It is a system that has served the drug cartels of Colombia well. This year, profits are projected to climb as worldwide demand for cocaine and heroin continues to rise. Colombia is the source of 80 percent of the cocaine and up to 70 percent of the heroin smuggled into the United States. The cocaine manufactured in Colombia today will eventually be sold on Washington's streets for about $70 a gram, which is the average size of a single buy.
This complex, entangled and powerful system is why a detailed plan is so critical to a successful fight against drug production and trafficking in Colombia, said Senator Chuck Grassley today. He made his remarks during a joint hearing of the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control and the Senate Subcommittee on International Trade.
The hearing focused on how the Clinton administration's $1.3 billion plan to assist counter-narcotics efforts in Colombia will affect other countries, as well as what effect any military assistance may have of the trade relationship between the U.S. and Colombia.
Grassley called on the administration to strengthen its plan. He stressed that any aid package needs to make a difference and not just be a grab bag of items bundled together for the massive commitment from U.S. taxpayers. "As this point, what we have yet to see from the administration is a very detailed plan," Grassley said. "What we have seen is various wish lists and many of these have been vague and uncoordinated."
Fighting the drug war has always been tough considering the social, economic and political problems sweeping Colombia. But the illegal drug trade is changing by becoming more scattered across the country.
No longer is the trade controlled by a few cartels, but hundreds of different traffickers have found their niche in the market. As the country rages a civil war, it has become close to impossible to separate guerrillas fighters from traffickers. It has also become apparent that international drug trafficking is increasingly spreading to the borders of neighboring countries such as Bolivia and Peru.
The U.S. has outlined three general key objectives for counter-narcotics policy in Colombia: eliminating the cultivation of opium poppy, cocoa leaf and marijuana; strengthening nation's capabilities to disrupt and dismantling major drug trafficking organization and destroy the cocaine-and heroin-processing industries; and, to the diversion of illicit chemicals into illicit channels. But what has not been drawn up by the administration is a detailed strategy to meet these goals, according to Grassley.
Last October, Grassley joined Sens. Paul Coverdale and Mike DeWine to introduce The Alianza Act of 1999, which called for a comprehensive strategy along with financial assistance to help take the initiative away from the traffickers and their allies.
"A high murder rate and endemic violence by narco-traffickers, guerrillas, and paramilitaries, means that Colombia faces unprecedented challenges as we work to fight the drug war," Grassley said. "If we don't layout detailed plans, all we will be doing is playing an expensive game of hopscotch all over the region, and that's a formula for losing."
Grassley convened today's hearing as chairman of both the Senate drug caucus and trade subcommittee.