Profile: Colombia
Colombia's drug industry is the most complete and diversified in the world: Colombia is the world's only important producer of all three of the top non-synthetic illicit drugs; it provides an...
...In the mid-1990s, however, as the U.S.-funded enforcement programs began to target the so-called "air bridge" used to bring coca paste into Colombia from Peru and to eradicate significant portions of the Peruvian and Bolivian coca crop, the Colombians began to encourage coca production inside Colombian borders...
...In the 1990s Colombia further diversified its drug industry, moving for the first time into opium poppy production...
...In 2000, according to the U.S...
...At the time, Colombia produced almost no coca leaves...
...it provides an estimated 75% of the world's cocaine supply, 2% of the world's heroin supply, and a large amount of marijuana, including perhaps 40% of the pot imported into the United States...
...production at that time...
...4. Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, "Estados Unidos y los cultivos ilicitos en Colombia: Los tr6gicos equivocos de una fumigaci6n futil," paper presented at University of California/Berkeley, March 2001...
...1 Colombians play a major role in every stage of the industry up to the final retail level, from production of raw material, through refining, international transport and wholesale distribution...
...The ANIF estimate was based on an assumption that somewhat less than 10% of total earnings from illicit drug sales are repatriated to Colombia each year, and on reported total world retail-level sales of Colombian cocaine, heroin and marijuana of $46 billion...
...This was less than 2% of world production, but Colombia soon became an important heroin supplier to the United States...
...It can be stated that-directly or indirectly-the majority of the labor force in these regions is involved" in the drug industry...
...demands for herbicide use until 1984...
...Colombia drug trade expert Bruce Bagley notes that this calculation put Colombian drug earnings "close to the $3.75 billion made from oil-the country's top export-and more than two and one half times the earnings from coffee exports in 1999...
...Groups of cocaine entrepreneurs based in the Colombian cities of Medellfn and Call became known for their efficient, if ruthlessly violent, control of the international cocaine industry...
...In that single year Colombian coca production more than doubled...
...There was little domestic U.S...
...Available at http://www.mamacoca.org/ They stress the negative economic and political effects of the trade...
...2 I. As much as 3% of Colombia's work force-some 300 thousand people-are directly employed in the drug industry, according to estimates cited by Colombian economists Roberto Steiner and Alejandra Corchuelo...
...Profile: Colombia 1. Cocaine and marijuana, U.S...
...Partly as a result, they were able to take over a large part of the wholesale trade...
...Dept...
...of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) 2001 http://www.state.gov/g/nl/rls/nrcrpt/2001/rpt/ Marijuana figures for 1998-99, Bruce Bagley, "Drug Trafficking, Political Violence and U.S...
...According to Bagley, Colombian poppy production "skyrocketed from zero in 1989 to 61 metric tons in 1998...
...They cite other estimates that drug crop cultivation accounts for about 6.7% of Colombia's agricultural employment-compared to 12% for coffee farming-and they say that: "On the regional level, in centers of drug crop production like Guaviare, Putumayo and CaquetO, this percentage could reach levels close to 50...
...They established refining labs in Colombia to process the paste...
...State Department, about 59% of the heroin seized by federal authorities in the United States was of Colombian origin...
...3. Roberto Steiner and Alejandra Corchuelo, "Repercussiones econ6micas e institucionales del narcotrgfico en Colombia," CEDE: Universidad de los Andes, December, 1999...
...http://istsocrates.berkeley.edu:7001/colombia/workingpapers/working_paper_tokatlian.html Unlike Mexico, which began using paraquat in its marijuana eradication program in the 1970s, Colombia resisted U.S...
...3 The Colombian drug industry's main development has occurred within the last three decades: In the 1970s, Colombia's only large-scale illicit drug product was marijuana...
...These goups were known as "cartels," though economists have debated whether the industry leaders actually coordinated their activities closely enough to merit the term...
...I*Colombia's National Association of Financial Institutions (ANIF) estimated the nation's total 1999 income from the illegal drug trade to be $3.5 billion...
...They have since been replaced by dozens of smaller organizations that observers describe as more flexible and able to respond to new law enforcement tactics by changing their own...
...In 1978, according to Juan Tokatlian, another expert on the Colombian drug industry, some 25-30,000 hectares of marijuana were being cultivated in Colombia, and 60-65% of the marijuana used in the United States was Colombian...
...4 It was not until the latel970s that Colombia began to play an important role in the cocaine business...
...instead Colombian cocaine entrepreneurs bought finished cocaine and coca paste-semi-refined cocaine-from Peruvian and Bolivian producers...
...5. INCSR 2001 (See footnote #1, Colombia...
...Colombians then set up an efficient system for transporting cocaine in bulk to the United States, by using a network of small planes...
...Bagley notes that "by 1999 Colombia had become the premier coca-cultivating country in the world, producing more coca leaf than both Peru and Bolivia combined...
...Policy in Colombia in the 1990s," paper presented at "Colombia in Context," conference, University at California/Berkeley, February 7, 2001...
...5 The death or jailing of many top MedellIfn and Cali leaders led to the near demise of these "cartels" in the 1990s...
...http://istsocrates.berkeley.edu:7001/colombia/workingpapers/working_paperbagley.html 2. Bagley cites the ANF study in "Drug Trafficking...
...Bagley stresses that "this explosive expansion occurred in spite of a [continous eradication] program that sprayed a record 65,000 hectares of coca" the previous year...
Vol. 36 • September 2002 • No. 2
