Embassy of the United States

Topics of Interest

Drug Abuse

The Drug Legalization Movement in America

Barry R. McCaffrey
Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy
Testimony before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources

June 16, 1999

Chairman Mica, Congresswoman Mink, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on the drug legalization movement in the United States. Before discussing this issue, on behalf of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) allow me to thank the leadership and members of this Subcommittee for the strong bipartisan support you have provided to our National Drug Control Strategy. With your help we are making substantial progress in reducing the threat of illegal drugs to our nation.

Introduction

Given the negative impact of drugs on U.S. society, the overwhelming majority of North Americans reject illegal drug use. Indeed millions of North Americans who once tried drugs now turn their backs on them; they no longer do drugs, and most importantly, don't want their children doing them. While most North Americans steadfastly reject drugs, small elements of the social spectrum argue that prohibition (and not drugs) creates the problems we face. These people offer solutions in various guises, ranging from outright legalization to so-called "harm reduction." In fact, all drug policies seek to reduce the harms of drug use. No rational approach would seek to increase harms to families, children and our nation. The real question is: what policies actually do the most to decrease the harms drugs cause?...

I. What proponents of legalization really want: easy access to all drugs of abuse

Our nation's democratic system of government is founded upon free and open debate. Our nation holds no beliefs or icons above challenge and examination. We all must be willing to lay the facts and our analysis on the table of public scrutiny, and make the case for what we believe. However, in the marketplace of ideas, just as in other marketplaces, there are people willing to use deceptive claims, half truths and flawed logic to hawk ill-considered beliefs. Nowhere is this problem more clear than with respect to the drug legalization movement.

Proponents of legalization know that the policy choices they advocate are unacceptable to the U.S. public. Because of this, many advocates of this approach have resorted to concealing their real intentions and seeking to sell the U.S. public legalization by normalizing drugs through a process designed to erode societal disapproval.

For example, ONDCP has expressed reservations about the legalization of hemp as an agricultural product because of the potential for increasing marijuana growth and use. While legitimate hardworking farmers may want to grow the crop to support their families, many of the other proponents of hemp legalization have not been as honest about their goals. A leading hemp activist, is quoted in the San Francisco Examiner and on the Media Awareness Project's homepage (a group advocating drug policy reforms) as saying he "can't support a movement or law that would lift restrictions from industrial hemp and keep them for marijuana. If legalizing hemp is solely about developing a new crop and not about eroding marijuana restrictions, why does this individual only support hemp deregulation if it is linked to the legalization of marijuana?...

International financier George Soros, who funds the Lindesmith Center, has advocated: "If it were up to me, I would establish a strictly controlled distributor network through which I would make most drugs, excluding the most dangerous ones like crack, legally available." William F. Buckley, Jr. has also called for the "legalization of the sale of most drugs, except to minors."...

What do drug "legalizers" truly seek? They want drugs made legal; even though this would dramatically increase drug use rates. They want drugs made widely available, in chewing gums and sodas, over the Internet and at the corner store; even though this would be tantamount to putting drugs in the hands of children. They want our society to no longer frown on drug use -- even though each year drug use contributes to 50,000 deaths 16 and costs our society $110 billion in social costs. And, they want the government to play the role of facilitator, handing out drugs like heroin and LSD....

II. The fallacies and realities of drug legalization

Fallacy: There is a large movement to legalize drugs in America.

Reality: There is no such thing as a drug legalization "movement" in America....

There is, however, a carefully-camouflaged, well-funded, tightly-knit core of people whose goal is to legalize drug use in the United States. It is critical to understand that whatever they say to gain respectability in social circles, or to gain credibility in the media and academia, their common goal is to legalize drugs.

Fallacy: U.S. citizens increasingly support drug legalization.

Reality: Rightfully, the U.S. public opposes drug legalization.

The people of the U.S. understand the risks that drug legalization would entail and overwhelmingly reject this ill-considered approach. Youth access to and use of alcohol and cigarettes is bad enough; parents clearly don't want children able to use a fake ID at the corner store to buy heroin. We have enough problems with drinking and driving; families don't want to live in fear that the driver of the eighteen wheeler motoring alongside their minivan is high on marijuana, methamphetamines or LSD. Thousands of our loved ones already die from drug-related causes; reasonable people don't want drugs to be accessible over the Internet....

Not only do North Americans reject legalization, they also support policies to rid their communities, schools, and workplaces of drugs. For example, a 1995 Gallup poll found that 72% of North Americans want drug testing in the workplace. Sixty-seven percent supported random drug testing by employers. This same survey found that 73% of all employees support their employers' drug-free workplace policies and programs. Another 23% of employees want their employers to go even further and adopt tougher programs. Similarly, a soon-to-be released Gallup poll finds that 85% of North Americans support greater funding for drug interdiction.

Fallacy: Drug legalization will not increase drug use.

Reality: Drug legalization would significantly increase the human and economic costs associated with drugs.

Proponents argue that legalization is a cure-all for our nation's drug problem. However, the facts show that legalization is not a panacea but a poison. In reality, legalization would dramatically expand the U.S.'s drug dependence, significantly increase the social costs of drug abuse, and put countless more innocent lives at risk.

• A. The Dutch Model

  Those who support legalization often hold up the Netherlands as an example that legalization can work. While the Dutch have adopted a "softer" approach to some drugs, they have not legalized them. Under the Dutch system possession and small sales of marijuana have been decriminalized. However, marijuana production and larger scale sales remain criminal. Drugs such as cocaine and heroin remain illegal. Most importantly, while the Dutch have not legalized drugs, the softening of Dutch criminal laws against marijuana has led to a normalization of drug use more broadly. The accompanying change in public attitudes has, arguably, played as critical a role in Dutch drug use patterns as has the shift in the actual law.

  If the Dutch experience with drugs is an appropriate model at all, it is because it illustrates the harms that result from increased tolerance of illegal drugs. This conclusion was brought home to all of us from the Office of National Drug Control Policy who traveled to the Netherlands in July, 1998 to gain a better understanding of the Dutch approach....

  Proponents of legalization argue that the Dutch experience provides a model for a "softer approach" to fighting drug use. Upon close examination the pitfalls of the Dutch experience offer more than ample evidence to dissuade the United States from adopting the drug policies of the Netherlands approach. Instead the Dutch example clearly argues in favor of continuing the balanced U.S. approach, which is producing results.

   

• B. The U.S. Experience

  U.S. experiences with drug legalization portend similar risks to those experienced in Holland. During the 1970s, our nation engaged in a serious debate over the shape of our drug control policies. (For example, within the context of this debate, between 1973 and 1979, eleven states "decriminalized" marijuana). During this timeframe, the number of North Americans supporting marijuana legalization hit a modern-day high. While it is difficult to show causal links, it is clear that during this same period, from 1972 to 1979, marijuana use rose from 14% to 31% among adolescents, 48% to 68% among young adults, and 7% to 20% among adults over 26. This period marked one of the largest drug use escalations in U.S. history....

  The United States has tried drug legalization and rejected it several times now because of the suffering it brings. The philosopher Santayana was right in his admonition that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Let us not now be so foolish as to once again consider this well worn, dead-end path.

   

• C. The Impact on Youth

  Most importantly the legalization of drugs in the United States would lead to a disproportionate increase in drug use among young people. In 1975, the Alaskan Supreme Court invalidated certain sections of the state's criminal code pertaining to the possession of marijuana. Based on this finding, from 1975 to 1991, possession of up to four ounces of the drug by an adult who was lawfully in the state of Alaska became legal. Even though marijuana remained illegal for children, marijuana use rates among Alaskan youth increased significantly. In response, concerned Alaskans, in particular the National Federation of Parents for Drug-Free Youth, sponsored an anti-drug referendum that was approved by the voters in 1990, once again rendering marijuana illegal.

  In addition to the impact of expanded availability, legalization would have a devastating effect on how our children see drug use. Youth drug use is driven by attitudes. When young people perceive drugs as risky and socially unacceptable, youth drug use drops. Conversely, when children perceive less risk and greater acceptability in using drugs, their use increases. If nothing else, legalization would send a strong message that taking drugs is a safe and socially accepted behavior that is to be tolerated among our peers, loved ones and children. Such a normalization would play a major role in softening youth attitudes and, ultimately, increasing drug use. The significant increases in youth drug use that would accompany legalization are particularly troubling because their effects would be felt over the course of a generation or longer. Without help, addictions last a lifetime. Every additional young person we allow to become addicted to drugs will impose tremendous human and fiscal burdens on our society. Legalization would be a usurious debt upon our society's future; the costs of such an approach would mount exponentially with each new addict, and over each new day.

   

• D. The Impact of Drug Prices

  If drugs were legalized, we can also expect that the attendant drop in drug prices to cause drug use rates to grow as drugs become increasingly affordable to buy. Currently a gram of cocaine sells for between $150 and $200 on U.S. streets. The cost of cocaine production is as low as $3 per gram. In order to justify legalization, the market cost for legalized cocaine would have to be set so low as to make the black market, or bootleg cocaine, economically unappealing. Assume, for argument sake, that the market price was set at $10 per gram, a three hundred percent plus markup over cost, each of the fifty hits of cocaine in that gram could retail for as little as ten cents.

  With the cost of "getting high" so as low as ten cents (about the cost of a cigarette) the price of admission to drug use would be no obstacle to anyone even considering it. However, each of these "dime" users risks a life-long drug dependence problem that will cost them, their families, and our society tens of thousands of dollars....

Fallacy: Drug legalization would reduce the harm of drug use on our society.

Reality: Drug legalization would cost billions of dollars and risk millions of additional innocent lives.

By increasing the rates of drug abuse, legalization would exact a tremendous cost on our society. If drugs were legalized, the United States would see significant increases in the number of drug users, the number of drug addicts, and the number of people dying from drug-related causes. While many of these costs would fall first and foremost on the user, countless other people would also suffer if drugs were legalized. Contrary to what libertarians and legalizers would have us believe, drug use is not a victimless crime.

• A. Increases in Child Abuse and Neglect

  Innocent children suffer the most from drug abuse. In No Safe Havens, experts from Columbia University's Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse found that substance abuse (including drugs and alcohol) exacerbates seven of every ten child abuse or neglect cases....

   

• B. Increases in Drugged Driving Accidents

  Over the last ten years, U.S. citizens have grown increasingly aware of the death toll related to drinking and driving. While we focus less on the risks of drugged-driving, the fact is that if the driver on the road next to you is drugged, you and whoever is riding with you are at risk. A National Transportation Safety Board study of 182 fatal truck accidents revealed that 12.5% of the drivers had used marijuana, in comparison to 12.5% who used alcohol, 8.5% who used cocaine and 7.9% who used stimulants. Illegal drugs (marijuana, cocaine, and stimulants combined) were present in more accidents than alcohol, even though alcohol is legal and far more available. A study of 440 drivers, ages 15 to 34 years old, who were killed in California during a two-year period detected alcohol and marijuana in one-third of victims. More than one-half consumed a drug or drugs other than alcohol....

   

• C. Increases in Workplace Accidents, Decreasing Productivity

  Just as drug impairment behind the wheel puts others at risk, so too does impairment on the job. Since over 60% of drug users in the United States are employed, it is not surprising that workplace drug use is a significant problem. According to a 1995 Gallup survey, 35% of U.S. employees report having seen drug use on-the-job by co-workers. One-in-ten report having been offered drugs while at work. Drug use in the workplace diminishes productivity and increases costs. Drug using employees are more likely to have taken an unexcused absence in the last month, and are more likely to change or leave a job. The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated that the cost to our nation's productivity from illegal drug use was $69.4 billion in 1992....

Fallacy: Drugs are harmful because they are illegal.

Reality: Drugs are harmful not because they are illegal; they are illegal because they are harmful.

Critics argue that the harm to our society from drugs, such as the costs of crime, could be reduced if drugs were legalized. The logic is flawed. By increasing the availability of drugs, legalization would dramatically increase the harm to innocent people. With more drugs and drug use in our society, there would be more drug-related child abuse, more drugged driving fatalities, and more drug-related workplace accidents. None of these harms are caused by law or law enforcement but by illegal drugs.

Even with respect to the crime-related impact of drugs, drug-related crimes are driven far more by addiction than by the illegality of drugs. Law enforcement doesn't cause people to steal to support their habits; they steal because they need money to fuel an addiction, a drug habit that often precludes them from earning an honest living. Even if drugs were legal, people would still steal and prostitute themselves to pay for addictive drugs and support their addicted lifestyles....

Fallacy: We are fighting a war on drugs.

Reality: Our balanced efforts against drugs are analogous to the fight against cancer.

Wars have defined end states; victory over an enemy. Our efforts against drugs have no such neatly defined end; with each generation the struggle to prevent drug use begins anew. Addicted North Americans: parents, siblings, and children, are not the enemy, they require treatment. Wars are waged with weapons and soldiers; prevention and treatment are our primary tools against drugs. Consequently, our efforts to reduce drug use are analogous to the fight against cancer.

Nevertheless, an effective counter-drug strategy must focus on both supply and demand reduction. Supply-side efforts (law enforcement and interdiction) are necessary because, as basic economic rules dictate, unabated supply will ultimately create its own demand. However, those of us who have experienced combat know that such supply-side efforts are a far cry from "war."...

Fallacy: Our current approach to drugs is not making a difference.

Reality: We are making strong, steady progress in reducing drug use and preventing young people from turning to drugs.

Rather than trade rhetoric, we should focus on results:

• --Over the last twenty years we have cut drug use in the United States by half and reduced cocaine use by 75%.
  
• --Over the last two years, youth drug use rates have leveled off and in many cases have begun to fall. This shift marks a sharp departure from the prior six years, which saw steady increases in youth drug use. Most importantly, we have begun to see a sharpening of youth attitudes against drugs; youth increasingly see drugs as risky and unacceptable.
  
• --The number of drug-related murders has now hit a ten-year low. In 1989, there were 1402 drug-related murders; by 1997 that number had fallen to 786.
  
• --Spending on illegal drugs has dropped 37% from 1988 to 1995, an annual savings of $34.1 billion.

Such results against any other societal ill would be called a huge success. Let me thank the Committee and the Congress as a whole for your bipartisan support of our counter-drug programs. Without your strong support results like these would not have been possible.

III. The solution to the U.S.'s drug problem is the balanced approach embodied in our National Drug Control Strategy

There is no simple solution to the U.S.'s drug problem. In order to effectively address this problem we must attack both the supply and demand for drugs. Pursuing one of these goals at the expense of the other will only unbalance our efforts and reduce the likelihood of success. The National Drug Control Strategy establishes a multi-year framework to reduce illegal drug use and availability by 50% within ten years. If this target is achieved, less than 3% of the household population aged twelve and over would use illegal drugs; the lowest recorded drug-use rate in modern U.S. history. Drug-related health, economic, social, and criminal costs would be reduced commensurately.

To achieve this target, the Strategy focuses on prevention, treatment, research, law enforcement, protection of our borders, and international cooperation. The National Drug Control Strategy is guided by five goals that cover the three broad aspects of drug control: demand reduction, supply reduction, and the adverse consequences of drug abuse and trafficking. Reducing the demand for illegal drugs is the centerpiece of our Strategy, but supply reduction and consequence management are also critical components of a well-balanced strategic approach to drug control. The five goals reflect the need for prevention and education to protect all citizens (especially children) from the perils of drugs, treatment to help the chemically dependent, law enforcement to bring traffickers and other drug offenders to justice, interdiction to reduce the flow of drugs into our nation, and international cooperation to confront drug cultivation, production, trafficking, and use.

• 1. Goals of the 1999 Strategy
  
  Goal 1: Educate and enable U.S. youth to reject illegal drugs as well as alcohol and tobacco.
  Goal 2: Increase the safety of U.S. citizens by substantially reducing drug-related crime and violence.
  Goal 3: Reduce health and social costs to the public of illegal drug use.
  Goal 4: Shield the U.S.'s air, land, and sea frontiers from the drug threat.
  Goal 5: Break foreign and domestic drug sources of supply.

   

• 2. Overview of the Strategy

  The National Drug Control Strategy takes a long-term, holistic view of the nation's drug problem. The document maintains that no single solution can suffice to deal with the multifaceted issue, that several solutions must be applied simultaneously, and that focusing on outcomes measured in declining drug use and a lessening of attendant social consequences can achieve our goals. Our Strategy focuses on those approaches that we know work in reducing drug use.

   

• 3. Educating Young People

  Our primary focus is on preventing youth drug use. Studies show that attitudes about drugs drive youth drug use rates. Preventing drug use before it starts is more effective and cost efficient than trying to break a person free from an already established addiction. By reaching young people before they try drugs, we can help them reject these deadly substances and go on to full, safe, and productive lives. Our commitment to prevention is backed by significant resources. With the support of Congress in passing our FY2000 counter-drug budget, we will increase federal drug prevention funds by 55% since FY1996. Your continued support for our drug prevention efforts is critical to protecting our nation's children and will build upon our common efforts to date. For example, with the bipartisan support of Congress, we have launched the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, a five-year $2 billion public-private partnership. The Media Campaign is using the full power of modern media, from television to the Internet to sports marketing, to educate children, parents, and other adult influencers about the dangers of drugs....

  To help parents we are reaching out (across the Internet, in newspapers, on the airwaves, and through community groups)to provide them with the information they need to be able to help their children make the right decision and stay drug-free. For example, through a Media Campaign alliance with AOL, we have created a Parents Resource Center, that can provide information at the click of the mouse. The Department of Education has also recently published Growing Up Drug-Free: A Parents Guide to Prevention to give parents the facts and arm them with what to say to their children. As part of this comprehensive prevention framework, Secretary Riley has recently sent Congress the Administration's proposal for a revamped Safe and Drug Free Schools Program. If adopted this new program will improve accountability, require schools to adopt programs proven effective, and hold the entire system, from the federal government to the local school, accountable for producing real results for our children.

  Through the Drug Free Communities Grant Program we are also providing local anti-drug coalitions with support in working to protect young people in their communities from drugs. In the first year of the program we made grants to 92 communities, from across 47 states and the District of Columbia. These groups are helping mobilize grassroots efforts to prevent drug use.

   

• 4. Combating Normalization

  With attitudes being so critical in shaping drug use trends, it is vital that we ensure that drug taking never is perceived as "normal" behavior that is accepted or even tolerated by our society. The imperative to fight the normalization of drug use has played a critical role in the development of federal policies with respect to both medical marijuana and hemp.

  With respect to medical marijuana, the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base, is the most comprehensive summary and analysis of what is known about the medical use of marijuana. The report emphasizes evidence-based medicine (derived from knowledge and experience informed by rigorous scientific analysis), as opposed to belief-based medicine (derived from judgment, intuition, and beliefs untested by rigorous science). ONDCP is delighted that the discussion of medical efficacy and safety of cannabinoids can now take place within the context of science.

  The IOM report concludes that there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication. Although marijuana smoke delivers THC and other cannabinoids to the body, it also delivers harmful substances, including most of those found in tobacco smoke. The long-term harms from smoking make it a poor drug delivery system, particularly for patients with chronic diseases. In addition, cannabis plants contain a variable mixture of biologically active compounds, therefore they cannot be expected to provide a precisely defined drug effect. Medicines today are expected to be of known composition and quality. Even in cases where marijuana can provide relief of symptoms, the crude plant mixture does not meet this modern expectation. If there is any future in cannabinoid drugs, it lies with agents of more certain, not less certain composition. The future of medical marijuana lies on classical pharmacological drug development....

  While we must exercise compassion and move ahead with the development of treatments that can relieve human suffering, we cannot and will not allow progress on the medical front to jeopardize the futures of millions of young people. Regardless of developments with respect to the use of cannabinoid-based medicines, we will continue to fully enforce the full range of Federal laws pertaining to the non-medicinal use of marijuana....

   

• 5. Expanding Treatment

  Drug treatment is proven to reduce drug use, drug-related crime, and other related social ills. Studies show that for people who have successfully completed a drug treatment program, even one year after treatment, drug use drops 50%, illicit activity falls by 60%, drug selling drops by nearly 80%, arrests fall by more than 60%, homelessness drops by 43%, dependence on welfare decreases by 11% and employment increases by 20%. In short, treatment works.

   

• 6. Breaking the Cycle of Drugs and Crime

  Drug dependent people are responsible for a disproportionate amount of our nation's crime. According to the 1998 Alcohol Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration report, roughly two-thirds of adult arrestees and more than one-half of juvenile arrestees tested positive for at least one illicit drug. In 1997, one-third of state prisoners and about one-in-five federal prisoners said they had committed the offense that led to their imprisonment while under the influence of drugs. Nineteen percent of state inmates said they perpetrated their current offense leading to incarceration in order to obtain money to buy drugs.

  Drug-law offenders are filling our nation's prisons and imposing tremendous correctional costs on our society. The nation's incarcerated population is now over 1.8 million people. Under the present system, far too many addicted individuals enter the cycle of drugs, crime, and prison only to spend the rest of their lives caught in this cycle.

  We cannot arrest our way out of our nation's drug problem. We need to break the cycle of addiction, crime, and prison through treatment and other diversion programs. It costs the U.S. taxpayer $25,000 a year to imprison a drug-addicted criminal. By comparison, a year of outpatient treatment costs less than $5,000, and the cost of even more comprehensive residential treatment programs range from $5,000 to $15,000 per year....

   

• 7. Helping Communities Fight Drugs

  The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program provides assistance to regions of the nation with critical drug trafficking problems that impact wider areas of the nation. HIDTA funds support expanded cooperation between federal, state and local law counter-drug enforcement authorities. HIDTAs strengthen America's drug control efforts by forging partnerships among federal, state and local agencies; and facilitating cooperative investigations, intelligence sharing and joint operations. There are presently 21 HIDTAs. Through funds provided by the Congress in our current budget, soon we will announce the creation of five new HIDTAs....

   

• 8. Strengthening the Southwest Border

  The shared two-thousand-mile border with Mexico attracts drugs and provides Mexican drug traffickers ample opportunity to move large quantities of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine into the U.S. Drug violence spills over this border into the neighboring states: New Mexico, California, Texas, Arizona. Drugs that cross this border pass into our heartland (into Kansas, Iowa, Illinois) and beyond (Massachusetts, New York, Oregon) and attack cities, suburbs, and rural communities alike. Improving our counter-drug efforts along this border first requires us to better organize our existing efforts. We need to improve our chain of command and accountability for programs in this region. Our Southwest Border programs must also become more flexible and intelligence-driven. We need to better understand the emerging threats and deploy our resources to counter these threats.

  On the demand-side, CTAC technology development efforts are also at the forefront of efforts to better understand the disease of addiction and to develop cures for drug problems. We also must shift from a system that is dependent upon manpower to one that relies on cutting-edge technology. We simply cannot think that in an era of expanding interchange that we will be able to unpack every crate of carrots or search every railcar by hand. We need to develop and deploy a family of complementary systems within the next five years that can inspect increasing numbers of in-bound containers, shipments, and conveyances for drugs. We want to provide major ports of entry with the capacity to subject in-bound shipments to non-intrusive inspections by complementary systems. Through technology, we shall put in place a seamless curtain against drugs. This curtain will not be iron but information, derived from technology and intelligence. It will be held in place by good organization and shared commitment; a commitment based on common values and interests. It will be permeable to trade and culture but impermeable to drugs, crime, and violence.

   

• 9. Attacking Drugs in the Transit Zone

  Transit zone interdiction plays a critical supporting role to source county programs. Transit zone interdiction programs remove significant amounts of illicit drugs from the pipeline each year that would otherwise reach the United States. These efforts also raise the costs and risks to traffickers of moving cocaine into the United States. Additionally, interdiction operations in the transit zone produce information that can be used to attack trafficking organizations, thereby strengthening the overall U.S. law enforcement effort against international crime. Transit zone interdiction programs reinforce international, bilateral, and regional cooperation against the threat of illegal drugs and strengthen the capabilities of transit nation law enforcement institutions.

  Drug traffickers are adaptable, reacting to interdiction successes by shifting routes and changing modes of transportation. Large international criminal organizations have extensive access to sophisticated technology and resources to support their illegal operations. The United States must surpass traffickers' flexibility, quickly deploying resources to changing high-threat areas. Consequently, the U.S. government designs coordinated interdiction operations that anticipate shifting trafficking patterns.

  Drugs coming to the United States from South America pass through a six-million square-mile transit zone that is roughly the size of the continental United States. This zone includes the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and eastern Pacific Ocean. The Coast Guard is the lead federal agency for maritime interdiction and co-lead with U.S. Customs for air interdiction. The interagency mission is to reduce the supply of drugs from source countries by denying smugglers the use of air and maritime routes in the transit zone. In patrolling this vast area, U.S. federal agencies closely coordinate their operations with the interdiction forces of a number of nations.

  Nonetheless, traffickers have demonstrated that they can absorb interdiction losses in the transit zone as the cost of doing business while increasing source country cultivation and production to make up interdiction losses. In the transit zone, traffickers have the initiative and can choose when, where, and how to challenge interdiction forces. They are able to alter routes and methods in response to effective law enforcement interdiction activity. Transit zone operations will be most effective when source country programs are able to effectively constrain drug production potential, preventing trafficking organizations from making up interdiction losses....

• 10. Building International Cooperation

  The United States continues to focus international drug control efforts on supporting the critical work of drug source countries. International drug trafficking organizations and their production and trafficking infrastructure are most concentrated, detectable, and vulnerable to effective law enforcement action in source countries....

  To be successful on the scale necessary to disrupt the illegal drug industry, drug source countries must have control of growing areas, adequate law enforcement resources, capabilities, and the will to confront a sometimes politically powerful segment of the population or one that is protected by well-armed and well-equipped insurgent groups. The international drug control strategy seeks to bolster source country resources, capabilities, and political will to reduce cultivation, attack production, and disrupt and dismantle trafficking organizations, including their command and control structure and financial underpinnings. Our actions focus on assisting the host nation expand law enforcement control over drug crop growing areas, reestablish the rule of law, and eliminate illegal drug crops in ways that protect human and democratic rights. The political will and long-term commitment of these other nations are critical to our common success against drugs.

These international efforts are making a difference, for example: