined.

Some people call it all futile.

On the other hand, the War on Drugs has accomplished one thing: it's raised the price of drugs on the street, and therefore undoubtedly discouraged some people from becoming drug

consumers. That is a good thing.

However, by squeezing the supply of drugs, the war pumps up prices on the supply end, enriching drug traffickers and increasing their incentive to supply more chemicals and invent new ways to smuggle them. Should drug control efforts be focused on the supply or the demand end?

In Colombia, the drug trade has long enriched vicious guerrilla, paramilitary and plain old narcotraffickers. In Peru today the drug trade is giving new life to their own vicious rebels, the Shining Path Maoists.

The drug war also means millions of people imprisoned, most of them impoverished drug 'mules,' while the kingpins

generally stay rich and comfortable. Many other people are caught in the crossfire between the outlaw groups which traffic drugs, because as long as drugs are outlawed, outlaw groups will be the ones getting rich off of them.

The drug war's ultimate goal must not be to erradicate crops in South America or fill prisons worldwide with people engaged in the consensual conduct of selling substances to people who want to buy them. The war's goal is to protect the well-being of people who might otherwise become users or addicts.

Unfortunately, that might not be happening. While coca leaf erradication in South America may limit the amount of cocaine reaching the strees of the U.S. and Europe, those same potential drug consumers have access to lots of other chemicals, including vicious synthetic ones like methamphetamines. If the erradication were squeezing the supply, street prices would rise,

but that is evidently not happening.

If the U.S. and Latin American nations are spending untold riches to ruin the lives of innumerable people in Latin America and enriching outlaw organizations in order to keep cocaine products off of the street, only to push them into methamphetamine addiction - then we're accomplishing nothing.

Finally, if this drug erradication campaign is really pressuring the supply, then I wish someone would explain to me why they haven't started planting coca leaf in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, or even Africa or Asia. Are the narcos practicing self-restraint? Do the appropriate soil and climate conditions stop at the borders?

Throw in the towel? Decriminalize drugs? It's worth serious consideration.

Mike Ceaser runs Bogota Bike Tours and Rentals

Drug Acreage Down! But what's it mean?

The government reports that Colombia's coca acreage is down 16 percent from last year. Colombia's total coca leaf acreage is down from 400,000 hectares a couple years ago to only 68,000 now. That's good news by just about any measure. It potentially means less addictive chemicals poisoning kids in Colombia, United States and Europe. It also hopefully means more food grown in a nation with plenty of hunger. And, less drug exportation also means less income for the bad guys - the guerrillas, paramilitaries and plain old narcos.






But... does this mean that the U.S.-financed, multi-billion-dollar erradication campaign is a good thing?







The erradication campaign has its own, huge environmental and social impacts, producing deforestation, displacing peasants and killing food crops. Also, because drug crops are persecuted, farmers plant them near rivers and in jungles, compounding the environmental impacts such as deforestation and chemical pollution.


And, I've also heard that coca acreage has increased in Peru and Bolivia. And, U.S. prices apparently haven't risen much - and what they have might be attributable to changes in tastes, as users turn to ecstasy, crystal meth and other delights, or the narcos' infighting that has convulsed Mexico.


Finally, when source-country control tactics DO work they have the counter-productive effect of raising prices for consumers and thus increasing traffickers' profits, defeating the original goal.

So, is this drug war really worth it?

This blog written by Mike Ceaser of Bogotá Bike Tours and Rentals