Latin American Narcotics Trade and Hemispheric Security, The
by Donald J. Mabry
October 21, 1988
The illicit drug appetite of U.S. citizens and their
government's efforts to cut off the supply of those drugs threaten
the national security of many Latin American nations and of the
United States itself. U.S. citizens annually consume an estimated
6-7 metric tons of heroin, 75-100 metric tons of cocaine, and
7,000-12,000 metric tons of marijuana. All of the cocaine and most
of the heroin and marijuana comes from Latin America. To meet the
U.S. demand for illicit drugs, Mexican entrepreneurs annually
produce 45-55 metric tons of heroin, South American entrepreneurs
produce 322-418 metric tons of cocaine, and entrepreneurs in a
number of Latin American countries produce an estimated 11,000
metric tons of marijuana.(1) In addition, entrepreneurs in transit
nations such as The Bahamas, Honduras, and Panama provide
transportation and financial services. To conduct this illegal
business, drug traffickers must defy and circumvent the laws of
their own nations, international law, and the laws of the United
States. The United States, for its part, has declared international
drug trafficking a national security issue for the United States
and has attacked the trade through eradication and interdiction
programs. Both the drug producing-trafficking nexus and U.S.
international drug policy have threatened the political and
economic stability of Latin American nations and, to a much lesser
degree, that of the United States itself.
National Security and Drug Trafficking
National security includes the political, social, and economic
health of a society, not just such issues as armaments, military
readiness, and espionage. Chronic political instability fosters
both domestic revolutionary movements and foreign intervention and
hinders economic development. Economic health is important for the
very survival of the nation; a weak economy not only means that the
population suffers but also that the State does not have the
resources necessary to govern effectively. In such circumstances,
the State has difficulty creating the conditions for or directly
promoting economic development, for providing the citizenry with
basic personal security, and for maintaining public forces adequate
to the defense of the nation.
Illicit narcotics production and trafficking threatens the
national security of every country in which it takes place. To
operate, drug traffickers must neutralize government officials by
intimidating, corrupting, or even killing them. Both corruption and
murder of government officials mock the rule of law and destabilize
a nation, as recent events in Colombia have demonstrated. National
governments are losing effective control of the Chapare and Beni
regions in Bolivia and the Upper Huallaga Valley in Peru. Colombian
drug lords not only dominate parts of Colombia's Caqueta, Meta, and
Guaviare states but also Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley. When this
occurs, there are two states--the official one and the one ruled by
the drug traffickers. In Panama and, to a lesser extent, in
Honduras and Paraguay, the military has been corrupted by
involvement in drug trafficking. Corrupt societies are inherently
less secure, for corruption weakens the ability of the State to
carry out one of its fundamental duties, that of providing public
order and basic personal security to its citizens. Large-scale drug
smuggling punches holes in the national borders, opening gaps through which all
manner of personnel and goods can pour.
Narcoterrorism
More complex as a national security issue for Western
Hemispheric nations are the prospect of narcoterrorism, linkages
between drug traffickers and terrorist/guerrilla movements or the
latter directly engaging in drug trafficking. In the Andean
nations, left-wing terrorists and drug producers and traffickers
have allied in certain instances, usually with the terrorists
acting as a protective military arm for the narcomafia. Examples
are the M-19 and FARC in Colombia. Drug traffickers have also paid
terrorists in weaponry, transporting the weapons on return trips
from carrying drugs into the United States. This appears to be the
case in Mexico where Mexican security forces captured 360 Soviet-designed AK47 assault rifles, ammunition, airplanes, and other
vehicles in March, 1988 during raids on drug rings in Agua Prieta,
Hermosillo, and Durango.(2)
The potential threat of narcoterrorism is unclear, however,
for there is a basic ideological and economic conflict of interest
between left-wing terrorists and drug traffickers.(3) The latter want
a capitalist state, one in which profits are valued. They are
themselves quintessential capitalists with "free enterprise"
capitalist values. Their dispute with their existing government is
its interference with their business activities. Most terrorists,
on the other hand, ideologically identify themselves with the Left,
opposing capitalism and seeking to replace it with some form of
non-democratic socialism. There is some evidence that left-wing
terrorists have entered the business directly of illicit drug
production and transportation to the marketplace. In contrast,there
seems to be little evidence that such left-wing terrorists in Latin
America are engaged in marketing.
Drug traffickers are a more serious national security threat
than are narcoterrorists. They create or use right-wing groups
which engage in terrorist acts. These groups threaten, beat, and
murder government officials or others who get in their way. In
Colombia, drug traffickers have hired thugs to terrorize the
judicial system into neutrality. In addition, some have gotten
marginally involved in politics, usually by giving financial
support to political candidates. Some, such as Carlos Lehder, have
even organized their own right-wing political movements. This
terrorism is essentially different from terrorist movements which
seek to overthrow the state inasmuch as the goal is to intimidate
the state into adopting a laissez-faire policy towards the drug
business. In terms of being a threat to the rule of law, democracy,
and political stability, however, the immediate results of both
types of terrorism are similar.
Economic Benefits
Even though drug trafficking is a national security threat to
nations in which it takes place, it also has economic benefits,
making it difficult to end. It is an important source of personal
income and tax revenue. No one knows how much money is earned from
the drug trade; clandestine activities are difficult to assess. One
expert estimates that South American cocaine traffickers earn some
$3-5 billion annually, the bulk of which is stashed abroad. For
Colombia, cocaine exports equal 4-12% of legal exports; for Peru,
23-27%, and for Bolivia, 53-95%. Such export earnings are critical
for Bolivia and Peru and not insignificant for Colombia where they
equal coffee exports. Governments of these nations encourage
repatriation of drug money by such devices as tax amnesties. In
Bolivia and Peru, peasant coca growers are organized to protect
their interests and intimidate the government when it tries to
eradicate their crops. These nations have very serious unemployment
problems, and coca growing and cocaine manufacturing employ
hundreds of thousands. The estimated 400,000 people involved in
coca production in Bolivia represent an important portion of the
nation's total 6.5 million people.(4)
Drug money is a mixed economic blessing, however. Traffickers
stash much of it in tax havens such as Panama and the Cayman
Islands and most of what does return to the trafficker's home
country is used for conspicuous consumption, often for foreign-made
luxury items, and not invested in ways which would produce
sustained economic growth. Bolivia has clearly become dependent
upon drug money for its economic survival; Peru's dependency is
increasing. Even Colombia and Mexico, with stronger, more balanced
economies, feel the effects of fluctuations in the international
drug market. In other words, dependence upon drug money is another
form of economic dependency with all its well-known ill effects,
including instability.
The United States and Drugs
On the United States side, the drug trade also has deleterious
effects. Because the use of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana are
illegal, millions are daily disobeying national and state laws.
Cocaine users are estimated to number 6 million and marijuana users
about 18 million. Heroin addicts number approximately 500,000, a
small percentage of the total population. Because these drugs are
illegal, their price is high. Some 90% of the profit from the trade
is earned inside the United States by criminals and criminal
organizations. To pay these prices, some users engage in robbery
and violence. The rise of street violence and urban gangs is
directly related to the drug business. U.S. jails and prisons are
filling up with drug traffickers. A large percentage of those
imprisoned have been convicted of drug-related crimes. The trade
requires the cooperation of government officials and drug
corruption is extensive, aiding in the undermining of government
and its law enforcement activities. Drug abuse also costs society
in terms of lower worker productivity, additional health care, and
lost income; in 1983, these social costs were estimated to be $59.7
billion. The amounts spent on illicit drugs, lost income, and
necessary law enforcement are monies which might have been spent to
improve economic production and the quality of life. The ease with
which drugs are smuggled across the national borders reveals the
relative inability of the United States to prevent any smuggling of
any kind, whether it be commodities into the United States or
strategic materials and information out of the country.(5)
To the extent that the drug business corrupts Latin American
governments, it is a national security threat to the United States.
The U.S. does not want drug-corrupted governments on its southern
flank. Governments intimidated by drug barons are unreliable
allies. Political stability has been a consistent U.S. foreign
policy goal regarding Latin America. The U.S. prefers to
concentrate its attention on Europe and Asia, where there are
military threats. Terrorist/guerrilla movements can exploit the
drug business to gain money and weaponry to establish anti-U.S.
governments. Some groups, such as Sendero Luminoso in Peru, have
tried to recruit peasants to their cause by pointing out that crop
eradication programs are U.S.-inspired.
U.S. POLICY
Even though the Latin American drug trade is a Hemispheric
problem, the United States has approached it unilaterally. The U.S.
has concentrated its efforts on attacking the supply side in Latin
America instead of seeking to reduce demand in the U.S. This supply
side approach not only avoids domestic political repercussions but
also allows both citizens and the government of the United States
to avoid responsibility for the problem. Such an approach has a
long history, one in which xenophobia and racism have played a
major role. Before World War II, the U.S. sought to reduce supply
through treaties; in recent decades, the U.S. has funded crop
eradication in Latin America and elsewhere and beefed up
interdiction programs. Further, in a controversial move, it has
sought to extradite drug lords for crimes committed outside U.S.
territory. Carlos Lehder of Colombia was extradited and then
convicted in a Jacksonville, Florida federal court and the U.S. is
currently trying to extradite Colonel Jean-Claude Paul of Haiti. At
times, it apparently kidnaps drug traffickers as it did to Juan
Ramn Matta Ballesteros of Honduras. All of these measures have
exacerbated tensions, since many Latin Americans see them as
further proof that the United States has scant respect for national
sovereignty or Latin American problems(6).
To encourage (or coerce, depending upon the viewpoint) source
and transit nations to cooperate with the United States anti-drug
efforts, Congress has mandated a certification program.(7) Under its
terms, the President of the United States is required by law each
year to "determine and certify" whether major narcotics source and
transit nations have "cooperated fully" with the United States,
whether they have taken adequate steps in tandem with the United
States or by themselves to control narcotics production,
trafficking and money laundering.
If the President does not certify a nation, it can lose
foreign aid and access to U.S. markets as well as face negative
U.S. votes in international lending agencies. The President can,
however, certify an uncooperative nation on the grounds of national
security interests, something which has been done with Pakistan,
one of the world's largest heroin producers. In practice,
therefore, the only nations which have been decertified are those
with whom the U.S. has little influence: Iran, Panama, Syria, and
Afghanistan. For many Latin Americans, the certification program is
simply another bullying tactic of the U.S.(8)
The certification program and U.S. narcotics foreign
policy is a nationalistic and nativistic response to the problem,
reminiscent of the trade embargoes the U.S. has unsuccessfully used
since the first decade of the nineteenth century and of Big Stick
diplomacy.(9) Certainly many Latin American nations see it as such.
Mexicans were furious when the Senate proposed decertifying Mexico.
Their anger was particularly fierce since Mexico has been one of
the most cooperative nations on this issue. Numerous Mexicans have
died fighting the drug business inside Mexico and over half of the
national attorney general's budget is dedicated to the anti-drug
effort even though Mexico has no serious heroin, cocaine, or
marijuana problem. Colombia, under pressure not just from its drug
lords but also from nationalists, has effectively invalidated its
1979 extradition treaty with the U.S.(10)
A key but controversial element in U.S. anti-drug strategy in
Latin America is crop eradication, for it touches the sensitive
nerve of national sovereignty. The United States funds eradication
programs in Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. The actual work is
done by locals but with the on-site advice of Drug Enforcement
Administration officials. In Mexico, eradication is done primarily
through aerial spraying, but soldiers also eradicate. Eradication
of the coca bush in the Andes, however, has required hand labor for
it is resistant to herbicides. In 1988, Peru and the United States
agreed to try the herbicide "Spike", but the efforts fell through
when the manufacturer, Eli Lilly Company, refused to sell the
poison without guarantees of prior indemnification from the U.S.
government. In 1986, U.S. military personnel and equipment
conducted Operation Blast Furnace in Bolivia, an effort which
terminated cocaine production for three months but also almost
toppled the government. As David Westrate of DEA has pointed out,
such an effort cannot be mounted again. Nationalists will not
tolerate it.(11)
Eradication is a difficult policy not just because
nationalists oppose it. Coca, opium (the raw material for heroin),
and marijuana pay much more than traditional crops and their
destruction threatens the very livelihood of peasant growers. In
Bolivia and Peru, growing coca for the domestic market (based on
the ancient tradition of chewing the coca leaf) is legal and both
nations are reluctant to stop this practice. Moreover, growers for
the illicit international market have joined grower confederations
and used this political muscle to block eradication campaigns. When
fields are eradicated, new ones are planted elsewhere; coca
cultivation has spread from Bolivia and Peru into Brazil and
Colombia. Marijuana eradication is even more difficult since it can
be grown almost everywhere in the hemisphere. Opium eradication
programs in Mexico, the only place where it is grown, have had more
success but even there growers have dispersed their fields
throughout the republic.(12)
Eradication in Latin America would work only if there were
multinational efforts combined with crop substitution and other
income replacement schemes. Eradication could be successful if
producing nations decided it was in their self-interest to do it
but will not work as long as it is perceived as a U.S.-imposed
decision even though drug traffickers are destabilizing these
nations.(13) Latin American nations may move towards more
eradication efforts because there is evidence of rising drug use
there. Reports emanating from Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia indicate
that drug use is rising, including among pre-teens, as coca prices
drop because of overproduction. Cheaper cocaine apparently is also
drawing more Colombians and Mexicans into drug usage. As drug usage
seeps into the middle and upper classes, it is likely that anti-drug programs will increase in number and strength.(14)
U.S.-Latin American relations aside, the fundamental problem
with the U.S. policy of attacking the supply side of the Latin
American drug trade is that it has not worked. Eradication of
marijuana, coca, and opium fields has not reduced supply. If supply
is significantly reduced, street prices would rise. They have not.
In fact, street prices have dropped. The drug trade is so
profitable that new fields are brought into cultivation faster than
eradication has taken place. Similarly, interdiction efforts have
also failed, for extraordinary profits and low risk of capture
continually entice smugglers. Cocaine, with its high dollar value
per unit of weight, can be smuggled in a variety of different and,
presently, undetectable ways, including being hidden inside cargo
containers.(15) Frustration with the failure of current interdiction
efforts encouraged many in the U.S. Congress to advocate giving the
interdiction job to the military.(16)
Certification, eradication, interdiction, and extradition
programs directed at Latin America will yield meager results as
long as demand for illicit drugs continues at a high level inside
the U.S. Demand is likely to continue to be strong, for the use of
illegal narcotics is part of a larger social phenomenon, the belief
held by many Americans that they are entitled to "feel good"
instantly. The narcotics problem is directly related to the same
factors which produce abuse of legal narcotics, tobacco, alcohol
tranquilizers, designer drugs, and other substances. It is also
related to the belief that one can break some laws because these
illegal actions hurt only themselves. The nation must recognize
that the use of narcotics is a longterm problem. Historians H.
Wayne Morgan and David Musto aptly demonstrate this point. There is
no immediate solution, "no quick-fix." (17)
U.S.-Latin American Relations
The drug issue is important, but is it really as important an
issue in United States-Latin American relations as the
international debt crisis and the decline of real income in Latin
America? Narcotics usage in the U.S. and narcotics-related violence
in the streets and homes of the U.S. is more visible to the average
U.S. citizen than are the debt crisis and the devastating price
paid in human terms by Latin American citizens as their economies
decline. In Hemispheric relations, however, they are not as
important. The collapse of the Mexican economy, for example, would
have much more serious effects on the U.S. and on Mexico, the third
largest trading partner of the United States and a nation which
shares a 2,000-mile border. Antagonizing Latin American nations on
the drug issue is counterproductive, especially when there are more
serious problems facing the Hemisphere which require close
cooperation. The U.S. can make Latin America "safer for democracy"
by granting more favorable terms of trade and by easing the debt
burden. The drug issue is not the most important issue separating
the U.S. and Latin America but it is the most volatile, emotional,
and disruptive and takes an inordinate amount of time and attention
away from the more serious problems.
In its relations with Latin America, the United States faces
circumstances dramatically different from that of the past. The
United States can no longer impose its will on the hemisphere, at
least not without adverse consequences. Nationalists will not
tolerate it and no Latin American government can ignore the mass
mobilization of nationalist sentiment. Latin American nations are
stronger than they once were vis-a-vis the United States and can
also exploit the competitiveness within the international arena.
Finally, the very existence of Cuba and Nicaragua outside the U.S.
orbit encourages more independent action. Mexico, in spite of its
economic crisis, is healthier politically and economically than the
Andean nations, yet it is debating whether to continue to spend 60%
of its national attorney general's budget on the drug wars. The
demands for a more active anti-drug campaign threatens to
destabilize Andean countries, certainly a policy output not desired
by the U.S.
Nations such as Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru have scant
resources with which to address serious economic and social
problems. No responsible political leader in these nations wants an
economy based on narcotics nor a polity divided against itself.
None want to return to a version of nineteenth century caudillismo
wherein local strongmen with private armies could block the
national government from enforcing its laws in their private
domains. Politicians in these nations recognize the dangers from
such a situation just as they recognize the dangers of their people
turning to narcotics as a means of escape. Money spent on narcotics
or spent to indulge the whims of traffickers does little to develop
the national economy. Latin American nations do not want the drug
problem which the United States faces. But they can do little to
combat drugs and the local effects of drug trafficking without
additional resources and without some means by which to replace
lost income. The United States is the only real source of those
additional resources and one which justly should help since its
citizens helped create the problem.
The US policy of attacking illegal narcotics at their source
should be multilateral in scope, for the problem requires a
multilateral solution. In the second half of 1988, the U.S. has
taken steps to turn its unilateral policy into a multilateral one.
Drug Enforcement Administration officials, many of whom work with
their counterparts inside Latin American nations, recognized this
fact of life long before politicians did. The U.S. is fond of
talking about Hemispheric cooperation but reluctant to practice it.
The narcotics issue may be a case where the U.S. government will
work as a partner with source and transit nations instead of acting
as their overseer. The U.S. needs to help producer and transit
nations attack the problem by supplying greater fiscal and training
resources so that source and transit country governments can better
tackle their domestic problem.
The U.S. has worsened its relations with Latin America by
injecting an American social problem into the international arena
and trying to solve it there, where it cannot be solved, instead
of at home, where it should be solved. This is the point of those
who emphasize the demand side of the problem; there would be no
supply if there were no demand. The United States has the means to
attack production and distribution systems inside the United
States. By eliminating American criminal organizations, it can
attack 90% of the total profits made in the drug business. The
nation has a vast array of laws which can be enforced and can enact
new ones. The U.S. must decide which is more important--stable,
pro-U.S. Latin American nations or an international narcotics
policy which engenders anti-US nationalistic sentiment and
destabilizes Latin American nations. (18)
The certification program needs to be closely re-examined. The use of the word "certification" is offensive to other
countries, for they tend to see it as a moral judgment being passed
on them by the United States. No nation (and no person, for that
matter) wants someone else publicly passing judgment on it.
Compounding the controversy is the fact that the United States
certifies major drug-producing nations such as Pakistan, which are
not making strenuous efforts to eradicate drug-producing fields,
because the U.S. sees these nations as too important strategically.
The United States sends a clear message to Latin American nations
that they are less important in spite of the strategic importance
of many Latin American nations and the vast profits these nations
produce for U.S. corporations.
The U.S. would be better served by offering incentives to
producing and transit nations. Threats produce defensiveness.
Although the United States may have the power to coerce nations
such as Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, Honduras, and Colombia,
the cost of that coercion may be greater than the payoff. The
unsuccessful U.S. efforts to oust Panamanian General Manuel Noriega
demonstrate the dangers of using coercion. Bolivia and Peru, for
example, would certainly respond to crop substitution programs, aid
to their own police forces, the purchase of more of their exports,
and aid in resolving their massive debt problems.
Latin Americans, like other peoples, do not like hypocrisy
practiced on them and many believe that is what the U.S. is doing
in the drug war. Many Latin Americans are demanding that the United
States, itself a major drug producer, spray herbicides on its own
territory just as it insists be done in Latin America. They want
the U.S. to test "Spike," with its unknown environmental dangers,
on U.S. agricultural and range land before encouraging its
application on coca fields in South America. They suggest that, if
the U.S. government is going to use certification procedures, it
apply them to its own states. For example, the U.S. government
could withhold federal aid to states which do not meet federal
standards for the eradication of marijuana crops, for the
prosecution of drug traffickers, or for identifying and prosecuting
corrupt public officials in league with drug traffickers. If the
U.S. uses certification procedures in dealing with other nations,
it should use them with all other nations and quit making
exceptions of such places as Pakistan.
Conclusions
The Latin American drug trade has very serious national
security implications for the hemisphere for it destabilizes
nations, distorts economies, and exacerbates Hemispheric tensions
while diverting attention from the more critical problems of
underdevelopment. U.S. narcotics foreign policy has succeeded in
worsening U.S.-Latin American relations while failing to stop the
drug trade. The chief beneficiaries of this policy have been the
drug traffickers themselves, who are able to charge higher prices
because of the risks involved and when eradication reduces supply,
and the law enforcement agencies, which have gained resources.
Although a multilateral approach to supply reduction portends more
success, ultimately the solution resides inside the United States.
The drug trade will continue as long as U.S. citizens desire
illicit drugs, and their appetite will continue to hurt source and
transit nations.
1. Charles A. Bowsher, Comptroller General of the United States, Federal Drug Abuse Control
Policy and the Role of the Military in Anti-Drug Efforts. GAO/T-GGD-88-38 (Washington: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1988). Estimates of heroin production elsewhere are 735-1,360 tons
for Southwest Asia and 1,095-1,575 metric tons for Southeast Asia but Mexico is the principal
source for U.S. heroin consumption. On marijuana, see Roger Warner, Invisible Hand: The
Marijuana Business. (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986) and Jerry Kamstra, Weed:
Adventures of a Dope Smuggler. (New York: Bantam, 1975). U.S. domestic production may
equal 25% of the world total.
2. See Rensselaer W. Lee III,"Why The U.S. Cannot Stop South
American Cocaine," Orbis, 32:4 (Fall 1988), 499-519; Bruce
Bagley, "Colombia and the War on Drugs," Foreign Affairs, 67:1
(Fall 1988), 72-63 ; Diego Asencio, "Narcotics Trafficking and
Western Hemisphere Security," paper presented at conference on
The Latin American Narcotics Trade and United States National
Security, June 15-16,1988, sponsored by the Center for
International Security and Strategic Studies, Mississippi State
University. On Mexico, see William Branigan, "The Mexican
Connection," Washington Post National Weekly Edition, March 14-20, 1988, 7.
3. Rensselaer W. Lee III, "Why The U.S. Cannot Stop South
American Cocaine," 506-512.
4. Lee, "Why the U.S. Cannot Win The Drug War," 502-506.
5. Frank H. Gawin and Everett H. Ellinwood, "Cocaine and Other
Stimulants:Action, Abuse, and Treatment," New England Journal of
Medicine, 318 (May 5, 1988), 1173; Eliot Marshal, "Flying Blind
in the War on Drugs," Science, 240 (June 17, 1988), 1606; General
Accounting Office, Drug Control: Issues Surrounding Increased Use
of the Military in Drug Interdiction. (Washington: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1988), 14
6. On the history of U.S. international narcotics policy
before World War II, see Arnold H. Taylor, American Diplomacy and
the Narcotics Traffic, 1900-1939 (Durham: Duke University Press,
1969); on the post-war period, see William O. Walker, III, Drug
Trade in the Americas. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1981).
7. The terms of the certification program can be found in
Congressional Research Service, International Narcotics Control
and Foreign Assistance Certification: Requirements, Procedures,
Timetables and Guidelines. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1988). Certification is not directed just at the source
and transit nations in Latin America and elsewhere but also at
the Executive Branch to insure it executes the laws. It is also
one way the Congress conducts U.S. foreign policy.
8. Raphael F. Perl, International Narcotics Control: The
President's March 1, 1988 Certification for Foreign Assistance
Eligibility and Options for Congressional Action (Washington:
Congressional Research Service, 1988).
9. Walker, III, Drug Trade in the Americas.
10. Mexican government views can be found in "Intimidating
Pressure Tactics," Mexico Today, 47 (October 1986), 1-3, and "The
Real Nature of Drug Trafficking," Mexico Today, 49 (December
1986), 10-11. See also Samuel I. del Villar,"Rethinking
Hemispheric Antinarcotics Strategy and Security," and Jos Luis
Reyna,"Narcotics as a Destabilizing Force for Source and Non-Source Countries;" both papers were presented to the conference
on The Latin American Narcotics Trade and United States National
Security, June 15-16,1988, sponsored by the Center for
International Security and Strategic Studies, Mississippi State
University. For Colombia, see Bagley, "Colombia and the War on
Drugs," 87.
11. Raphael Perl, "Narcotics Control and the Use of U.S.
Military Personnel: Operations in Bolivia and Issues for
Congress," Report No. 86-800 F, Washington, Congressional
Research Service, 1986; David Westrate in Congressional Research
Service, Narcotics Interdiction and the Use of the Military:
Issues for Congress (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1988),7.
12. On coca, see Tim Hudson, "South American High: A Geography
of Cocaine," Focus (January 1985), 22-29, and Lee, "Why The U.S.
Cannot Stop South American Cocaine". For Mexico, see the
following articles by Richard B. Craig, "Human Rights and
Mexico's Antidrug Campaign," Social Science Quarterly, 60 (1980),
691-701; "Operacn Intercepcin: una poltica de presin
internacional," Foro Internacional, 22 (1981), 203-230;
"Operation Condor: Mexico's Antidrug Campaign Enters a New Era," Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 22
(1980),345-363; "Illegal Drug Traffic," in Borderlands
Sourcebook: A Guide to the Literature of Northern Mexico and the
American Southwest, 209-213, eds. E.R. Stoddard, R. L. Nostrand,
and J.P. West. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1983; and
"La Campaa Permanente: Mexico's Antidrug Campaign," Journal of
Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 20 (1978),107-131.
13. This excellent point was made by Richard B. Craig during
the Closing Roundtable of the conference on The Latin American
Narcotics Trade and United States National Security, June 15-16,1988, sponsored by the Center for International Security and
Strategic Studies, Mississippi State University.
14. Clara Germani," Coca Addiction Hits Home -- Among Rural
Children of Drug-Producing Bolivia," The Christian Science
Monitor International Edition, September 29, 1988, 1, 28; Clara
Germani, "View From the Barrio in Peru's Drug War," The Christian
Science Monitor International Edition, September 29, 1988, 28.
15. See Peter Reuter, Gordon Crawford, and Jonathan Cave,
Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military
Participation in Drug Interdiction (Washington: Rand Corporation,
1988).
16. See Donald J. Mabry, "The U.S. Military and The War on
Drugs in Latin America," paper presented to the George Washington
University-Wilson Center Conference on the Latin America Drug
Trade, September 30, 1988.
17. H. Wayne Morgan, Drugs in America: A Social History,
1800-1980. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1981); see also
David Musto, The American Disease: The Origins of Narcotic
Control, expanded edition (New York: Oxford University Press,
1987).
18. See Reuter, Sealing the Borders.