Disrupting the Market:
Attacking the Economic Basis of the Drug Trade
Our policy toward reducing the supply of drugs in America starts with the premise that illegal drug trafficking is a profit-driven business. As is the case with legitimate business, drug traffickers are subject to market forces. Our efforts must focus on finding strategic vulnerabilities in the drug market and exploiting them.
Drug users are not immune to fluctuations in the market. Recent research and common sense tell us that both addicts and casual users are sensitive to the price and purity of illicit drugs. A study, Marijuana and Youth, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, concludes that changes in the price of marijuana "contributed significantly to the trends in youth marijuana use between 1982 and 1998, particularly during the contraction in use from 1982 to 1992." Many factors, including a concentrated effort to disrupt domestic production, contributed to the contraction. Common sense also tells us that we have a better chance of stopping a child or teenager from experimenting with drugs in the first instance and keeping individuals in recovery if drugs are less available to them.
Disrupting Markets at Home.
Our efforts will focus on dismantling trafficking organizations and their trafficking routes to the United States and eliminating large-scale production. The more local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies and operations reinforce one another, share information and resources, "deconflict" operations, establish priorities, and focus energies across the spectrum of criminal activities, the more effective their efforts to disrupt the market will prove.
The leaders of drug trafficking organizations have long benefited from traditional "turf" issues among state, local, and federal law enforcement entities. The magnitude of the threat posed to our national security and community safety by illegal drugs and those who traffic in them is creating an unparalleled sense of urgency for law enforcement entities to cooperate with each other to achieve common goals. Examples of sophisticated cooperative efforts include the following initiatives:
- ONDCP's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program (HIDTA) coordinates efforts among state, local and federal law enforcement entities efforts in 28 designated areas to reduce the production, manufacturing, distribution, transportation and chronic use of illegal drugs, as well as the attendant money laundering of drug proceeds. Resources are allocated to link drug enforcement efforts and to optimize the investigative return on limited fiscal and personnel resources. ONDCP will work with all involved entities to ensure that HIDTAs resources are properly targeted to offer greater efficiency.
- Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) draw on the expertise of state, local, and federal law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies to coordinate investigations and prosecutions of domestic and international drug trafficking organizations, money laundering operations, and gangs involved in drug trafficking enterprises in nine regions. The Attorney General is making certain the OCDETF program increases its focus on financial investigations to dismantle the financial infrastructure of the most significant drug trafficking organizations.
Going to the Source.
The drug trade is a transnational market run by traffickers who do not respect national borders. No single country can be effective unilaterally in attempting to address this global problem. Consistent with this Administration's foreign policy as a whole, we will continue to support multinational coordination and work closely with our friends and allies to disrupt the production and trafficking of illegal drugs and combat the destructive market that they create. It is the Federal Government's responsibility to target these major drug trafficking organizations. International cooperation is crucial to apprehending these international traffickers and bringing them to justice, either in the United States or abroad. The United States does not place the blame for our drug use problem on source or transit countries. The absolute foundation of our international strategy is to do our part in helping our partners to reduce cultivation, production, trafficking, and consumption within their countries while at the same time reducing production and demand in the United States.
Our international partners deserve, and will receive, our assistance as they combat the corrupting influence of major drug trafficking organizations and their illegally obtained profits. The United States will work with our international partners to strengthen regional enforcement efforts and deny sanctuary to drug traffickers and terrorist organizations that depend on drug profits. The drug producers and their financial infrastructure are vulnerable to law enforcement efforts. We must work to bring the full weight of international cooperative law enforcement to bear on their organizations in a manner that is consistent with our commitment to promote democracy and human rights.
Virtually all coca and poppy cultivation occurs in lawless regions. History teaches us that strong legitimate government presence in the production areas is necessary to disrupt these illicit operations. History also teaches us that government presence and law enforcement are not sufficient. Our Strategy will complement law enforcement operations with alternative development and programs to strengthen democracy and judicial systems.
Our Strategy will complement programs to strengthen the economies in the Andean region. One tool that has been effective over the past ten years in creating jobs in the Andean region is the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA). ATPA has helped keep large numbers of laborers out of the illicit economies in the region. The Administration thanks you for your support of this key element of our Strategy.
Our efforts to disrupt this transnational market face numerous, but not insurmountable, obstacles. Bolivia and Peru have achieved tremendous successes in crop reduction over the last several years. These countries serve as an example to the world that the greed of drug criminals is no match for a nation's determination, commitment, and hard work.
Colombia is the key to our source zone strategy. During the past several years, much of the good news about crop reduction in Bolivia and Peru has been offset by the bad news of increasing coca cultivation in Colombia. It is, however, important to recognize that Colombia has not stood still. They have dismantled or disrupted the large cartels that terrorized the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They have eradicated hundreds of thousands of acres of coca that would have ended up as more cocaine on our streets. They have sacrificed thousands of brave policemen and soldiers to interdict the flow of drugs from Colombia and fight the narco-terrorists who derive their only support from the funds of drug trafficking. Finally, they have set the standard for the world by extraditing unprecedented numbers of criminals to the United States to stand trial. But much more needs to be done. We will continue to help the Colombian people and their neighbors to disrupt the Andean cocaine industry that has fueled so much violence in the region.
In addition to our focus on suppressing production, we will work closely with nations used as transshipment points to the United States. Caribbean nations currently lack the resources necessary to rid their jurisdictions of drug traffickers. Therefore, the United States will assist them to develop and implement cooperative maritime interdiction efforts, modernize laws, strengthen law-enforcement and judicial institutions, and support anti-money laundering initiatives. Our nation will continue to rely on the United States Coast Guard and United States Customs Service to continue improving interdiction methods and programs to disrupt trafficking operations.
Recent events have refocused our efforts to combat the drug trade in Central Asia in general, and in Afghanistan in particular. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan's opium production flourished, producing more than 70 percent of the world's supply. When the Taliban banned poppy cultivation, they earned tremendous profits from the increased prices for stockpiled opium under their control. As Afghanistan's interim government rebuilds the country, the United States will work to ensure that the drug trade will never again finance regional instability or international terrorism. The United States will contribute to this development process. Our assistance should be directed to establish governmental, judicial, and law enforcement institutions that will not succumb to those who seek to reinvigorate a drug economy.
The Administration is conducting a top-to-bottom review of our border-control efforts. ONDCP is working closely with the Office of Homeland Security on this review. These efforts are particularly important as they relate to our neighbor to the south, Mexico. Both of our nations suffer as a result of traffickers shipping approximately two-thirds of their cocaine destined for the United States through Mexico. Both nations suffer from the violence and crime associated with drug trafficking as well as the social, health and economic consequences associated with increased drug use among their citizens.
Cooperation between our two countries has improved during the administrations of President Bush and President Fox. The close and positive relationship between the two presidents has fostered a more trusting, and less contentious, bilateral relationship that includes exchange of sensitive law enforcement information. The improved climate of cooperation between Mexican and U.S. law enforcement personnel presents an opportunity to bolster U.S. counterdrug programs that seek to strengthen Mexico's institutional capabilities, improve training for its personnel, modernize the justice sector, and promote anti-corruption reforms. Despite the enormous challenges still to be overcome, we have found a willing partner with whom to confront the threat.
The tragic events of September 11, 2001 will never be forgotten. The attacks alerted our government, and indeed, our entire citizenry, to our vulnerability when terrorists seek to harm Americans. It is critical to keep in mind the fact that when people buy drugs, some of their money may go to support terrorism. Twelve of the 28 international terrorist groups listed by the Department of State last October are involved in drug trafficking. Terrorism comes in many forms and illegal drug production often supports it. Many drug trafficking organizations, even if they claim no political agenda, use violence and intimidation as tools of the trade. The most powerful among them, such as the Arrellano Felix organization, brazenly attempt to intimidate and manipulate legitimate governments. They indiscriminately murder innocent people, corrupt judicial and law enforcement institutions, and cause entire communities to live in fear.
The President, ONDCP's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, community coalitions, parents, teachers, and the faith community are getting this message out—drug money funds terror. Drugs are not only harmful to individuals, families, and communities; they are also harmful to our country and innocent people around the globe.
This Strategy enhances our ability to protect our borders and cooperate fully in the international effort to combat drug trafficking. The President's FY 2003 Budget includes the following key highlights that will enable us to disrupt the market at home and at the source:
- Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI): $731 million. The FY 2003 Budget includes an increase of $106 million over funding enacted for the ACI account in FY 2002 for Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, and Panama. This FY 2003 request includes resources to continue enforcement, border control, coca and poppy eradication, alternative development, institution building, and administration of justice and human rights programs. For Colombia, the FY 2003 funding will be used for several broad categories, including: operations and maintenance of air assets provided with Plan Colombia supplemental funding; Colombian National Police and Army counternarcotics Brigade operational support; and herbicide application programs. The additional funding requested would support critical USAID-implemented humanitarian, social, economic and alternative development programs, support for vulnerable groups, and resources for justice sector reform projects.
- Deepwater Project: +$500 million. This proposal continues to support the United States Coast Guard's Deepwater Project. The deepwater project focuses on the re-capitalization and modernization of the Coast Guard's assets, including sensors and communications equipment for the aging deepwater cutters, aircraft and command centers. Although only a portion of this initiative is related to drug control, the re-capitalization of these assets will enhance Coast Guard's ability to conduct counterdrug activities.
- Border Control and Enforcement: +$76.3 million ($11.4 million drug-related). This enhancement for the Border Patrol includes hiring an additional 570 agents to enforce national borders and to combat international drug trafficking. For the new Border Patrol Agents, a portion of their time will involve drug control activities.
- Southwest Border Prosecutor Initiative: $50 million. The President's 2003 Budget maintains funding of $50 million for the Southwest Border Prosecutor Initiative. This initiative provides critical support to counties along the Southwest Border for the costs of detaining and prosecuting drug cases referred to them by U.S. Attorneys.
