Turning from the coca fields to the cocaine market
While anti-drug policy rarely makes headlines in American politics today, the issue dominates politics in Colombia. The South American country is a hotbed for cultivation of the coca plant, the key ingredient in cocaine production. As of 2007, the Office of National Drug Policy reported that 167,000 hectares of the country’s land are used to produce the crop. This situation both perpetuates the problem of drug addiction abroad, and gives rise to terrorists, who protect farmers that illegally cultivate coca. Since 2000, the United States has invested over $4.8 billion in an effort to reduce the Colombian narcotics trade and related terrorist activity, an initiative known as Plan Colombia. Although this joint effort with the Colombians, especially the military aspect, has partially succeeded in reducing coca crops and related crime, the ultimate success of the initiative will depend on the elimination of the factors perpetuating the cocaine market.
Deploying Military Force
One of these factors is narcoterrorism. Dr. Ray Walser, senior Latin American policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, explained to the HPR that narcoterrorism perpetrated by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, right-wing paramilitaries, and traditional, non-ideological traffickers confounds efforts to reduce coca crops. The most direct strategy for combating these groups is military confrontation, which has increased dramatically since the election of President Alvaro Uribé in 2002. Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noted in an interview with the HPR that military confrontation has been an overall success, thanks in large part to American monetary aid. Colombian military forces, aided by U.S. technical intelligence, have forced the retreat of many of the paramilitaries, and interdiction of cocaine leaving the country has intensified over the last few years.
Errant Eradication
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Colombia’s anti-drug strategy is eradication, whereby U.S. and Colombian forces physically destroy coca crops, either manually or by spraying them from airplanes. While coca cultivation was reduced 24 percent between 2001 and 2007, Felbab-Brown pointed out that this strategy also produced substantial negative side effects. The chemical sprayed onto the Colombian countryside is “the same one Americans purchase under the name ‘Round Up,’” she explained, and although studies commissioned by the American and Colombian governments have found no evidence that the substance produces adverse health or environmental effects, many Colombians contest this claim. Additionally, the spraying inevitably destroys legitimate crops. While the government reimburses farmers for such errors, the process required to prove destruction of legal property is difficult to navigate. The eradication strategy, whether effective or not, thus destroys farmers’ livelihoods and breeds antipathy among Colombians toward their own government and the United States. Furthermore, even when the strategy effectively destroys coca, Walser noted, the short growing season allows farmers to quickly restore their illicit crops.
Crop Substitution or Coca Subsidy?
A third strategy, crop substitution, involves providing subsidies to farmers to grow legal crops. Although this approach is viable in theory, Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron explained to the HPR that farmers tend to “take the subsidies to grow corn instead of coca leaf, and then they grow the coca leaf anyway,” because coca generates greater profit and the policy is minimally enforced. Walser explained that Colombia has a tremendous domestic industry devoted to the manufacture and export of cocaine, meaning that the entrenched demand for coca exceeds that of any other crop.
Attacking the Market, At Home and Abroad
Although strategies like eradication and crop substitution may not be entirely ineffective, eliminating coca from Colombia will ultimately require the elimination of conditions favorable to cocaine production. The prevalence of cocaine manufacturing implies a need to invest in a modern infrastructure that will allow farmers and citizens to earn a livable wage in alternative legal markets. Alongside such investment, the United States and Colombia should continue military intervention to facilitate police enforcement of prohibition, especially given the recent success of that approach. Additionally, Walser and Felbab-Brown agree that greater action must be taken to reduce demand for cocaine, which means more funding for drug education and treatment programs in the United States and elsewhere. Making efforts to decrease the foreign market for cocaine, create economically viable manufacturing alternatives, and reduce protections for coca growers are the best steps toward ensuring the rapid decline of Colombia’s drug trafficking.