Diss: Cover & Intro.

It’s Still Summer Somewhere:
A Guide to Achieving a More Successful anti-drug policy in Colombia.

By Paul Thain

Dissertation submitted to the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, as partial requirement for an Honours degree in Politics and International Relations.

Abstract

After a twenty-year ‘War on Drugs’ pursued by the United States, which has failed to produce any real success, it is reasonable to believe that there are some fundamental flaws in America’s anti-drug efforts. In brief, there are three main aims of this paper, the first of which is to understand the roots and nature of the drugs business, and why it surfaced in Colombia. The second part concentrates on highlighting the failings of American anti-drug policy in its ‘War on Drugs’, and finally, this paper suggests a means of rectifying these shortcomings through various changes in strategies and policy that could be integrated to form a modern anti-drug strategy.

Contents

Notes on terminology
……………………………………………………. IV

Introduction
......……………………………………………….. 1

Chapter One:
Welcome to Sunny Colombia
...………………………………………………….. 4

Chapter Two:
Where Old Wars Rage On
..........……………………………………………. 17

Chapter Three:
The Balancing Act
.....………………………………………………… 34


Conclusion
……………………………………………………. 50


Bibliography
.......……………………………………………… 53

Notes on Terminology

Throughout the course of this essay, several metaphors and modernisations re-occur. These include the use of:

‘Links’ / ‘Segments’ of the ‘Drugs Chain.’ These are used because, due to the nature of the modern drugs business, the production of cocaine has been stretched out in an effort the avoid detection. This process means that a separate groups take care of growing the coca, another for refining the drug, another for shipping the drug and so on. Due to this nature the metaphor of a chain is used to highlight the notion of many flexible units joined together.

This essay also modernises the term ‘drugs trade’, by giving it the new title of ‘drug business’, or simply ‘the business’. The original term conjures up images of old-fashioned trading with out-dated methods and techniques, which – as mentioned above – is no longer the case when talking about the contemporary drugs enterprise of Colombia.

The specific name used for a Colombian drugs group is a ‘cartel,’ whilst coca growers are referred to as both ‘cocaleros,’ (specifically growers of the coca leaf) and ‘campensinos’ (the Andean name for a rural farmer).
All currency is in United States Dollars ($) and English Pounds, Sterling (£).

To James Forbes Mitchell
(14th April 1928 – 28th November 2001)
My Grandfather and Mentor.

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to explore, and answer, three main questions:

“Why did the drugs business materialise in Colombia, and what were the consequences?”
“Why are the current tactics failing to deliver significant results?” and
“What can be altered to create a more successful anti-drug policy?”

These questions arise due to the distinct lack of results that have become synonymous with American efforts to reduce the size of its internal drugs market. For the reason of being impartial, a comprehensive selection of journals, books, news stories, government sources, websites, as well as economic and health papers, have been brought together to create the main theories and proposals in this paper.

It must be noted that the academic material on the subject of American drug policy can be separated into four main ‘camps’: the ‘pro-Americans’ that wish to see a furtherance of the current tactics; the ‘anti-Americans’, who wish for the U.S. to stop prying in Latin America; the ‘Latin Americans’ themselves, most of whom wish to see a change in the nature of Washington’s policy; and the ‘pro-legalisation’ camp, who have a tendency to propose radical arguments. To keep this paper consistent, all of the non-empirical literature from the ‘pro-legalisation camp’ had to be overlooked, because it was too erratic and based heavily on assumption.

Also, in keeping this paper relevant to Colombia, Washington, and the ‘War on Drugs’ at present, a ten-year cap has been placed on the majority of sources used, with the only discrepancies being historical events and old arguments that are still applicable to the current situation.

In order to answer the three main questions, each one is given its own section in this paper. Chapter one is mainly descriptive, and aims to define the cartels and illustrate their power, before explaining why Colombia became the home of cocaine. It then goes on to describe the positive and negative consequences of the drug business, and how these features are not only limited to Colombia. Finally, the chapter concludes by finding a theory to explain the rise of the Cartels.

Chapter two provides an analysis into the failure of current policy in Colombia by highlighting the critical errors in the tactics, and then describing the unintended consequences of implementing such efforts. After a brief history of FARC, this paper will show why the results of Plan Colombia have been so poor, then upon discussing the benefits of negotiations, one aims to draw some conclusions on the nature of American aid.

Proposed solutions are put forth in the final chapter, with the additional emphasis for two main balances to be addressed in the funding of anti-drug strategies. The first being between the military and social spending of aid within Colombia, and the second balance between demand and supply strategies. The chapter ends with a call for countries to recognise that global co-operation is a necessity. The concluding chapter re-visits the three main questions, and then provides two models of what the future holds for Colombia.

Diss: Chapter 1

Chapter one:
Welcome to Sunny Colombia.

Know your enemy:

Before I can begin to describe the myriad of factors that ensure all roads of the cocaine, and increasingly heroin, business lead to, or stem from, Colombia it is first necessary to define the nature of the perceived threat. Although, in a post 9/11 world, there are many constantly evolving definitions of the phrase ‘organised crime’ the following quotation holds true the main part of most modern definitions.

“Organised crime is present whenever two or more persons are involved in a common criminal project for a prolonged period of time in order to obtain power and profits”. (Stiftung, 1998)
The only differing aspect regarding the definition of criminal groups such as a Cartel is that they usually function in more than one country and when this is the case, the definition would include that the groups operate multijouristictionaly. Upon analysis, the alliance of thousands of Colombians that have been exporting drugs to foreign markets since the 1970s, most certainly matches the definition of International Organised Crime. [1]


The size and scope:

Unfortunately, due to the nature of a shadow economy, no accurate calculation regarding the scale of the drugs trade can be made. Over the years, and from many different sources, a diverse bank of estimates has emerged with the top and bottom figures proving to be a significant distance apart. The most widely cited approximation came from the ‘World Drug Report’ in 1997, which estimated the annual revenue of the illicit global drug business to be worth U.S. $400 billion. (UNODCCP, 1997).

The size of the ‘power and profits’ that are acumulated through participation in the drug business is undoubtedly the single biggest incentive for people to become involved, it is also funds all other activities of the Cartels; from bribery to their expansion. In 1990 for instance, it cost a scant $280 to purchase the raw materials required to make 1 kilogram of cocaine in a laboratory; on the streets of Europe this amount would have sold for around $140,000 (Clutterback, 1990). This equates to a profit margin of 50,000%, and is perhaps the most boorish way of explaining how organised criminals that engage in the drugs market attain such vast amounts of cash.

In their heyday the ‘classic’ cartels were making so much money that it was beyond what they could spend or physically store. For instance, the wealth accumulated by the individual Pablo Escobar was so monumental, that he attempted to barter for his freedom by offering to pay off Columbia’s national debt. Escobar is also reported to have written off $40 Million in notes that had rotted in a basement, because there was nowhere else to store it (Robinson, 1998) and in 1989 Forbes magazine gave him the title of 7th Richest person in the world. Since the fall of the Medelín and Calí Cartels it has been more difficult to estimate the levels of wealth collected by their members. In January of 2007 Colombian police seized $54m, in U.S. Dollars and Euro notes, from the Norte De Valle cartel, the last of the ‘classic’ cartels. A figure that would indicate that their business, and power, is still strong . The fact that these gigantic seizures of funds have no real effect on the operations of a Cartel, ensures that individuals will always want to be involved in such a reliable and profitable business.


Why Colombia, and why coca?

Whether viewed as a blessing or a curse, the geograpy of Colombia is perfect for internationalised trading. It is the only country in South America to have coastlines on two different waterways, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, the latter being particularly useful in the transportation of illicit goods, because of the hundreds of potential stops at many islands such as Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas. By dry land there is the route through Central America, which again offers many different passages to the US border. There is also the straight forward possibility of air transport, again with possible stops at any of the countries and islands in central America.

The biggest appeal of coca farming in the region – beyond the coca farmers’ (‘Cocaleros’) cut of the high market price mentioned above – is the physical properties of the coca plant itself. It is a rugged bush that requires very little effort - a bonus for any cultivator. Also, in Colombia, a coca farmer can expect 5-6 harvests per year, compared to Bolivia and Peru’s 3-4 annual harvests, and in Colombia, the coca leaves do not require to be dried in the sun before they are usable (U.N. 2001). General estimates suggest that although a cocaleros only receives a tiny percentage of the final profits from his crop, he can still sell it for roughly ten times the price of any suggested legal alternative such as coffee, bananas or palm hearts.

Violence.Nevertheless, the properties mentioned so far are not unique to Colombia. For example, Peru and Bolivia both grow large volumes of coca leaves, and countries like Venezuela and Guyana are geographically closer to the favoured transportation route through the Bahamas. The single biggest reason for the establishment of such a rife drugs business is that Colombia failed to experience the levels of social development achieved by its neighbours. Francsco Thoumi (1992) describes how ‘La Violencia’, a ten-year long war between Colombia’s two main political parties, created the perfect breeding ground for a drugs trade through the emergence of two main consequences of the war. Firstly, the government was weakened and lost control of large areas within the country, and secondly, because the conflict put a very low level on the value of human life.

Colombia’s bloody past underlines an inclination towards violence, and the prevailing notion that it is an acceptable method of resolving disputes: even between political parties. With these conditions it would not be impossible to make a strong case for violence being integral to the Colombian mindset; perhaps even a cultural attribute. Despite this, it is evident that the presence of the illegal drugs business – particularly the proliferation of armed groups that benefit from it – embitters the situation. Between 1985 and 2000 over two-hundred bombs had been detonated in Colombian cities; an entire left-wing political party was wiped out by paramilitaries; and four presidential candidates, two-hundred judges, twelve-hundred police officers, one-hundred and fifty-one journalists and an estimated three thousand Colombian citizens were murdered (Pardo, 2000). These figures highlight the actual price Colombia is paying for being the home of cocaine.


Corruption.
Perhaps even more serious than the existence of heightened violence is the dominance of far-reaching corruption in all levels of Colombian society. Cartels prey on the weakness of the state institutions, and use a percentage of their overall profit to buy off police, customs officials, politicians, prominent ministers and even presidents. Unfortunately, much of the ‘evidence’ that points to corruption is anecdotal, but as the government increases its transparency, some major cases of corruption are brought to the fore.

There are so many infamous examples of corruption reaching the highest echelons of Colombia, that to name specific cases is almost becoming cliché. Some of the most notorious instances since the 1990s have included Reynaldo Rodriguez Lopes, an advisor to Peru’s top police officials, who created a travel agency as a front for smuggling cocaine and laundering money (Clayton, 1999). Colombian government agent Carlos Rodrigo Polania – who had previously held the posts of inspector general of Colombia’s intelligence agency and was the official liaison with the DEA, US Customs and Interpol – was directly linked to money laundering organisations (Freemantle, 1995). The well known case of the former Colombian President, Ernesto Samper - receiving some $6 million from the Calí cartel to fund his presidential campaign - demonstrates that drug money can, and will, infect all levels of politics. The severity of this threat is made even worse, because it presents a downward spiral in that the weaker a state is, the easier it will be to corrupt and the more corrupt a state is, the weaker it will become – creating a chronic security threat.

Indeed, the unthinkable levels of state employees and institutions that had been tainted by drug money in the country led to Douglas Farah coining the phrase ‘Colombianisation’ (1990). It is now used to construe any ‘democracy’ that shows a similarly high level of corruption. Farah goes on to argue that these states experience the disintegration of political, economic and social structures; and that states are soon hurled towards a permanent position of violence, with assassinations and human rights violations. A question that must be asked is, “Would corruption exist under a stronger government?” Although this is hard to determine, I believe that a stronger government alone would not solve this problem, but that the elimination of violence within society would also be necessary to prevent the Cartel’s notorious ‘Silver or Lead’ policy, which leaves current politicians with the ‘choice’ of accepting a bribe, or joining the scores of dead people who dared to challenge the cartels.

The National Image.
A further problem associated with such widespread corruption, is that it raises the question of international credibility. With a copious number of the country’s politicians assumed to be in the pockets of the Cartels, it must be believed within International Relations that Colombia, as a state, is unable to act rationally, and that the Government is not always creating policy in the interest of its citizens. Displaying such traits undermines other states’ willingness to support or co-operate with Colombia. One such incident that seriously damaged Columbia’s international standing was Pablo Escobar’s infamous ‘jailbreak’ in 1992. The Colombians who let the world’s most notorious criminal simply walk out of jail, ensured their country became an international harlequin.

This situation presents a larger security issue than anything stated thus far, because the heavy influence of a sub-state actor, at such high levels of the oldest ‘democracy’ in the region, could act as a deterrent for other countries to co-operate directly with the Government. It also underscores that the citizens’ best interests are not always at the heart of the government, which would explain; the continuation of ‘human insecurity,’ the plight of its citizens, and the continuing existence of criminal organisations that still ‘undermine the capacity for the government to rule the country’ (Hough, 2004).

It is not only corruption that taints the country’s international status. Javier Barón (2001) notes that the previously mentioned existence of “permanent structural violence… places it [Colombia] on the list of nations that are regressing from civilisation to barbarism.” As I have previously noted, corruption already strains International Relations, and in addition, the continuation of the low-intensity conflict prevents other aspects of International Relations, such as globalisation, from occurring. Legitimate businesses and ordinary people are not willing to risk investment or travelling to such an unstable state.

The Silver Lining.
So far I have briefly described the main dangers and negative aspects that the drug business forces upon Colombia, however its existence is not entirely detrimental to the country.

In order to keep some level of public opinion on their side, Cartels invest a portion of their earnings back in to the communities. By the end of the 1980’s the Cartels in Calí and Medelín owned several newspapers and broadcasting companies, and invested approximately a third of their income into Columbian industry, real estate and agriculture projects. They were actively involved with over half of the national football teams, and gave surplus money to peasant farmers and charities. Although these pursuits have decreased with the downfall of the ‘classic’ Cartels, many people and industries today still benefit from the existence of an illegal drug business, particularly the service sector and those who supply luxury items such as suits, cars and so forth. Caroline Moser (2004) describes how it was noticeable that after the seizure of Los Rodriguez, a high-ranking Calí Cartel member, there was a ‘marked decrease in the economic fortunes of his community’. Such economic power not only means that Cartels enjoy the backing of many politicians, but they are also seen as a powerful social entity, using this Robin Hood-ism charity as a masquerade to win the public over, and luring them – to an extent – into forgetting the more negative aspects of their existence.

Not only does the business establish the economic well being of a region, but it also ensures that a constant flow of capital circulates within the country as a whole. John Peeler (1998) notes that Colombia was under a lot less pressure to conform to the Neoliberal policy changes forced upon the region in the 1980’s. This shows there was enough money being spent by the Cartels, and returning to the economy, that it was beneficial not only to the service sector, but to the nation as a whole.

Another ‘benefit’ of the business is that it indiscriminately offers a wide-range of well-paid jobs, that include positions such as: cocaleros, pilots, lookouts, drivers, guards, accountants, labourers, chemists, lawyers, money launderers, tax specialists, smugglers, mules and dealers. Discussed more in chapter two, the business also provides a major source of funding for the paramilitaries and guerrillas, which when taken at a statistical level, keeps their members employed. One aspect of employment which is often overlooked, is that of counter-employment: including the ‘police, customs, coast guards, judges’ (Griffith, 2000) not to mention the ever-increasing role of the Army. By adding the aforementioned service sector to the tally, the total number of individuals employed through direct, or indirect, involvement to the drug business is so colossal, that it is impossible to imagine what would happen if all of those jobs disappeared overnight!


The Bigger Picture.

Although Colombia undoubtedly suffers the worst of these effects first hand, they are by no means exclusive. Every country involved at any link in the drugs chain feels the effects in it’s own different ways.

Being one of the major transit countries, Brazil is heavily impacted by the presence of drugs. In 1994 city police of Rio de Janeiro were so heavily ‘plagued by corruption’ and ‘entangled with organised crime’ (Aguero, 1998) that the national army had to be called in to restore order and suppress the violent crimes related to narco-trafficking. The favelas in Rio display many negatives of the existence of drugs and gangs, including a murder approximately every half hour (Lund, 1999). The Central Bank of Brazil also reported that in 1997, one third of it’s money was ‘suspicious’ and that an estimated $20 million per day came over the border in laundering scams from Paraguay alone (Ciprut, 2001).

In December 2006 Mexican President, Felipe Calerdon, had to initiate drastic measures to restore order in several towns near the U.S. border. Some 4,000 troops were sent to Michoacan to control the violence, bringing the nationwide total police presence to 20,000 officers in Cartel strongholds. It has also recently been published that police deaths in Mexico have increased by 50% the in past year, most of the fatalities occurring in a gunfight with a criminal group. As mentioned earlier, Bolivia also has some problems trying to legitimise growing the coca leaf, while Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela feel the effects of the “Violence that is continuing and even escalating in some parts of the country” (R.I., 2007), through the thousands of refugees that cross into their borders every year. These examples show how neighbouring countries, and those used as transit zones, eventually become entangled with the effects of the drugs business.


Realism.
For the purpose of explaining their rise, I intend to show that the theory of Classical Realism perfectly describes the behaviour of actors in the drugs business, if only for it having the most pessimistic view of human nature. The first sentence in the cornerstone of Realism reads “International Politics, like all politics is a struggle for power” (Morgenthau, 1949). When the emphasis is taken away from ‘international politics’ and projected on to sub-state groups, it provides a perfect synopsis for the position of the Cartels in their blurred struggle with and against the paramilitaries, guerrillas and the Government of Colombia. Because of their illicit nature, the Cartels – as they are today – would never be allowed to enter legitimate politics, therefore they do not seek governing power, but simply assent, and in order to achieve this they must blackjack the people with influence. This struggle for acceptance, by ultimately ‘pocketing’ the people with power, also fits well with the recognised definition of organised crime.

In addition, Realism is known to distort parts of the human semblance, and depict a rather bleak vision of reality, where humans are ‘pessimistic about the prospect of eliminating war’ (Walt, 2005). This viewpoint is almost a perfect explanation for the stigma of bestial behaviour associated with Colombia’s war torn past and extended periods of violence. ‘La Violencia’ also goes to show that violence and war are not only reserved for the military groups, but that they are embraced by political parties as, what is seen as, a legitimate method of claiming power. The Cartels’ flagrant policy of ‘silver or lead’ is an example of how this violence has developed, and been espoused as a method of ensuring that people see things their way.

Looking at the perspective of an individual in the drugs business, we can draw from political realist Thomas Hobbes, who once described the life of man as being ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’ (1668). Again, this comment that is not an inacurate depiction of people ininvolved with the drugs business. At this point, it is important to note that not all Columbians per se would be best described by this pessimistic sentence, but when describing the ruthless behaviour of individual Cartel members, it is an accurate blueprint.

Ironically, the Cartels fit the mould of classical realism a little too well, and through both violence and corruption (crude Realist actions), have gained so much influence in a short timescale (an intensified Realist goal), that their power stretches beyond that of the Government in many areas of the country. From local districts to national departments, they have come to almost embody the state itself, which immediately breaks down the state-centrism integral to the theory of Classical Realism.This paper puts forth the concept of “Narco-Realism” as the first attempt to explain how the Cartels operate. They use their disposable income to coerce everyone with power into joining their cause (regardless of their political orientation), and people who are not willing to conform are simply disposed of. As mentioned above, they use realist actions to achieve realist goals and appear to have no real principles, political orientation, or ethics: in that they will buy, sell, kill and employ indiscriminantly, and all with intensified violence.

[1] Chapter two discusses the structure and evolution of the Cartels in relation to U.S. Policy in greater detail; it also highlights the other threats perceived by America such as the guerrillas & paramilitaries.

Diss: Chapter 2

Chapter two:
Where Old Wars Rage On.

This chapter aims to provide an analytical account into the failing of current policy that is aimed at combating the drugs business in Colombia. Due to the bi-lateral nature of the aid over the last twenty years, it means that I will be focusing on American foreign policy. This chapter first discusses the composition and consequences of U.S. aid in Colombia, followed by the rise of the FARC guerrilla group, and finishing on analysis of the current ‘Plan Colombia’.


Drugs become a security threat.

In 1986, near the final stages of the Cold War, U.S. president Ronald Reagan officially declaired drug trafficking a threat to ‘U.S. national security’. Several years later, in 1990, North American and many Latin American leaders reached the conclusion that the drug business had become a “serious threat to national security and societal well-being” (Kapiszewski, 2002). Since this consensus emerged, drugs, and attempts to triumph over the drug business, have remained one of the biggest issues between America and many countries in her own backyard.

Because of the controversy surrounding Vietnam, the U.S. had to change the wording of their perceived threat in Central and Latin America from Communism to a ‘narco-terrorism’. (Scott, i, 1998). This phrase resonated amongst Americans, who were, at the time, beginning to experience a drug epidemic at home. It also favoured Washington, as it kept public opinion behind their continuous interventions in the continent. One problem with this change is that the new threat is vague and encapsulates both the cartels and the guerrillas.

Some scholars hold a more cynical opinion, and believe that this increasing interest in the U.S. in Latin America throughout the 1990’s was simply ‘trying to create a new niche for itself in a post-cold war world’ (Steinberg, 2000). Thus, many believed that this newfound concern for the region was nothing more than an alibi to continue American presence, by legitimising the use of hard, military force – something that would become intrinsic to Colombian aid – against the drug Cartels.


Misguided policy.

The main problem with a great deal of the U.S. Policy is that it fails to acknowledge the culture of the region. In the Andes cocaleros have been growing and using coca – mainly to minimise certain ill-effects of their lifestyle, such as the altitude sickness and hunger – for centuries. Although it must be recognised that countries like Peru and Bolivia do grow large amounts of the crop, the majority is not intended for the production of cocaine.

Eradication.
Instead of targeting the Cartels, the Realist anti-drug policy seems to focus as much, if not more, on these peasant farmers that grow coca to make a living. From the mid-1990s through to the current day, one of the most criticised elements of the U.S. policy in Colombia and her neighbours has been that of aerial fumigation. In addition to concerns regarding health, target accuracy and overall success, it has fuelled immense friction between peasant farmers (campensinos) and their national governments, which are being forced to pursue these contentious policies. The current President of Bolivia, Evo Morales – who has politically aligned himself with anti-Americans, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro – recently declared that the cocaleros will “continue to grow coca, there will never be zero coca” (Boggan, 2006). Whilst rhetoric like this is clearly sending a strong message of defiance to America, it shows that these countries are beginning to realise that American policy targeted towards eradication has achieved very little in a long time, and that the U.S. must begin to formulate more successful strategies in their drugs war. However, there is little sign of the U.S. putting an end to fumigation in the future, which will only serve to alienate farmers and infringe on another country’s traditions.

Extradition.
Of all the policies pursued by the U.S., extradition appears to have been the ‘main source of conflict between the government and the traffickers’ (Thoumi, 2002). The key idea is that extradition ensures a percentage of drug lords, however infinitesimal, face the American interpretation of justice. Today, unlike the years of indiscriminate bombings orchestrated by the Medelín Cartel – when extradition was a new threat – many would argue it has become more of an ‘occupational hazard’ for new Cartel leaders. American perseverance ensures that one or two high-profile kingpins are extradited every now and again, such as the former Calí leaders, the Orejuela brothers, in 2005. This may look good in the media, but the overall impact it has on the drugs business is trivial.

Some may also argue that the process is rather unjust, in that the people who have caused so much violence, and have contributed to the breakdown of Colombian society, are actually being tried for shipping drugs to America. Because of the profits discussed in the previous chapter, there will always be individuals willing to assume the role of a captured boss, meaning that it would take the extradition of hundreds, if not thousands, to provide any significant results.

A certified failure.
The process of ‘certification’ was set up by the U.S. to determine how much aid, if any, a country would receive towards their fight against the drug trade on the basis of their success in the previous year. The chief problem with the process is that in order to secure another large aid package, the region’s weak governments will divert what little resources they have towards fighting the Cartels, instead of social spending. Critics of certification claim that it bears more of a resemblance to a “political instrument than an effective mechanism to reduce drug trafficking” (Chabat, 2002). Some may also believe that the certification process sends out the wrong signals to the Latin American countries, purely because it places an emphasis on compliance rather than any form of co-operation.

Banking on it.
Some scholars also lay heavy responsibility for the current situation on the World Bank and IMF’s methods used to aid the recovery of the ailing economies. James Petras notes that the economic model placed on Colombia in the early 1990’s caused the “Rapid elimination of social gains made by workers during their 50 years of struggle” (2000). Consequences of the Neoliberal reforms such as the removal of unionists, criminalisation of social protests and militarisation of strikes, achieved nothing more than further alienating workers and making them more susceptible to supporting the government’s opponents, such as the FARC. Although this is not a direct policy aimed at the drug business, it means that finite resources are being used to pay back debts, as opposed to funding internal development.

Clarity.
As mentioned in the introduction, U.S. policy fails to effectively distinguish between the three greatest threats (guerrillas, paramilitaries and cartels), and umbrellas them under the term ‘Narco-Terrorists’. This is fitting rhetoric since the ‘War on Drugs’ has been absorbed into the larger and more popular ‘War on Terror.’ While the guerrilla group aims to overthrow the state and the paramilitaries seek to influence or control the politics on the local scale, Walker (1996) describes how the cartels are ‘not trying to overthrow the state’ but attempting to reach some form of ‘accommodation’ with it. By trying to kill three birds with one stone, the U.S. has settled for a vague ‘middle-of-the-road’ policy that fails to effectively deal with any of these specific actors. It may also be one of the main factors that has pushed these groups together and blurred all of their individual differences.

Unintended Consequences.
New Designs.
After several years of intense campaigns against the Medelín and Calí Cartels, and with the successful capture or killing of most of their key figures, it was initially believed to be the beginning of the end of the drug business in Colombia. However, in reality, the Classic Cartels were almost instantly replaced with a new breed of smaller, and more organised, groups that had learnt lessons from the downfall of Escobar’s generation. To avoid becoming as well known as their predecessors – which was arguably their biggest mistake – these new Cartels decided to shun the limelight and assume a more clandestine role.

To make matters worse for anti-drugs policy, these new groups also began working in a cell structure similar to that of a terrorist network, with different cells forming separate links in the chain. Abadinsky (1994) notes that, because of this new structure, the elimination of a single member, or even an entire cell, has little effect on the overall output of the organisation. By replacing the undesirable aspects of the ‘classic’ Cartel organisation, and retaining the beneficial ones such as smuggling routes and keeping up corruption, the new ilk of Cartels had literally perfected their business.

Balloon Effect.
Because of the nature of the supply-demand model, whenever there is the demand for a product, a group will fill the void in the market. For the drugs business, this means that if a link in the chain is disrupted, because there is still demand, it will simply re-locate and continue: this is known as the ‘balloon effect’. For example, in the early 1990’s American eradication was focused towards Peru and Bolivia with the aim of curbing their domestic coca production – some of which was being exported to Colombia for making cocaine. With noteworthy success – particularly in Peru where president Alberto Fujimori launched what would become know as his ‘Fuji-shock’ – both countries saw a significant drop in internal coca production. However, because of the balloon effect, Alfred McCoy (2003) comments how this success meant that U.S. policy had merely pushed coca production from peaceful Peru and Bolivia, into Colombia’s ongoing civil war. As mentioned in the first chapter, the Colombian coca plant has more harvests per year, and does not need to be dried in the sun before use, because it is also grown internally the transportation costs are reduced. This also puts a strain on the people of Colombia, not only through the increased levels of violence associated with the business, but because the country is growing less food to be distributed internally.

This means that although Washington had achieved some degree of ‘success’ in Peru and Bolivia, they had actually made the Colombian business more efficient in the long run. The ‘balloon effect’ also holds true to other aspects of the trade, such as when interdiction efforts are bolstered in the Caribbean, Cartels simply switch to the central American route and vice versa; and when the Medelín Cartel was dismantled the Calí gang took their market share; after the Calí gang had been razed ‘Norte De Valle’ simply replaced them, and as they are currently being targeted new sizeable gangs are beginning to appear outside Colombia - in Rio De Janeiro, Tijuana and other Mexican border towns. Because of this balloon effect it is impossible to completely remove a section of the business because it will, and does, simply appear elsewhere.

Entrepreneurs.
With regards to the growing of coca, a new strain of the plant was recently discovered that can grow up to 9 feet tall, which is twice the size of the regular plant, as well as another new strain that has a yield eight times higher than its regular equivalent (BBC, 2004). Such a discovery explains that although the overall production of coca, in hectares, has decreased and interdiction efforts are stopping more drugs, the prices have remained stable in the streets of the market countries.

Due to its high value-to-weight ratio, refined cocaine is the perfect substance to smuggle, and smuggling is another area in which the Colombian’s entrepreneurs are continually trying to outwit the authorities. Stories from customs offices all over the world finding cocaine in strange places are not uncommon, from homemade submarines, false pregnancy cages, inside toys, and even pizza ovens, the list of methods used to smuggle cocaine into market places is endless.


The FARC.

With roots that date back to the early 1960s, and the first wave of socialist revolutions in Latin America, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly abbreviated to ‘FARC’, has grown from a small band of mountain guerrillas to the largest and oldest Marxist insurgency group in the world. After being almost completely wiped out by the ‘classic’ Cartels in the late 1980’s, the FARC have been able to capitalise on most forms of U.S. anti-drug policy, and re-established themselves with incomparable success. The wealth and power of FARC is now globally recognised, even by the U.S. army, which reluctantly notes that the they have “become the richest self-sustaining insurgent group in history” (MCWP, 2006).

Protection For Profits.
With the fall of communism the FARC’s foreign funding was cut, and they had to replace the missing income, ideally with something closer to home. By selling protection from the paramilitaries, and by taxing coca leaves and paste, they soon realised the economic benefits of joining the business and invested their surplus cash into expanding their movement. However, in order to sustain such a rapid growth FARC had to become more heavily involved in the business; today it has reached the point where it is often hard to distinguish between the FARC and the Cartels. Vocal critics put forth arguments that they have ‘evolved into a purely criminal organisation, with only the thinnest veneer of politics’ (Metz, 2004).

Although there is little denying that the FARC are reliant on the drugs business for their survival today, it would be foolish to believe a group that has spent over forty years fighting deep in the jungle – long pre-dating the drugs business – would so readily abandon their political goals. This is underscored by their willingness to engage in peace-talks, something the government refuses to offer the Cartels. It can be seen that the FARC grasped the opportunity to keep their campaign alive, with the luxury of having enough money left over to properly equip, train, and arm their fighters. In this sense, the FARC could ultimately be viewed as the most successful insurgency in history.

In his article “FARC’s Best Friend”, Mark Peceny (2006) goes into great detail as to how several anti-drug efforts used by the U.S. have inadvertently strengthened the FARC’s power and popular appeal. He describes how: dismantling the Calí and Medelín cartels have made it is easier for FARC to tax the new breed of smaller cartels; how crackdowns on coca growing in Peru and Bolivia have pushed the crop into lawless Colombia – again giving them more coca to tax; and how aerial fumigation has ostracised and angered peasant farmers, who have then turned to the FACR for help and offered support. The article concludes that FARC now “possess unprecedented resources to prosecute its war against the government”. This result not only shows the unintended consequences of what the U.S. had thought to be semi-successful policies, but it also highlights how ineffective a ‘middle-of-the-road’ strategy is at dealing with any of the three great threats.

With reference to the region as a whole, the U.S. would benefit from learning a lesson from its military, aid as handed out in central America decades ago. According to Angel Rabasa (2001), the FARC buy a lot of their arms from “El Salvador and Nicaragua, from the stockpiles left from the Central American civil wars of the 1980’s”. Although costs a lot of money to transport the guns back to America, where they could be destroyed or sold on, it would ensure that they didn’t fall into the wrong hands, or more ironically, become part of the enemy’s armaments several years later. By learning from these mistakes America should implement a policy of ensuring that it’s military assistance is destroyed or kept safe in the aftermath of such an aid boost.


Plan Colombia
Beginning its long and controversial journey in October 1998, the anti-drug strategy formulated by the Colombian government was initially titled “An Integrated Policy on Drugs for Peace”. It’s main aim was to suppress the drugs business by using peaceful methods such as: alternative crop development; new eradication and interdiction efforts, institutional reforms to combat corruption; and efforts to strengthen international co-operation in dealing with drug trafficking (GAO, 1999). The most interesting aspects of this proposal is that there are few mentions of any military action, and it encouraged other countries other than just the U.S. to participate. Indeed, according to Andrés Pastrana’s administration, “only 25% of the 7.5 billion dollars were to go to the security forces” (Godoy, 2003); the rest would be spent on the peaceful methods that tackled the bigger problems of poverty and underdevelopment.

Unfortunately, the American interpretation of the proposal differed greatly to Andres Pastrana’s pitch, and after several re-drafts in America the original document, which was unmistakably a peace plan, had evolved into an unrecognisable military effort aimed at destroying the cartels and wiping out the coca crop. It also fails drastically to recognise some areas highlighted by Pastrana such as education, poverty and unemployment. Another noteworthy aspect of the new Plan Colombia was that its formulation and implementation were perfectly synchronised with the 2000 U.S. Presidential elections, which could imply that it was merely an aid boost to convince American citizens that Washington was taking a tough line on drugs.

PIE CHART FIGURE
‘Plan Colombia’ aid package, signed into law in July 2000. (In million U.S.D.)Figure 1. (Isacson, 2002)

As figure 1 clearly shows 60% of the funding of the final ‘Plan Colombia’ was spent on military aid, and when the police assistance is factored in the number soars to 74%. Surprisingly, less than half of 1% was spent working towards peace, a figure that highlights the real aims of the American Plan Colombia. Of the $519 million military aid spending, it is understood that some $400 million went straight back to the United States through the purchase of seventy-four helicopters. This is not to mention the employment of American ‘trainers, intelligence gatherers, spray plane pilots, mechanics, logistics personnel, radar operators’ and so on. In a way this ‘aid package’ resembles old-fashioned stings attached aid, where the donating company appears to benefit more than the recipient.

Numerous reports have reached a similar conclusion: Rachel Massey (2001) points out that “several U.S. industries stand to gain from U.S. intervention in Colombia’s civil war”. Evidently from the pie chart and statistics above, the companies involved in outsourcing employees and selling equipment would indeed be making significant gains. Massey’s paper also outlines the health hazards of aerial fumigation, one of the main components of the American plan, and its ineffectiveness, which was highlighted earlier in this chapter.

To date, the U.S. has spent over $3 Billion on this ambitious failure, hoping eradicate, or at least dent, the drug business in Columbia. However because this money is being mostly spent on military tactics, and the majority of this is simply going straight back to the U.S., the results have been dismal. In 2002 the US aimed for an 11% defoliation of the coca plant through aerial eradication, but due to the nature of these realist tactics, and the balloon effect, the final satellite surveillance of Columbia at the end of the year showed an overall increase of 25%, due to the fact it had just been pushed to other areas within in the country (McCoy, 2003).

In the end, one lesson can be learned from Plan Colombia and its realist attempts to combat the business in Colombia, this being that, even if these approaches appear to provide some initial ‘success’, in the long run they always lead to the diversification of methods and routes, and the sophistication, co-operation and expansion of the drugs business in one way or another.


Negotiations.
Of all the tactics used to combat the drugs business, it is perhaps the Colombian government’s offer of peace talks with the guerrillas that has promised the most success in the long run. Yet, it would appear that the United States is reluctant to accept any form of settlement. As the last serious attempt to reach a peace deal unfolded in the late 1990’s Congress announced that it would cut off counternarcotic assistance if Pastrana’s peace initiatives interfered with coca eradication efforts. (Crandal, 2001). It is also true that as developments were being made the U.S. announced their version of Plan Colombia that would soon be implimented in the country; this would also have have had a de-stabilising effect on the negociations and soured relations with the guerrillas.

Other than eliminating one of the biggest contributors in the prolonged civil war, a peace deal with FARC would help counter-drug efforts in two main ways. Firstly it would expose the cartels by removing a lot of their protection that is currently preventing the government from making any real progress against them. Secondly, FARC personell would be a major asset in any operations against the Cartels – or possible splinter guerrilla groups – because they would not only know the tactics used by FARC, and the terrain, but also where the crops are grown and how best to attack their remaining strongholds.


The ‘Results’

Despite twenty or so years of these extensive efforts to reduce the overall production and distribution of Cocaine, the evidence suggests that the opposite is actually happening. The World Drug Report of 2006 indicates that cocaine seizures increased to 558 metric tons in 2004, an 18% rise from 2003 and the highest figure ever recorded. It also notes that Colombia accounts for 32% of this figure – the highest in the world – with a 29% increase from recorded seizures last year (UNODC, 2006). Although this means that more drugs are being intercepted, it would suggest that higher levels of drugs are actually being produced.

More generally, the root of all U.S. policy failure in Colombia is that it is “embedded in the overly-simplistic assumption that nation states are always the primary actors” (Bagley, 1988). I described in the previous chapter, although the Cartels have infiltrated the state, they themselves are sub-state actors; the same is also true of the guerrillas and paramilitaries. One would assume that realist theory may have been tried out for several years before being replaced with a more fitting approach, but it has actually remained the major premise behind U.S. policy for the entire duration, and is in all probability is the principal reason behind the lack of any substantial results.


Conclusion.

It is not just Plan Colombia, or even the onset of the 1980’s ‘War on Drugs’ that brought about the first stages of American military intervention in Colombia. From the outset of the successful Cuban revolution the United States made serious efforts to ‘prevent more Cubas’ from springing up in the continent. From approximately 1962 CIA Special Forces began training the Colombian police and paramilitaries in ‘counter-insurgency, sabotage and terror’ techniques (Scott, ii, 2003). This clearly planted the seeds from which the current anti-insurgency emphasis is still continuing grow. By using this timescale, it can be seen that America has been trying to defeat the FARC for forty-five years and has not only failed to do so, but they have actually helped widen their availability of funds.

When put into this context, U.S. policy has become little more than intervention in another country’s civil war – and if one were to be cynical, there is more than regional stability on the list of American priorities. With the majority of the Southern Cone of Latin America already leaning to the political left, and the current battle for support of the region’s people between George Bush and Hugo Chavez, the U.S. will likely do everything in it’s powers to ensure that FARC doesn’t legitimise and disrupt the balance in Colombia’s political system.

Overall U.S. policy in Colombia can be characterised by two constants, persistence and militarisation, both of which are bad news for Colombians that wish to see the end of the conflict. It is also true that even if the drugs business was completely eliminated, the civil war, which pre-dates the business, would indefinately continue. One must also ask the qestion of whether it is actually possible to win a ‘war’ against such a volatile mixture of drugs, insurgency, corruption, and common deliquency.

Diss: Chapter 3

Chapter Three:
The Balancing Act.

“Fighting drug traffic is impossible, I’ve destroyed lots of labs, they just start up again”
– Maria Christina Chirolla: (2006).


The above quote perfectly describes the present situation in Colombia. With U.S. Policy treating the battle against the drug business as an old-fashioned war that can actually be won, the results were, are, and will continue to be negligible if anti-drug policy does not change. This chapter puts forth some recommendations for alterations to the currently American led ‘aid’ that is forced upon Colombia.


The Dominant Challenge.

Currently, there are clearly major flaws in policy in both the supply and demand sides, which has unfortunately resulted in an unthinkable amount of money being spent over two decades without “significantly affecting the levels of illegal drug use or potency of available drugs” (Woodiwis, 2001). However, even after over twenty years of drastically failed policy, the U.S. seems more than reluctant to change the nature of it’s Colombian ‘aid’ packages. As the last chapter illustrated, a little under 75% of all aid to Colombia goes to fighting the guerrillas, which achieves nothing more than prolonging the country’s civil war.

America would benefit greatly from formulating it’s next major anti-drug strategy in the same vein as that of the European Union’s “balanced approach of combining demand and supply reduction” (E.U., 2004). With regards to the E.U.’s demand side reduction their strategy incorporates ‘early intervention, treatment, harm reduction, rehabilitation and social re-integration’. This emphasis on a balanced approach has been highlighted by critics for a long time, as far back as the early 1990’s, who called for America to recognise that anything but a ‘balanced long-run strategy that addresses both the demand and supply sides’, would achieve nothing other than ‘momentary relief’ (Bagley, 1990). Despite years of these entreatys, from almost every ‘camp’ within the literature, the U.S. still refuses to heed this advice.

Perhaps the most cited work in demand-supply literature is Peter Rydell’s RAND paper that reaches a disheartening conclusion. His empirical piece showed that in order to reduce cocaine consumption in the U.S. by 1% in the long run, America would have to spend; $783m on source-country control, or $366m on interdiction, $246m on domestic enforcement or $34m on domestic treatment. (Rydell, 1994). In other words, for every $23m America successfully spends in Colombia, to achieve the same result by treating users at home it would cost a little under $1m. However, this figure fails to factor in the ‘balloon effect’ discussed in the previous chapter, which would suggest that any ‘success’ of source control methods is nugatory in the long term.

With this in mind, the greatest challenge for the future of American anti-drug policy is to strike the appropriate balance in spending, between the demand and supply sides. Nevertheless, this balance alone will not provide significant results, as there are many areas that could be improved. The next two sections of this chapter put forth some recommendations aimed at raising the effectiveness of spending on both sides.


The Supply Side Tactics:
Military Aspects.

Achieving Policy Clarity.
As highlighted in the previous chapter, although the lines between the different actors in the drug trade are blurred, they must still be considered separate entities, each with specific goals and weaknesses. However, because of a ‘middle-of-the-road’ policy, there is still a lack of clarity as to who the American military efforts are aimed at. Latin American specialists often point out that “Several guerrilla organizations are the target”(Avilés, 2001). Observations like these do not correspond with the rhetoric of a ‘War on Drugs’, especially when the FARC and ELN in particular appear to be the focus of military campaigns. In this grey area of policy, the U.S. would benefit from creating a clear distinction between their counter drug and counterinsurgency efforts, and executing them independently.

Reaching a Compromise.
The negotiation process is another avenue that could lead to promising advances in the near future. In February 2007 Colombian President Álvaro Uribe announced that he would re-open direct negotiations with FARC, including a prisoner exchange (BBC, 2007), with the eventual aim of keeping his promise to the public of ending the guerrilla movement that killed his father in 1983. Nevertheless, during the last crucial set of negotiations, Washington decided to unveil the drastic militarisation of ‘Plan Colombia’ which in-turn de-stabilised the peace talks, eventually leading to them being called off. If Washington still deems a peace-deal unacceptable, it should be expected that they would announce a further military boost for the region in the coming months, with the outcome again being that it somehow aggravates the talks. The main advantage of successful negotiations, besides those mentioned in the previous chapter, is that it appears to be the only realistic way to end decades of civil war in the near future.

Increasing The Role of Informers.
Another feasible solution, that that would sufficiently increase the cost-effectiveness of operations, would be to increase the reliance on informants. It is widely accepted that if ‘properly managed and controlled they [informants] represent a cost-effective means of detecting and gathering evidence’ (HMIC, 1997). There is no reason why the Colombian or American authorities should not capitalise on this niche and increase their reliance on informants.

One could suggest that America should start putting the ‘soft power’ that it has spent decades building through, mediums such as “Hollywood films that make the United States attractive in Latin America” (Nye, 2003), to good use. By offering individuals material goods, political amnesty, or even an American Visa, in exchange for reliable information that leads to substantial gains, they could transform their international image into a means of wooing informants from deep inside the cartels. Because the main reason that individuals initially join the drugs business is to escape from poverty, by presenting such an attractive alternative, there should be no real concern about a lack of persons willing to step forward. After all, over the past six years it would have cost considerably less than $3bn to provide some Colombians with the basic habiliments for starting a new life in America.

Cutting the Communications.
The ad hoc and secretive structure of the new generation cartels means that they have to communicate through internet chat rooms and cellular phones with the most modern of encryption technology (Rabasa, 2001). In order to disrupt these communications – essential to every part of the business – one could suggest that the U.S. ought to begin using electromagnetic bombs in the region. These devices send out a signal that produces a heavy current in all types of electric devices, causing the circut wires to melt, rendering it useless. This tactic would alienate and weaken the Cartels and, because they chiefly work in rural and inacsessable areas, the impact on civilians would be minimal. Although guerrillas can work effectively without communications, it would still prevent the seperate units from contacting each other, again increasing their vulunerability.

Addressing Moral Concerns.
The question of ethics has also given American opponents an axe to grind when discussing the overwhelmingly military aspect of the Colombian ‘aid’ packages. The main question that arises is typically along the line of: “why does the U.S. continue to fund the government, and its security forces, that are involved in ‘periodical reports’ of ‘extrajudicial’ and ‘unlawful killings’?” (USDS, 2006). It is thought that the government forces, and the pro-government paramilitaries, are responsible for approximately 80% of the human rights abuses, yet these are the two actors that benefit most from American aid at the moment. A framework similar to the ‘certification process’ could be used in order to ensure that America cuts funding to the forces responsible for Human Rights abuses.

The Social Aspects.
Although the aforesaid military tactics could greatly increase the effectiveness of U.S. policy in the region, a second spending equilibrium must be formulated to balance out the military and social spending within Colombian aid packages. To date, American policy has been overwhelmingly directed towards the peasant farmers and guerrillas, this needs to be addressed after decades of failure, and especially when political institutions are benefiting more from the drugs money.

Killing off Corruption.
The most important aspect that must be addressed when suggesting a new set of strategies for the ‘War on Drugs’ is undoubtedly that of corruption. Even today, despite the proliferation of polygraph testing, deeply rooted political scandals continue to emerge. The latest of these began unfolding in November of 2006, and revealed that many close allies of President Uribe were directly linked to paramilitary groups. This culminated with the resignation of Colombia’s foreign minister, Maria Consuelo Araujo, after her brother had been arrested as part of the scandal (Brodzinsky, 2007). This news came just days after the former intelligence minister had also been charged with working with these militias. Whilst this paper is at print, it will be interesting to observe if this scandal further penetrates the Government. However, even at it’s current stage it highlights the severity of today’s situation, where individuals as high as Government Ministers are still being tainted by drugs money.

Other than some generic political reforms, such as increasing the transparency of government, continually screening the funds of political figures, and having regular polygraph tests, there is very little that can be done to stop the corruption of officials; especially when it is such a furtive activity, and in an age where it has never been easier to contact politicians. Sadly, without an entirely ‘clean’ set of politicians – and indeed police and army officers – all of the government’s current efforts, and anything proposed thus far, are jeopardised. It must also be noted that while the Cartels are gaining from corrupt insiders leaking classified government information, they could also be creating a two-fold problem by ensuring the people on their pay list supply the state with counter-intelligence. A situation like this effectively means that millions of dollars can be wasted in operations that against the Cartels, who have doubled the odds in their favour.

Economic Assistance.
Much of Colombia’s grim situation could be improved by making certain changes to its economy, with the eventual aim of reducing the poverty level, which currently sits at 49%. Firstly, ensuring that more of the country’s natural resources are utilised could diversify and strengthen the economy. Currently the economy is based on textiles, coffee, food processing and cut flowers. However, there is greater economic potential in the country’s natural gas, petroleum, coal and gold reserves (CIA, 2007). Due to the large areas of rainforest there may also be some potential in timber and other wood products.

With regard to the aid packages, it would be beneficial to Colombia if other countries, other than solely America, began to donate a variety of different aid packages. An organisation such as the U.N., or individual Member States, could provide economic, or other forms of non-military aid. Visible success, even in a single region, would serve as an example to other countries that Colombian aid packages do not have to be military based, and may even be the factor that prompts a change in the nature of American ‘aid’.

Increasing the Fairness.
The main reason that many cocaleros choose to grow coca specifically to be used in the cocaine business is because of the high price it can be sold for. By investing more money on effective crop substitute programmes, the gap between the wholesale value of legitimate and illegal crops would be diminished. It may also hold truth that if buyers supported a model of ‘Fair-trade,’ thus ensuring that the farmers are not exploited, the gap between coca and its alternatives would be further reduced, with the effect of reducing its appeal.

Summary.Overall, it would be naïve to believe that several changes in tactics could win the war on drugs at the supply end because, as has been stressed, the emphasis should be on a balanced approach and until this is addressed, Washington will achieve no such victory. However, if these measures were incorporated into the current strategies in Colombia I truly believe that there would be a marked increase in the level of success enjoyed by the United States, which would be coupled with a notable decrease in the efficiency of the drug business. Nonetheless, if U.S. ‘aid’ continues to take the same form as it has for almost two decades, it would ensure that Colombia is never capable of escaping the spiral of poverty and dependency. This shift towards tactics that are not centred on the Realist approach is essential for any success.

Demand Side Tactics.

Although it would be convenient to point the finger at the supply-side countries for all of the drug problems within the developed world, the truth is that a drugs business would not exist if it were not for the colossal demand that only ever seems to increase within the consumer countries. One of the biggest and most controversial debates in demand-side methods is the issue of whether or not to legalise drugs - with people strongly arguing for, against, and all that falls between.

To Legalise or Not?
There are two pitfalls in this branch of drug policy theory, the first being that a high percentage of the pro-legalisation arguments are heavily based on assumption. The second is that many more also draw a comparison between the current legal status of drugs and the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s, because it is the only quasi-contemporary example of an outlawed substance being legalised due to the materialization of a black market. In one respect, alcohol prohibition does highlight the negative aspects of placing an ‘illegal’ status on a widely-used commodity, such as “growing disrespect for the law, organised criminal violence, police corruption & poisonous adulteration [of the substances]” (Bakalar, 1983), however because it happened almost ninety years ago, and because the substances being controlled – along with the general public’s attitude towards them – are completely different, it is difficult to draw a truly accurate comparison.

After a thorough investigation, Jeffery Zwiebel (1995) reached the conclusion that although there would be an increase in the number of drug users, a free market in drugs is “likely to be a far superior policy to current policies of drug prohibition”. In such an arrangement, where the entire spectrum of drugs are given ‘legal’ status, one must assume that a monitoring body would ensure that the drugs purchased meet rigorous medical standards, and that their sales are fully controlled and monitored. The increase in users would stem from the significant drop in the price and increased availability of drugs, along with the reality that citizens would be given the freedom of choice in whether to ingest the drug or not, which would undoubtedly generate a great deal of interest. This side effect could be limited by diverting the money from taxes on the drugs, directly into education and treatment programmes.

More generally, basic economics determine that the prohibition of an item will create a black market, which is usually associated with violence. Using a cross-country analysis, Jeffery Miron (2001) takes this a step further by proving that the level of violence increases with the degree to which the prohibition is enforced. This theory goes a long way to explaining the high levels of violence associated with inner-city drug use, which is notoriously high in America. This can also be used as an argument, not just for some form of legalisation, but for a decrease in the enforcement of criminal approaches to drug use.

At the moment, most governments accept that legalising the entire gamut of drugs would be too radical to justify, however some would suggest that an incremental policy – following in the footsteps of Spain, Portugal and Holland – would present the optimal conditions for a country to discover its threshold of drug acceptance. The most important trait of the three aforementioned countries is that they are all major transit points for drugs, but because of their liberal policy, most strikingly that possession and consumption of marijuana is no longer a criminal offence, and that drug abusers are offered treatment as opposed to imprisonment, drugs are not a large-scale problem for the citizens or governments (EMCDDA, 2001). These countries have realised that drug abuse should be seen as a health issue as opposed to a criminal one.

Perhaps there will come a day when governments realise that legalisation is worth attempting, but as a permanent solution to combating the drug business, it will likely be filed under the ‘final option’ category. Prior to that, it is more probable that an epiphany by tax payers will be the main force behind any policy changes, and until such a time, cocaine, and the drugs business is likely to continue worldwide because of the reliability of the market and the associated profits.

Education.Due to the illicit nature of drugs, and the societal stigma associated with drug use, many users do not know the true effects and dangers of the substances they are consuming. “Education is the key to protecting our children from drugs” (Falco, 1996), and it really is as simple as that, although not just within the ‘children’ bracket, but for the public in general. The funding of educational campaigns, but not in the form of propaganda, aimed at the groups of prolific users would most definitely increase awareness and reduce the appeal of drug use. If more cocaine users, for example, were aware of the effects linked to medium and long-term use, which include ‘paranoia, psychosis, malnutrition, respiratory failure and deconstruction of the nose’ (UNODC, 2003) they would definitely reconsider using the drug. Of course, no one would be foolish enough to claim that education will make drug use safe, but it would have the effect of making it safer.

Harm Reduction.
As mentioned in the European Union’s drug strategy, the ‘harm reduction’ approach – ‘a policy of preventing the potential harms related to drug consumption rather than trying to prevent drug use’ (NAPHP, 1999) – has already been tried and tested in several countries, including the Netherlands and Australia. Harm reduction usually takes the form of needle exchanges and disposal points, which aim to reduce any superfluous dangers associated with drug use, such as the spread of hepatitis and HIV. Whilst this method currently applies more directly to intravenous drug use, it does fall under the wider umbrella of viewing drug use as a health issue, instead of simply a criminal one. If America’s internal drug policy resembled something closer to this, as opposed to increasing enforcement and keeping the use of drugs within the ‘criminal’ sphere, drug use would not be as dangerous and problematic as it is today.

Changing the focus.
Even though some of these proposed solutions have been in the public domain for quite some time, most governments and their police forces, are still targeting the wrong segments of the drug chain. A special report by ‘The Economist’ (2001) highlights that a minority of users, 20%, account for approximately 70% of total drug use. Yet, even in the United Kingdom the Government’s renewed anti-drug strategies include tactics such as ‘undercover officers posing as dealers to target recreational users’ (Independent, 2006). Strategies like these are clearly built on outdated conceptions of drugs and drug users, which result in a focus on the wrong type of user. If any group should be targeted by anti-drug strategies, clearly it should be the drug abusers that account for 20% of the buyers, and in this respect drug policy should be formulated to make a clear distinction between recreational use and drug abuse.

The Complot Theory.
A more conspiritorial argument is that internal drug use actually generates money for governments. Loretta Napoleoni (2004) notes that banks in Florida receive a substantial cut of the money generated from drugs being smuggled into the country, which would be added to the national money supply. This, she argues, is why the Government continues to put pressure on the weak Latin American governments instead of reducing domestic consumption and solving the problem from the demand side.

Summary.
Unfortunately for recreational drug users, it would appear that they will continue to be victims of what some could call the ‘final social taboo’. Even in countries that have developed more liberal attitudes towards – or even legalised – previous iniquities such as homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, nudity, alcohol and cigarettes, their laws on drugs, for the most part, appear to be going in the opposite direction. It seems a little outlandish to think that an individual can easily, and legally, purchase the raw materials to make a bomb, or weapons for a killing spree, yet the same person would face a fine or imprisonment for the possession drugs for recreational use. I believe that it is the current lack of education and, more importantly, understanding of drug use that fuels this fear of the unknown, which is quite absurd in an age where the majority of individuals know, or indeed are, people who’s lives have been affected by drug use.


Towards s global solution.
The global dimension of the drug business is perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects. Over a decade ago Brian Freemantle published a book that followed the criminal trail of a Colombian Cartel that ended, after several transit points, as money laundering operations in the European Union. The book also makes the brave statement that Colombian cartels have “established gangs in virtually every country in the European Union” (Freemantle, 1995). This network, or globalisation, of criminal gangs is one of the aspects that is completely neglected in America’s unilateral policy that focuses on Latin America.

Throughout the 1990’s Europe began to observe a steady rise in the weight of drugs being seized, indicating that an increasing volume was being smuggled across its borders. Between 1990 and 1997 UK heroin, cannabis and cocaine seizures increased by 139%, 97% and 54% respectively (HMC&E, 1998). This clearly shows that the cartels had diversified their selling markets throughout the 1990’s, after flooding the American market with enough cocaine to create a significant price drop. Today, the consumption of illicit drugs in Europe is still increasing with cocaine becoming the new ‘danger drug’. It is also true that there has been a noteable increase in cases of reported drugs-for-weapons deals between Colombian insurgents and international criminal organisations (Cragin, 2003). With the list of suspected groups including the Russian Mafia and gangs from China, Mexico & Israel, to name but a few, this is not a development that America, and indeed most countries, can afford to be complacent about.

As the distance and depth of the expanding drugs market shows no sign of slowing down, it is clear that a multilateral solution is needed, not just in Colombia, nor America, but by all of the countries that are affected by the presence of the drugs business in any shape or form. Whilst highlighting the ease at which ‘globalisation’ and the proliferation of free trade can be used to aid illegal actors, it also reinforces that any successes in fighting a global business will require a global solution. A recent report by the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs (UNCND, 2007) echoes this sentiment, with a call for governments to “support the development of inter-agency and cross-border cooperation”.

Diss: Conclusion

CONCLUSION
By drawing from information in relevant chapters, the following paragraphs provide succinct answers to the three main questions posed at the start of this paper.

“Why did the drugs business materialise in Colombia, and what were the consequences?”

As shown in chapter one, Colombia’s specific conditions were optimal for the rapid growth of any criminal enterprise. A weakened government, violent history and low levels of social development ensured that the brutality and depravity, associated with the drugs business was generally accepted. Furthermore, although the business had created jobs and ensured a steady flow of local and national capital, Colombia had to, and still does, pay severe penalties, including the systematic use of violence by many different actors, a sullied international reputation, and the subsistence of a government that appears to be rampantly tarnished by drugs money.


“Why are the current tactics failing to deliver significant results?”

By classifying the three main actors in Colombia’s civil war – the Guerrillas, Cartels and Paramilitaries – under the non-specific term of “narco-terrorsts,” the U.S. has settled for a sweeping policy that not only fails to effectively deal with any of these actors, but also disregards thousands of years of Andean culture. Additionally, the ‘balloon effect’ ensures that no matter how successful any approach is at removing a link in the drugs business, it will dexterously resurface in a different region, and continue to meet foreign demand. In short, America’s conventional – realist-based – tactics are ineffective in a ‘War on Drugs’.


“What can be altered to create a more successful anti-drug policy?”

The paramount challenge for the future of America’s anti-drug policy is to strike the apposite balance between funding the supply and demand sides. At the supply side, the overwhelming prescription of conventional, realist, war tactics needs to end, and an auxiliary balance between modern military tactics and social spending must be accomplished. Regarding domestic policy, although the legalisation and control of all drugs must not be ruled out as a solution, it is unlikely to be called on for quite some time. Until then, the U.S. should concentrate on treating drug abuse as a health issue, and reducing the dangers of drug use through a combination of ‘harm reduction’ and informative educational campaigns.


What comes next?

By and large, Colombia is currently at a crossroads, from which there appears to be two main directions for the future of the country. Yet, the decision of which path to choose does not lie with Colombia, but largely with America, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the world. Down one road the future looks optimistic, the United States begins to realise that the ‘War on Drugs’, as it stands, is an extravagant misuse of resources. Thus, America begins to change the composition of its Colombian aid, together with a new focuses aimed at suppressing internal demand, both of which begin to gain support of a wider international community.

The other option for the future of Colombia is to continue down the current path, which more or less guarantees that the chronic civil war, and a rampant drugs business, both survive through the prolongation of existing U.S. anti-drug tactics. Regrettably, by observing the emphasis on compliance, and the lack of elasticity that has characterised American ‘aid’ in Colombia over the past twenty years, it is likely that this will remain the situation for many years to come, as the American Government continues to pursue it’s fantasy of achieving a drug free society.

Diss: Bibliography

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