Cocaine losing its dubious status as drug of choice
Cocaine is losing its dubious status as drug of choice
Domestic use is down, forcing cartels to turn to new revenue streams
seattlepi
By DAN FREEDMAN, HEARST NEWSPAPERS
Published 04:50 p.m., Sunday, December 18, 2011
WASHINGTON — Once the glitterati's drug of choice, cocaine appears to have become a has-been drug, forcing drug cartels enriched from trafficking the white powder to find new markets and diversify their illicit products.
Between 2006 and 2010, domestic cocaine use declined 37 percent, according to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
That's no blip on the screen.
Workplace drug tests proving positive for cocaine went down 65 percent in the same time frame, according to data provided to the government by a major testing firm, Quest Diagnostics Inc.
And while the government-funded 2011 "Monitoring the Future" survey found teens consuming greater amounts of marijuana, cocaine rates plummeted to their lowest levels since the 1980s.
The numbers "should be heralded as basically very good news about cocaine," said U.S. drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Use of crack, the smokeable rock-crystal form of cocaine, is only a fraction of what it was in the 1980s and 1990s when it devastated inner-city neighborhoods.
Despite some regional and socioeconomic variations, "the crack epidemic, as it was, appears to be over," said Dr. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"Have we made progress? Yes, but there's still demand (for cocaine)," he said. "It's not zero."
Cocaine's lowly status in the drug world's pecking order is a far cry from its high point in the 1980s when Colombian "cocaine cowboys" wreaked havoc in the streets of Miami and spawned a cutting-edge TV show, "Miami Vice."
Experts point to several factors in explaining the decline in use. Colombia supplies more than 90 percent of the cocaine to the U.S. market. The Colombian government's crackdown there has reduced cocaine production by 60 percent since 2001.
Accordingly, the price of cocaine has gone up since 2007 while purity levels have gone down, according to Drug Enforcement Administration data.
Also, decades of drug education and prevention programs are having an effect, though it is unclear whether other drugs such as prescription pain killers, stimulants and "synthetic'" marijuana (marketed as "Spice" and "K2") are simply taking the place once occupied by cocaine.
The sum total seems to be having an effect on the Mexican cartels that move the vast majority of cocaine across the U.S.-Mexico border. Cocaine seizures along the border fell 28 percent between 2006 and 2010.
There is vigorous debate in federal law enforcement circles on what the seizure rates say about the cartels' drug strategy, whether higher numbers simply reflect tougher law enforcement and whether falling numbers signify a shift away from a particular drug like cocaine.
While seizures alone are not proof, officials believe flagging down fewer and progressively smaller loads of cocaine shows the marketplace downturn is affecting the cartels.
"I clearly don't think it's a fluke," Kerlikowske said in an interview.
Whatever the case, cartels appear to be adjusting their business model in true corporate fashion by adding new revenue streams.
Methamphetamines, for instance, are now part of the traffickers' inventory. While seizures of cocaine along the border were in decline, those for methamphetamines (as well as the cartels' traditional cash cows, marijuana and heroin) went up.
In addition, the cartels are diversifying into counterfeit computer software and pirated DVDs, as well as stolen car parts and human trafficking, including for sexual exploitation.
Further south, Colombian and Venezuelan traffickers have expanded cocaine exports to previously untapped markets overseas. In the past two years, huge cocaine shipments totaling 1,870 pounds destined for Europe, Asia and Africa have been intercepted in Nigeria and Ghana. In October 2010, Australian police seized 1,012 pounds of cocaine from two vessels.
Some cases involving DEA agents overseas read like they were ripped from the pages of a thriller novel. Three al-Qaida associates were arrested in Ghana in December 2009 and sent to the U.S. to face charges of transporting cocaine through West and North Africa, with the proceeds destined for al-Qaida affiliates and FARC, a longtime narco-terrorist guerilla army.
U.S. officials remain cautious about whether the cocaine-use downturn is here to stay.
"When it comes to drugs, the U.S. has a bit of a memory problem,'" Kerlikowske said. "We don't always recognize the dangers of something, and lo and behold it comes back."
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Originally Posted by SATAN
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