| International Narcotics Control Strategy Report -2007 Released by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs March 2007 Policy and Program Developments Overview for 2006 Challenges to the illicit drug trade continued on many levels this year; to meet these challenges the international community shared a clear vision of the dangers of narcotic drugs and the need to pursue a mix of law enforcement, demand reduction, and prevention policies. Our international partners in this fight include countries whose developing economies and democratic institutions are threatened by these dangerous commodities, which mortgage the future of their people and their environment. Cocaine and marijuana cultivation are generally steady. The world's largest supplier of cocaine, Colombia, has shown the political will and tenacity to fight both the cultivation and trafficking of the drug. A growing concern worldwide is the prevalence of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), which can be manufactured using easily available, licit materials. The resurgence of Afghan opium cultivation has increased the flow of heroin to Europe, Russia and the Middle East, which undermines those societies and the consolidation of democracy and security in Afghanistan. Controlling Supply Cocaine, synthetic amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), marijuana and heroin are the drugs that most threaten the United States and its allies, while opium cultivation in Afghanistan threatens the consolidation of democracy in that fragile state. The USG's goal is to reduce and ultimately cut off the international flow of illegal drugs. Our primary strategy targets drug supply at critical points along a grower-to-user chain that links the consumer, in the case of cocaine or heroin, with the growers cultivating coca or opium poppies. Intermediate links are the processing (drug refining), transit (transport) and wholesale distribution stages. Our international programs target the first three links of the grower-to-user chain: cultivation, processing, and transit. The closer we can attack to the source, the better are our chances of halting the flow of drugs altogether. Crop control is the most cost-effective means of cutting supply. Drugs cannot enter the system from crops that were never planted, or have been destroyed or left unharvested; without the crops there would be no need for costly enforcement and interdiction operations. Prevention is a focus of all our international programs, but it has limited application. Nor is eradication a 'silver bullet'. The most effective means of eradication, aerial application of herbicide, is not legal or feasible in many countries and is expensive to implement where it is permitted. Destroying a lucrative (albeit illegal) crop carries enormous political, economic and social consequences for the producing country, so developing, implementing, and reaping the benefits of viable, licit alternatives for the affected populations are critical. In addition, there is the increasing threat from non-organic drugs, such as ATS, for which physical eradication is impossible. Instead, attacking synthetically produced drugs requires a legal regime of chemical controls and law enforcement efforts aimed at thwarting diverters and destroying laboratories. Thus, our international programs must focus upon all the links in the supply-to-consumer chain: the processing and distribution stages, the interdiction of drug shipments, and attention to the money trail left by this illegal trade. Our programs shift resources to those links where we can achieve both an immediate impact and long-term results, through the right combination of effective law enforcement actions, alternative development programs, and international cooperation. Cocaine Coca Eradication: The rate of U.S. cocaine consumption has declined over the past 10 years, but cocaine continues to be a major domestic concern. According to the July 2006 interagency assessment of cocaine movement, between 517-732 metric tons of cocaine hydrochloride (HCl) depart South America for the United States annually, feeding addiction, fueling crime, and damaging the economic and social health of the United States. As all cocaine originates in the Andean countries of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, we channel a significant portion of our international resources toward eliminating coca cultivation, disrupting cocaine production, and preventing the drug from reaching the United States. Colombia, the source of roughly 90 percent of the cocaine destined for the U.S. and other world markets, leads the world in coca cultivation. Peru and Bolivia are a distant second and third respectively. By the end of 2006, the Colombian government reported eliminating over 213,724 hectares of coca. Aerial eradication removed 171,613 hectares of this amount, far surpassing the previous record of 138,775 hectares sprayed in 2005. Meanwhile, manual eradication destroyed the other 42,111 hectares. If harvested and refined, this eradicated coca could have yielded hundreds of metric tons of cocaine worth billions of dollars on U.S. streets. Bolivia and Peru, which had substantially reduced their coca cultivation in the past five years, now face the erosion of these achievements. Politically well-connected and active cocalero (coca grower) associations link coca cultivation to issues of cultural identity and national pride and are stepping up efforts to challenge eradication efforts. Traffickers are continuing to exploit these growers' unions. Cocalero influence has been greatest in Bolivia, where their leader, Evo Morales, won the country's presidency in December 2005. Initial USG estimates for total cultivation in 2006 show increases in most parts of the country. Cocalero activism and the government's desire to avoid violent confrontation have contributed to the rise in coca cultivation. Though the total cultivation estimate for 2005 is half of Bolivia's peak cultivation figure of 52,000 hectares in 1989, the trend is disquieting. Moreover, the level of eradication in 2006 was the lowest in more than ten years. A new integrated alternative development approach in the Chapare region of Bolivia provides for participation by municipalities in the Government of Bolivia's decisions on development implementation and monitoring of programs. This approach is helping to reduce coca-related conflict and strengthen local commitment to licit development. In Peru, the government planned and mounted an aggressive eradication campaign. The programmed coca eradication goal was increased to 10,000 hectares - a 20 percent increase from 2005. In 2006 total eradication was 12,688 hectares. The Government of Peru adopted the United Nation's estimate of 48,200 hectares of coca under cultivation. This figure reflects the Peruvian Government's intensified eradication efforts in 2006 and the total amount is considerably less than the peak of 115,000 hectares ten years ago. However, cocaleros engaged in numerous violent acts to resist eradication. The Sendero Luminoso terrorist group has openly identified with coca growers and drug traffickers, and organized increasingly violent ambushes of police and intimidation of alternative development teams in coca growing areas. We continue to support efforts by the governments of the coca-growing countries to eliminate illegal coca within each country's individual context. Alternative development programs offer farmers opportunities to abandon illegal activities and join the legitimate economy, and thereby play a vital role in countries seeking to free their agricultural sector from reliance on the drug trade. In the Andean countries, such programs play a vital role in providing funds and technical assistance to strengthen public and private institutions, expand rural infrastructure, improve natural resources management, introduce alternative legal crops, and develop local and international markets for these products. Cocaine Seizures: Colombian interdiction programs seized 170 metric tons of cocaine in the course of the year, Colombia's second highest cocaine seizure of the past 10 years. Colombian forces destroyed 200 cocaine HCl and nearly 2,000 cocaine base labs (up from 773 last year). Other important drug-affected countries in the Hemisphere also reported seizing impressive amounts of cocaine: Bolivia, 14 metric tons - up from 11.5 metric tons last year; Peru, 19.77 metric tons - reflecting a steady increase during the past five years; and Mexico, 21 metric tons. Seizure numbers for Venezuela were not available at publication date. Interdiction in the Transit Zone: Since no attack on supply within source countries could be exhaustive, the international community must continue to help police key transit zones, specifically for us the route for cocaine moving north out of South America. This has required a well-coordinated effort between the governments of the transit zone countries and the USG. Due to continued high levels in collection and cooperation with allied nations and post-seizure intelligence in the last several years, we now enjoy better actionable intelligence within the transit zone. The Joint Inter-Agency Task Force - South, working closely with international partners from throughout the Caribbean Basin, has focused its and regional partners' intelligence gathering efforts to detect and monitor maritime drug movements while maneuvering interdiction assets into position to affect a seizure. The USG's bilateral agreements with Caribbean and Latin American countries have eased the burden on these countries' law enforcement assets to conduct at seaboardings and search for contraband, while allowing the USG to gain jurisdiction of cases and remove the coercive pressure from large drug trafficking organizations on some foreign governments. This team effort removed over six metric tons of cocaine from the maritime transit zone in 2006. Synthetic Drugs Amphetamine-Type Stimulants: Global demand for amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), such as methamphetamine, amphetamine, and MDMA ("Ecstasy"), has steadily increased throughout both the industrialized and the developing world. ATS drugs have displaced cocaine as the drug of choice in many countries, especially in those of Central and Northern Europe, and Southeast Asia. The relative ease and low cost of manufacturing ATS drugs from readily available chemicals appeals as much to small drug entrepreneurs as to the large international syndicates. Since they do not rely on organic sources such as coca and opium, synthetics allow individual trafficking organizations to control the whole process, from manufacture to sale on the street. Synthetics can be made anywhere and offer enormous profit margins. With respect to methamphetamine use, the Administration's 2006 Synthetic Drug Control Strategy - A Focus on Methamphetamine and Prescription Drug Abuse (June 2006), a companion document to the President's National Drug Control Strategy, states that since 2001, regular use of any illicit drug among youth (8th, 10th, and 12th graders) has declined by 19 percent, and regular use of methamphetamine use is down by 36 percent. Transnational drug trafficking organizations, based in Mexico and California, control a large percentage of the U.S. methamphetamine trade. Mexico is the principal foreign supplier of methamphetamine and most frequently used transit country for ATS precursors (especially pseudoephedrine-PSE and ephedrine) destined for the United States. USG drug enforcement authorities believe that PSE and ephedrine imported into Canada is no longer a serious threat due to stricter law enforcement controls in Canada since 2002. There is a worldwide trend of increasing methamphetamine or other ATS drug trafficking and consumption. However, statistical information suggests that the activity of small toxic laboratories in the United States is declining; lab seizures decreased 42 percent from 2004 (10,015) to 2005 (5,846) and preliminary DEA data for 2006 show continued declines. Current drug lab and seizure statistics indicate that roughly 80 percent of the methamphetamine in the U.S. comes from larger labs, increasingly in Mexico, while the much-diminished remainder comes from small toxic labs. Production and trafficking is now concentrated in areas such as Baja California, Michoacan, Jalisco and Sinaloa, where well-established major drug organizations have their infrastructures. The Government of Mexico (GOM) continued to react strongly over the past year to chemical diversion and methamphetamine manufacture, implementing strict precursor chemical import quotas and internal chemical distribution controls. Sales of pharmaceutical product containing pseudoephedrine are also controlled and limited in Mexico. Chemical control is one of the closest areas of U.S./Mexican law enforcement cooperation. Ecstasy: There continues to be substantial global demand for MDMA (Ecstasy), the amphetamine analogue 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Clandestine laboratories in the Netherlands, and to a lesser extent in Belgium, are the principal suppliers of MDMA to the international market, with significant Ecstasy production in Canada. The Netherlands continued to make progress in attacking Ecstasy, including some significant seizures and arrests of members of an alleged large-scale smuggling ring. Labs in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe are major suppliers of amphetamines to the European market, with the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries among the heaviest European consumers of amphetamine. In the United States, Ecstasy use has plummeted among the teenage population most at risk, and according to the December 2006 Monitoring the Future report, regular usage rates among teenagers are less than half of what they were in 2001. Pharmaceutical Abuse, and the Internet: An area of growing concern is the abuse of pharmaceutical drugs, especially among teenagers. For example, the December 2006 Monitoring the Future survey shows that the past year abuse of OxyContin increased 30 percent since 2002, still representing small numbers of actual uses compared to other drugs, but the only drug category for which there is a significant increase. In addition, sedatives such as Vicodan are being abused in increasing amounts. Many of these drugs are available over the Internet, through Internet doctors prescribing drugs without seeing patients, and through "pharmacies" that accept unverified or even substandard prescriptions. Some pharmaceuticals are being diverted to the United States from international sources, but the extent is not yet known. Cannabis (Marijuana) Cannabis production and marijuana consumption is a problem in nearly every world region, including in the United States. However, the December 2006 Monitoring the Future study shows that, while marijuana continues to be the most commonly used illicit drug among teens within the United States, current use has dropped by 25 percent over the past five years. Drug organizations in Mexico and Canada produce more than 4,000 metric tons of marijuana, which is then marketed to the more than 20 million users in the United States. Canada produces approximately 800 metric tons of high potency marijuana, which is marketed, increasingly, nationwide in the United States, along with marijuana from Colombia, Jamaica, and possibly Nigeria. Domestic production of marijuana may rival that of foreign sources. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)'s 2006 National Drug Threat Summary, marijuana potency has increased sharply. Of great concern is the high potency, indoor-grown cannabis produced on a large scale in Canada. Plants are grown in laboratory conditions using specialized timers, ventilation, moveable lights on tracks, nutrients sprayed on exposed roots and special fertilizer that maximize THC levels. A portion of domestic production is also grown under these "hydroponic" conditions. The result is a particularly powerful, dangerous, and addictive drug. Despite suggestions that marijuana use has no long-term consequences, the latest scientific information indicates that marijuana use is a common first step to the abuse of more serious drugs, and that the drug itself is associated with learning difficulties, memory disturbances, and schizophrenia. Opium and Heroin Opium poppy is the source of heroin. Containing its cultivation presents its own set of challenges. Unlike coca, which currently grows in significant amounts in only three Andean countries, opium poppy is cultivated in multiple locations worldwide. Specifically, poppy is produced in Colombia, Mexico, Southeastern Asia and Southwestern Asia. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium poppy, accounting for over 90 percent of the world's opium gum production. In contrast to coca, a perennial that takes at least a year to mature into usable leaf, opium poppy is an easily planted annual crop, and with the correct care and climate, can yield as many as three harvests per year. The gum is harvestable in less than six months. Most of the heroin used in the United States comes from poppies grown in Colombia and Mexico, though their opium gum production accounts for less than four percent of the world's total production. Mexico supplies most of the heroin found in the western United States. Colombia supplies most of the heroin east of the Mississippi. Eliminating poppy cultivation in Colombia and Mexico is crucial to reducing U.S.-bound heroin flows, and long-standing joint eradication programs in both countries continue with our support Colombian law enforcement and alternative development programs eradicated 1,929 hectares of opium poppy in 2006. Of these, 232 hectares were sprayed and 1,697 hectares uprooted through manual eradication programs. In 2006, the Government of Mexico (GOM) reported eradicating slightly over 16,831 hectares of opium poppy, down from more than 20,000 in two of the last three years. While the GOM has not provided any official reasoning for the reduction, it is possible that resources had to be re-directed to address pressing events throughout the year. Afghanistan supplies all but a small amount of the heroin going to Europe, Russia, the Middle East and even much of Asia. Heroin produced from Afghan opium also finds its way to the United States. Due to the limited reach of Afghan law enforcement, endemic corruption, and a weak judicial system, the Afghan Government has been unable to prohibit opium cultivation. The year 2006 saw a substantial increase in poppy cultivation, at 165,000 hectares up from 107,400 hectares in 2005. Eradication, consisting of manual and mechanical efforts, increased in 2006 to 15,300 hectares from 2005's total of 5,000 hectares. UN Office of Drugs and Crime Director Antonio Costa has warned that there could be a wave of overdose deaths in Europe and Russia accompanying the surge of available heroin. The USG, in close coordination with the GOA, focuses on a five-pillar counternarcotics strategy that includes public information, alternative livelihoods, eradication, interdiction, and law enforcement/justice reform. The strategy, with continued support from the international community, bolsters the considerable efforts of the Government of Afghanistan to deliver a tough message to its people that drugs are the nation's most serious enemy. We support the Government of Afghanistan's work to demonstrate decisive leadership, including reaching out to the provinces, strengthening the rule of law and law enforcement capabilities, tackling corruption, and taking resolute measures against illegal narcotics. Through USAID, we will continue to work to develop alternative sources of income to poppy. We further recognize the need to disrupt the networks that finance, supply, and equip the traffickers who threaten the government and people of Afghanistan. Controlling Drug-Processing Chemicals Cocaine, synthetic drugs and heroin cannot be manufactured without certain critical chemicals, most of which also have entirely licit uses. These widely used chemicals are diverted by criminals to illicit use in narcotics manufacture. Government controls strive to differentiate between licit use and illicit diversion. Substitutes for unavailable chemicals can be used for some of the chemicals used in the drug manufacturing process, but there are some chemicals-for example potassium permanganate for cocaine and acetic anhydride for heroin-for which there are few readily obtainable substitutes. Some synthetic drug manufacture requires even more specific precursor chemicals, such as ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. These chemicals, used primarily for pharmaceutical purposes, have important but specific legitimate uses. They are commercially traded in smaller quantities to discrete users. Governments must have efficient legal and regulatory regimes to control such chemicals, without placing undue burdens on legitimate commerce. In 2006 the United States, other major chemical trading countries, and the United Nations (UN) focused their efforts to improve controls on chemicals used for manufacturing synthetic drugs. Most significant was adoption of a U.S.-initiated resolution by the March 2006 UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs that requested countries to provide to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) estimates of their legitimate requirements for these and other synthetic drug chemicals. The INCB, an independent and quasi-judicial organization within the United Nations charged with monitoring the implementation of international drug control treaties, plays a central coordinating role in their implementation. This measure will allow authorities in exporting and importing countries to do a quick "reality" check on proposed transactions, especially as traffickers turn to countries not normally trading in these chemicals as conduits for diversion. Virtually all other chemicals used in illicit drug manufacture are traded widely in international commerce. Therefore, extensive international cooperation is required to prevent their diversion from licit commercial channels. Two ongoing multilateral law enforcement operations targeting key chemicals provide frameworks for this cooperation. Project Cohesion targets potassium permanganate and acetic anhydride and Project Prism targets synthetic drug precursor chemicals. This topic is addressed in greater detail in the Chemical Control Chapter of the INCSR. Drugs and the Environment Impact of Spray Eradication: Questions inevitably arise over the environmental risks of regular use of herbicides on illegal drug crops. Colombia is currently the only country that conducts regular aerial spraying of coca and opium poppy. The Colombian government has approved the herbicide that is being used to conduct aerial eradication in the growing areas. The only active ingredient in the herbicide used in the aerial eradication program is glyphosate, one of the most widely used agricultural herbicides in the world, which has been tested in the United States, Colombia, and elsewhere. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved glyphosate for general use in 1974 and re-registered it in September 1993. EPA has approved its use on food croplands, forests, residential areas, and around aquatic areas. It is one of the top five pesticides, including herbicides, used in the United States, and one of the most widely used in the world, including in Colombia and Ecuador. Colombia's spray program represents a small fraction of total glyphosate use in the country, and carefully follows all label requirements and environmental protocols in its spray operations. Impact of Drug Cultivation and Processing: Coca cultivation has a devastating impact on the environment. In the Andean region, it has led to the destruction of approximately six million acres of rainforest in the past 20 years. Working in remote areas beyond settled populations, coca growers routinely slash and burn virgin forestland to make way for their illegal crops. Tropical rains quickly erode the thin topsoil of the fields, increasing soil runoff, depleting soil nutrients, and, by destroying timber and other resources that would otherwise be available for more sustainable uses, illicit coca cultivation decreases biological diversity. The destructive cycle continues, as growers regularly abandon non-productive parcels of depleted forestland to prepare new plots. At the same time, traffickers destroy jungle forests to build clandestine landing strips and laboratories for processing raw coca and poppy into cocaine and heroin. Illicit coca growers use large quantities of highly toxic herbicides and fertilizers on their crops. These chemicals qualify under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's highest classification for toxicity (Category I) and are legally restricted for sale within Colombia and the United States. Coca farmers also use glyphosate, although unlike government programs they generally use concentrations that exceed label requirements. Production of the drugs requires more, and more dangerous, solvents and chemicals. One kilogram of cocaine base requires the use of three liters of concentrated sulfuric acid, 10 kilos of lime, 60 to 80 liters of kerosene, 200 grams of potassium permanganate, and one liter of concentrated ammonia. These toxic pesticides, fertilizers, and processing chemicals are then dumped into the nearest waterway or on the ground. They saturate the soil and contaminate waterways and poison water systems upon which local human and animal populations rely. Environmental damage hits close to home. Increasingly, marijuana-processing operations are taking place in U.S. national parks, especially in California and Texas due, in part, to increased eradication efforts in Mexico. The cultivation of marijuana on public lands poses a serious threat to the safety of the public, law enforcement personnel, and other public employees. It also creates a significant threat to the environment and our natural resources. In the State of California, the number of plants eradicated is substantial and violence associated with marijuana cultivation is on the rise. In 2006, the National Park Service and other law enforcement officials conducted operations in several national parks in California, including Yosemite National Park and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks. At California's Point Reyes National Seashore, in August 2006, law enforcement and national park officials raided several marijuana grow sites and confiscated approximately 20,000 marijuana plants with an estimated street value of $50 million. The areas under cultivation suffered extensive resource damage from the growing operations. Growers are killing wildlife, diverting streams that contain threatened species of fish, using harmful pesticides and bringing the presence of violence to these unspoiled areas. Overall, the DEA's Domestic Cannabis Eradication Program has been successful in targeting the illicit cultivation and production of marijuana. Over the past two years the program has seen impressive results. Program effectiveness measured by marijuana plants eradicated increased almost 24 percent from calendar year (CY) 2004 to CY 2005 (3,200,121 plants in CY 2004 to 4,209,086 in CY 2005). Final figures are still being compiled for 2006. Currently available data indicates that eradication of marijuana plants increased to about 5.1 million plants-an increase of 16 percent from CY 2005. Currently available asset seizure data for 2006 shows an increase of about 55 percent from CY 2005 levels, to over 75.8 million dollars. Meanwhile, for each pound of methamphetamine produced in clandestine methamphetamine laboratories, five to six pounds of toxic, hazardous waste are generated, posing immediate and long-term environmental health risks, not only to individual homes but to neighborhoods. Poisonous vapors produced during synthesis permeate the walls and carpets of houses and buildings, often making them uninhabitable. Cleaning up these sites in the United States and Mexico requires specialized training and costs an average of $2,000 to $4,000 per site. Attacking Trafficking Organizations The drug trade depends upon reliable and efficient distribution systems to get its product to market. While most illicit distribution systems have short-term back-up channels to compensate for temporary law enforcement disruptions, a network under intense enforcement pressure cannot function for long. In cooperation with law enforcement officials in other nations, we target the leadership of the main trafficking groups, and focus on the operations along the network that bring drugs to the United States. Our goal is to disrupt and dismantle these organizations, to remove the leadership and the facilitators who launder money and provide the chemicals needed for the production of illicit drugs, and to destroy their networks. By capturing the leaders of trafficking organizations, we demonstrate both to the criminals and to the governments fighting them that even the most powerful drug syndicates are vulnerable to concerted action by U.S. and host-government authorities. Mexican drug syndicates oversee much of the drug trafficking in the United States. They have a strong presence in most of the primary U.S. distribution centers. The USG and Mexico cooperate against major drug trafficking organizations in both countries and secure mechanisms for data sharing. As a result, and showing strong political will to fight this problem at home, Mexican Federal enforcement and military authorities have inflicted considerable damage on several important trafficking organizations. Mexican counternarcotics enforcement actions in 2006 included arrests of over 11,000 drug traffickers, including many significant leaders, lieutenants, operators, money launders and enforcers. Mexican authorities also conducted increasingly sophisticated organized crime investigations, continuing marijuana and poppy eradication and strong bilateral cooperation on interdiction. Sensitive Investigative Units within the Mexican Federal Investigative Agency serve as effective mechanisms for sharing sensitive intelligence data in both directions without compromise and play an important role in successful investigations against drug trafficking organizations on both sides of the border. Extradition Extradition to the United States is still the sanction international drug criminals fear most. The government of Mexico recently sent a strong message when it extradited those major traffickers wanted in the United States whose appeals against extradition had been exhausted. The host of notorious foreign drug criminals serving long prison terms in the U.S. is a sober reminder to the most powerful international criminals of what can happen when they can no longer use bribes and intimidation to manipulate the local judicial process. Governments are increasingly willing to risk domestic political repercussions to extradite drug kingpins to the United States, and international public acceptance of this measure has steadily increased. Colombia has an outstanding record of extradition of drug criminals to the United States, and the numbers have increased even more in recent years. Extraditions to the U.S have increased dramatically during President Uribe's administration, with a four-year total of 417 as of December 2006. Prominent and significant traffickers extradited in 2006 include Gabriel Puerta-Para; FARC associates Desar Augusto Perez-Parra and Farouk Shaikh-Reyes, who were the first FARC associates ever to be successfully prosecuted in the United States for drug offenses; and AUC associates Huber Anibal Gomez Luna, Freddy Castillo-Carillo, and Jhon Posada-Vergara. The Colombians also continue to provide excellent investigative and trial support related to the trials of FARC leaders Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda and Nayibe Rojas Valderrama. In late 2005, the Mexican Supreme Court overturned the prohibition on the extradition of fugitives facing life imprisonment without possibility of parole, removing an obstacle to the extradition of the most serious drug traffickers. In 2006, for the fifth consecutive year, Mexican authorities extradited record numbers of fugitives to the United States. In 2006, Mexico extradited 63 fugitives, up from 41 in 2005. In 2006, Mexico also deported 150 non-Mexicans in lieu of extradition, many of whom were wanted on U.S. drug charges. The most notable drug trafficker extradited in 2006 was Javier Torres Felix, a top lieutenant in the Zambada organization. In January 2007, the Government of Mexico extradited 15 defendants to the United States, for the first time sending several high-level traffickers whose extraditions had been delayed for some time due to judicial appeals or pending Mexican charges. These include figures from the Gulf cartel, the Sinaloa cartel and the Arellano Felix organization. In July 2006, Baz Mohamed, the first Afghan heroin kingpin ever extradited from Afghanistan, pled guilty in Manhattan federal court to conspiracy to import heroin into the United States. President Bush had designated Baz Mohamed as a foreign narcotics kingpin under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai authorized Mohamed's extradition to the United States in October 2005. Institutional Reform Fighting Corruption:Though corruption may seem a less obvious threat than the challenge of armed insurgents, the weakening of government institutions through bribery and intimidation ultimately poses just as great a danger to democratic governments. Terrorist groups or guerrilla armies overtly seek to topple and replace governments through violence. Drug syndicates, however, work behind the scenes, seeking to subvert governments in order to guarantee themselves a secure operating environment by co-opting key officials. Unchecked, the drug trade is capable of taking de facto control of a country by essentially buying off a majority of key government officials. By keeping a focus on eliminating corruption, we can prevent the nightmare of a government entirely manipulated by drug lords from becoming a reality. Fighting the drug trade is a dominant element in a broader struggle against corruption. Drug organizations possess and wield the ultimate instrument of corruption: money. The drug trade has access to almost unimaginable quantities of it. No commodity is so widely available, so cheap to produce, and as easily renewable as illegal drugs. They offer dazzling profit margins that allow the drug trade to generate criminal revenues on a scale without historical precedent. A metric ton of pure cocaine is more than 30 times the price in the United States than in Colombia, a return that dwarfs regular commodities and distorts the licit economy. To put these sums into perspective, in FY 2006 the State Department's budget for international drug control operations was approximately $1.2 billion. Drug syndicates can lose that amount repeatedly, with no serious consequences except to the subordinate responsible for the loss. Improving Criminal Justice Systems: A pivotal element of USG international drug control policy has been to help governments strengthen their enforcement, judicial, and financial institutions to narrow the opportunities for infiltration by the drug trade. In the past, law enforcement agencies in drug source and transit countries arrested influential drug criminals only to see them released following a questionable or inexplicable decision by a single judge. Each year, as governments work for basic reforms involving transparency, efficiency, and better pay for police and judges, we see improvements in many of these justice systems. The USG is continuing its support to Afghanistan to counter the drug trade that threatens stability and economic development as the country emerges from decades of war. One element of the comprehensive Afghan counter-narcotics strategy is building law enforcement capacities. Together with our international partners, we are training and mentoring Afghanistan's Counter-Narcotics Criminal Justice Task Force and Central Narcotics Tribunal in Kabul. To date the CNT has overseen over 100 successful convictions, while higher-level cases are expected to be brought before the court over the coming year as the investigative, prosecutorial and judicial skills of the Afghans grow. These efforts are tied into other USG justice assistance programs to build and reform the criminal, commercial, and civil justice systems to establish the rule of law. Meanwhile, the DEA and a recently appointed Resident Legal Advisor assist the Government of Pakistan with increasing the numbers of cases and prosecutions of drug traffickers, particularly by the Anti Narcotics Force Special Investigation Cell, using conspiracy law concepts. Next Steps Those involved in the international drug trade are a "thinking enemy," with the ability to adapt to law enforcement constraints and learn from its mistakes. Although we have made many inroads into the core of key drug trafficking networks, and scored victories in the battle for public understanding of the social and public costs of drug use, we continue to face a difficult task. In some cases, successful law enforcement operations weed out the weaker elements of the trade, leaving the more agile and sophisticated criminals in place. In Mexico, hitting the largest trafficking organizations has left smaller groups fighting for dominance with unprecedented levels of social violence. The drug trade itself also evolves, with the increasing use of synthetic drugs, the Internet, state-of-the-art communications and technical and financial expertise. The international community, while mindful of the need to protect individual rights, must band together in an effort to adapt as quickly as the traffickers do. The drug trade's weakness is that it is simultaneously a criminal organization and a business. It may operate in the shadows, and in some areas with virtual impunity. But to prosper as a business, it must enter the legitimate commercial world, exposed by its dependence on raw materials, processing chemicals, transportation networks, and a means of getting its profits into legitimate commercial and financial channels. As we approach the 20th anniversary of the 1988 UN Convention against Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, we can see tangible improvements in our ability to work with our international partners to increase pressures on the drug trade at every stage of its operations, from cultivation and production to transport and marketing. We must intensify our efforts in all these areas, while also focusing on the financial end. Without a steady flow of funds, the drug trade cannot function effectively. Since governments individually control domestic access to the global financial system, working together they have the potential to make it difficult for drug profits to enter the legitimate international financial system. Our goal is to transform that potential into a reality and reduce the drug trade from serious threat to our people and global security -- to a common nuisance, controlled through an international network of legal cooperation. Demand Reduction Drug "demand reduction" aims to reduce worldwide use and abuse of illicit drugs worldwide. Demand reduction assistance has evolved as a key foreign policy tool to address the inter-connected threats of drugs, crime, and terrorism. Foreign countries recognize the vast U.S. experience and efforts in reducing drug demand. In return for cooperation with supply reduction efforts, many drug producing and transit countries request U.S. assistance with demand reduction technology, since drug consumption also has debilitating effects on their society and children. Demand reduction assistance thereby helps secure foreign country support for U.S. driven supply reduction efforts, while at the same time reducing consumption in that country and reducing a major source of terrorist financing. Our demand reduction strategy encompasses a wide range of activities. These include efforts to prevent the onset of use, intervention at "critical decision points" in the lives of vulnerable populations to prevent both first use and further use, and effective treatment programs for the addicted. Other aspects encompass education on science-based promising and best practices in both prevention and treatment. Demand reduction is recognized as a key complimentary component in efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in countries with high intravenous drug users. Increasing public awareness of the harmful effects of drugs through development of coalitions of private/public social institutions, medical community, and law enforcement entities help to mobilize national and international opinion against the drug trade and encourage governments to develop and implement strong counternarcotics policies and programs. In 2006, INL's assistance targeted the cocaine producing and transit countries in Latin America, addressed the amphetamine-type stimulant (ATS) epidemic in Southeast Asia, and addressed the heroin threat from Asia, Afghanistan and Colombia. It also focused on countries in Southeast Asia and Africa where intravenous drug use is fueling an HIV/AIDS epidemic. INL funded comprehensive multi-year scientific studies on pilot projects and programs developed from INL-funded training to learn how these initiatives can help assist U.S.-and foreign-based demand reduction efforts. An outcome-based evaluation of INL-funded drug treatment assistance to Thailand was completed and results surpassed an earlier evaluation of INL drug treatment assistance to Peru where overall drug use was reduced from 90 to 34 percent (pre-and post-treatment) in the target population. Methamphetamine use in the Thai target population was reduced from 82 to 7 percent; heroin use was reduced from 7 percent to 1 percent, marijuana was reduced from 20 to 3 percent, pharmaceutical use from 10 to 1 percent, and criminal arrest rates reduced from 40 to 6 percent. Injecting drug use was reduced from 2 percent to zero and drug overdoses were reduced from 15 to 2 percent. Urine testing and criminal justice record checks confirmed results. The study also empirically confirmed the switch from heroin to methamphetamine as the major drug of abuse in Thailand. INL is funding similar studies of INL-funded drug treatment training in Colombia and Vietnam, the latter to address the connection between intravenous drug use and HIV/AIDS, and to reduce overall drug consumption. As a result of the positive findings from these studies, Peru and Laos have asked INL to enhance and expand their treatment infrastructures. INL also continued to provide training and technical assistance at various locations throughout the world on topics such as community/grassroots coalition building and networking, U.S. policies and programs, science-based drug prevention programming, and treatment within the criminal justice system. INL-funded training targeted predominantly Muslim populations that resulted in the establishment of mosque-based outreach and resource drug treatment centers in 25 provinces throughout Afghanistan, 12 centers in Indonesia religious schools and a total of 6 in Pakistan, southern Philippines and Malaysia. In 2007, INL will provide prevention and aftercare training to another 550 Mullahs and 250 District Council members in Afghanistan, and continue to fund life skills/drug prevention training for 625 teachers throughout Afghanistan. These initiatives build on a previous INL-funded demand reduction symposium in Kabul, Afghanistan that was attended by over 500 of the country's senior religious leaders and resulted in a major Fatwa against drug production, trafficking and abuse in that country. INL's training assistance also targeted antidrug community coalition network building in Colombia, El Salvador and Peru. Previous coalition building efforts resulted in the first national coalitions to be established in Peru and Chile. INL funding in 2006 provided new updated curricula to 24 Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) programs in Latin America and Asia. In 2007, INL funding will target gang-related violence in Central America focusing on at-risk youth in the region. INL funding will establish and expand drug intervention programs in El Salvador's and Guatemala's juvenile correction institutions and community-based programs aiming to reduce youth gang drug-related violence. Methodology for Estimating Illegal Drug Production How Much Do We Know? The INCSR contains a variety of illicit drug-related data. These numbers represent the United States Government's best effort to sketch the current dimensions of the international drug problem. Some numbers are more certain than others. Drug cultivation figures are relatively hard data derived by proven means, such as imagery with ground truth confirmation. Other numbers, such as crop production and drug yield estimates, become softer as more variables come into play. As we do every year, we publish these data with an important caveat: the yield figures are potential, not final numbers. Although they are useful for determining trends, even the best are ultimately approximations. Each year, we revise our estimates in the light of field research. The clandestine, violent nature of the illegal drug trade makes such field research difficult. Geography is also an impediment, as the harsh terrain on which many drugs are cultivated is not always easily accessible. This is particularly relevant given the tremendous geographic areas that must be covered, and the difficulty of collecting reliable information over diverse and treacherous terrain. What We Know With Reasonable Certainty. The number of hectares under cultivation during any given year is our most solid statistic. For nearly twenty years, the United States Government has estimated the extent of illicit cultivation in a dozen nations using proven statistical methods similar to those used to estimate the size of licit crops at home and abroad. We can therefore estimate the extent of cultivation with reasonable accuracy. What We Know With Less Certainty. How much of a finished product a given area will produce is difficult to estimate. Small changes in factors such as soil fertility, weather, farming techniques, and disease can produce widely varying results from year to year and place to place. To add to our uncertainty, most illicit drug crop areas are not easily accessible to the United States Government, making scientific information difficult to obtain. Therefore, we are estimating the potential crop available for harvest. Not all of these estimates allow for losses, which could represent up to a third or more of a crop in some areas for some harvests. The value in estimating the size of the potential crop is to provide a consistent basis for a comparative analysis from year to year. Harvest Estimates. We have gradually improved our yield estimates. Our confidence in coca leaf yield estimates, as well as in the finished product, has risen in the past few years, based upon the results of field studies conducted in Latin America. In all cases, however, multiplying average yields times available hectares indicates only the potential, not the actual final drug crop available for harvest. The size of the harvest depends upon the efficiency of farming practices and the wastage caused by poor practices or difficult weather conditions during and after harvest. Up to a third or more of a crop may be lost in some areas during harvests. In addition, mature coca (two to six years old) is more productive than immature or aging coca. Variations such as these can dramatically affect potential yield and production. Additional information and analysis is allowing us to make adjustments for these factors. Similar deductions for local consumption of unprocessed coca leaf and opium may be possible as well through the accumulation of additional information and research. Processing Estimates. The wide variation in processing efficiency achieved by traffickers complicates the task of estimating the quantity of cocaine or heroin that could be refined from a crop. Differences in the origin and quality of the raw material used, the technical processing method employed, the size and sophistication of laboratories, the skill and experience of local workers and chemists, and decisions made in response to enforcement pressures obviously affect production. Figures Change as Techniques and Data Quality Improve. Each year, research produces revisions to United States Government estimates of potential drug production. This is typical of annualized figures for most other areas of statistical tracking that must be revised year to year, whether it be the size of the U.S. wheat crop, population figures, or the unemployment rate. For the present, these illicit drug statistics represent the state of the art. As new information becomes available and as the art improves so will the precision of the estimates. Worldwide Illicit Drug Cultivation
2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 Opium Afghanistan 172,600 107,400 206,700 61,000 30,750 1,685 64,510 51,500 41,720 India Iran Pakistan 1,908 3,100 622 213 515 1,570 3,030 Total SW Asia 174,508 107,400 209,800 61,000 31,372 1,898 65,025 53,070 44,750 Burma 21,000 40,000 36,000 47,130 78,000 105,000 108,700 89,500 130,300 China Laos 1,700 5,600 10,000 18,900 23,200 22,000 23,150 21,800 26,100 Thailand 750 820 890 835 1,350 Vietnam 1,000 2,300 2,300 2,100 3,000 Total SE Asia 22,700 45,600 46,000 66,030 102,950 130,120 135,040 114,235 160,750 Colombia [1] [2] 2,100 4,400 4,900 6,500 7,500 7,500 6,100 Lebanon Guatemala [3] 100 330 Mexico [4] 3,300 3,500 4,800 2,700 4,400 1,900 3,600 5,500 Total Other 51 3400 5,930 9,200 7,600 10,900 9,400 11,100 11,600 Total Opium 197,259 156,400 261,730 136,230 141,922 142,918 209,465 178,405 217,100 Coca Bolivia [5] 26,500 24,600 23,200 24,400 19,900 19,600 21,800 38,000 Colombia [6] 144,000 114,100 113,850 144,450 169,800 136,200 122,500 101,800 Peru [7] 38,000[8] 27,500[9] 31,150 36,600 34,000 34,200 38,700 51,000 Total Coca 208,500 166,200 168,200 205,450 223,700 190,000 183,000 190,800 Cannabis Mexico [10] 5,600 5,800 7,500 4,400 4,100 3,900 3,700 4,600 Colombia 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 Jamaica [11] Total Cannabis 5,600 10,800 12,500 9,400 9,100 8,900 8,700 9,600 Worldwide Illicit Drug Cultivation
Worldwide Potential Illicit Drug Production
Worldwide Potential Illicit Drug Production
Parties to the 1988 UN Convention
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