It's Really a War on the Poor : A War on Coca Nobody Believes In

[Judi Lynn]

Weekend Edition
November 20-22, 2009

It's Really a War on the Poor
A War on Coca Nobody Believes In
By JAMES J. BRITTAIN

Since their systemic targeting of producer nations through militarized methods of eradication, government officials in Washington have regularly brandished bogus data when concerning the effectiveness and validity of the US’s so-called ‘war on drugs’. Dating back to the 1980s, Colombia became a figurative and literal battleground in this war, as the world’s principal cultivator of coca. As liberalized economic policies debilitated Colombia’s rural political economy hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized producers, campesinos, and landless farmers gravitated toward the narcotic industry, via cultivation, as a way of life and survival. The United States, denounced such activities a threat, as drugs were proclaimed a risk to ‘national security’ (White House, 1986). In turn, Washington devoted a great deal of time, money, and military resources to curb coca ‘at the source’. Yet this militarized approach toward eradication has consistently produced incredibly poor results. Rather than facilitating a decline the narcotic industry witnessed an enormous expansion over the past two decades.

A fascinating shift related to this historic debacle was reported in early November. The United States Embassy in Bogotá announced a miraculous 29 per cent decrease in Colombian coca cultivation and an estimated 39 per cent drop in cocaine production in 2008 alone. Such figures are incredible, for rates of coca cultivation have, in actuality, significantly risen since Washington embarked on its war on drugs in Colombia. Throughout the 1980s, when Colombia was identified as a threat to US national security, cultivation averaged 46,000 hectares. <1 hectare = 2.47 acres.> By the 1990s levels had reached 61,000 hectares, while the past decade saw median rates hovering at 140,000 hectares. Taking the subject a step further, when one situates rates of coca cultivation in conjunction with rates of coca eradicated via manual and aerial techniques it becomes glaringly apparent that growth rates have done anything but declined. To the contrary, coca accelerated – especially under the administration of Álvaro Uribe Vélez <2002-2010>. Such information devastates the ‘success’ Washington (and Bogotá) today claim.

Who drafted and released the information to the public? While formally released through the US Embassy in Bogotá, the report and findings came from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – specifically the US Director of Central Intelligence, Crime and Narcotics Center (CNC). What is unique about this is the unspoken absence of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). For the greater part of the last decade, the ONDCP has been the principal medium for formally releasing information related to coca cultivation levels within Colombia. The fact that the CIA/CNC released this report and not the ONDCP should spark some question and debate.

Many, particularly US officials in Washington and Bogotá, have shown disdain and upset toward the ONDCP’s data over the past several years. Embarrassingly, the ONDCP has shown that coca levels have not decreased but rather climbed to heights never witnessed in Colombia’s history. When one compares levels of coca from the 1980s to those of today the data disclose inclines averaging 350 per cent. During the late 1990s and early-mid 2000s, as the US spent just under $8 billion in counter-narcotic missions in Colombia, the ONDCP illustrated that levels did the opposite of deteriorating. This unquestionably caused a great deal of stress for government officials within both the US and Colombia, as was shown in 2006 when that latter’s former Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt chastised the ONDCP – going so far as to argue the office manipulated and systematically inflated levels of coca in Colombia (United Press International, 2006).

Tfhe United States has long attempted to manipulate figures related to Colombia’s coca levels. During the 1990s, Washington was vocal in its promotion of a clear decrease in Colombia’s narcotic industry due to US involvement and approach toward drug eradication. However,– to the embarrassment and discredit of Washington – research, external to government sources, found that cocaine productivity had greatly increased. Figures showed cocaine levels to be two times higher than the US had claimed.

Continued:
http://www.counterpunch.org/brittain11202009.html

[Overseas]

1. Billions more spent on counterproductive warfare

while our legislators quibble about making national health care "revenue neutral." I've avoided studying the militarized war on drugs too deeply because it is so depressing.

Amazing how we continue to pour billions into destructive myths that serve private interests while desperate realities are brushed aside as too expensive.

[Recursion]

2. Another way supply-side fantasies have screwed us over

Supply-side philosophy is wrong on jobs and wrong on drugs.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. And the same factors have fed America's underground meth industry

If someone can't find a job that pays more than minimum wage, manufacturing or selling meth looks awfully tempting, especially if it's already common in the local culture.

Bringing jobs to poor areas will do more to quell the meth industry than any ban on sinus medication.