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Are Mexico-US Drug Supply and Demand Stats Spun?
By Patrick Corcoran
Mexidata.info
10/22/2007
It wasn’t quite man bites dog, but a recent report from The White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy offered a comparable inversion of the status quo. Cocaine prices, which have been steadily dropping in the United States for the last 40 years or so, rose 24 percent in the second quarter of 2007, topping out at an average of US$118.70 a gram.
The ONDCP interprets the rise in cost as a sign of scarcity, which it attributes to the firmer policies of Felipe Calderon’s administration in Mexico and increased cooperation between Mexican and American law enforcement. The ONDCP says that the last few months show that progress is being made in the war on drugs.
If you accept the ONDCP’s explanation, the reversal of the four-decade-old downward trend in cocaine prices indicates that a robust enough anti-drug policy, properly applied, could actually bring some results in the drug wars. Now that there is a tough and honest administration in Mexico, and the good guys on both sides are cooperating, the war on drugs can be won. In short, the last forty years of failure of the war on drugs come not from a doomed philosophy but from flawed execution.
That’s a conclusion to which we should be hesitant to jump. There are a number of reasons to be skeptical of the optimism emanating from the ONDCP report.
One cause of skepticism is the source: The White House. Most of the report that generated the cocaine figures was classified, and the only nuggets that slipped out validated the existing anti-narcotics strategies in Mexico and the United States. The Bush White House has a gift for drawing optimistic conclusions from intelligence that doesn’t warrant them. It doesn’t strain credulity to imagine the ONDCP massaging the raw data to meet their political needs.
The ONDCP’s release seemed in part to be an answer to a September report from the US Government Accountability Office, whose lengthy title included the phrase “Tons of Illicit Drugs Continue to Flow into the United States,” and was generally critical of the lack of cooperation between Mexico and the United States. Like virtually every other credible report written about the challenges drug warriors face, the GAO’s didn’t leave the reader thinking that success is right around the corner. And the GAO is strenuously non-partisan and objective, while The White House, to put it mildly, is not.
Another flaw is that the report condenses the cocaine prices in various cities into one national market, which ignores regional variation and raises more questions. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s own sources (as sited by Ken Dermota in the July/August edition of The Atlantic), until recently people in Miami and New York paid as little as US$20 for gram of cocaine, while users in Denver and Detroit dished out up to six times that amount.
How has the rise in cocaine prices affected each individual city? And how was the national average reached? Is the higher price in Denver weighted as heavily as New York or Miami, where there are presumably many more users?
Even if one assumes that the broad conclusions reached in the ONDCP report are basically accurate, crediting the United States’ or Mexico’s anti-drug policies for the increased cost is a significant leap of faith. Shifts in the drug market, often driven by factors outside of the government’s control, could just as easily be responsible for any scarcity in cocaine.
The different Mexican cartels recently redivided smuggling roots as a part of a cease fire in the cartels’ internecine wars. Newer Mexican gangs are also reportedly challenging the hegemony of established drug networks in many northeastern American cities, where most of the shortages are concentrated. Either of these could be a cause of any disruption of the cocaine market.
The reorganization of the Mexican cartels shows that even if the Mexican government can provoke a shortage of cocaine in American cities, it will be difficult to maintain. Drug cartels, like most successful businesses, are nothing if not adaptable. For four decades, drug cartels have managed to bribe or bully their way past every government obstacle. If demand for cocaine remains strong, we would be naïve to assume that simply with a little more determination the cartels can be deterred.
Link!
By Patrick Corcoran
Mexidata.info
10/22/2007
It wasn’t quite man bites dog, but a recent report from The White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy offered a comparable inversion of the status quo. Cocaine prices, which have been steadily dropping in the United States for the last 40 years or so, rose 24 percent in the second quarter of 2007, topping out at an average of US$118.70 a gram.
The ONDCP interprets the rise in cost as a sign of scarcity, which it attributes to the firmer policies of Felipe Calderon’s administration in Mexico and increased cooperation between Mexican and American law enforcement. The ONDCP says that the last few months show that progress is being made in the war on drugs.
If you accept the ONDCP’s explanation, the reversal of the four-decade-old downward trend in cocaine prices indicates that a robust enough anti-drug policy, properly applied, could actually bring some results in the drug wars. Now that there is a tough and honest administration in Mexico, and the good guys on both sides are cooperating, the war on drugs can be won. In short, the last forty years of failure of the war on drugs come not from a doomed philosophy but from flawed execution.
That’s a conclusion to which we should be hesitant to jump. There are a number of reasons to be skeptical of the optimism emanating from the ONDCP report.
One cause of skepticism is the source: The White House. Most of the report that generated the cocaine figures was classified, and the only nuggets that slipped out validated the existing anti-narcotics strategies in Mexico and the United States. The Bush White House has a gift for drawing optimistic conclusions from intelligence that doesn’t warrant them. It doesn’t strain credulity to imagine the ONDCP massaging the raw data to meet their political needs.
The ONDCP’s release seemed in part to be an answer to a September report from the US Government Accountability Office, whose lengthy title included the phrase “Tons of Illicit Drugs Continue to Flow into the United States,” and was generally critical of the lack of cooperation between Mexico and the United States. Like virtually every other credible report written about the challenges drug warriors face, the GAO’s didn’t leave the reader thinking that success is right around the corner. And the GAO is strenuously non-partisan and objective, while The White House, to put it mildly, is not.
Another flaw is that the report condenses the cocaine prices in various cities into one national market, which ignores regional variation and raises more questions. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s own sources (as sited by Ken Dermota in the July/August edition of The Atlantic), until recently people in Miami and New York paid as little as US$20 for gram of cocaine, while users in Denver and Detroit dished out up to six times that amount.
How has the rise in cocaine prices affected each individual city? And how was the national average reached? Is the higher price in Denver weighted as heavily as New York or Miami, where there are presumably many more users?
Even if one assumes that the broad conclusions reached in the ONDCP report are basically accurate, crediting the United States’ or Mexico’s anti-drug policies for the increased cost is a significant leap of faith. Shifts in the drug market, often driven by factors outside of the government’s control, could just as easily be responsible for any scarcity in cocaine.
The different Mexican cartels recently redivided smuggling roots as a part of a cease fire in the cartels’ internecine wars. Newer Mexican gangs are also reportedly challenging the hegemony of established drug networks in many northeastern American cities, where most of the shortages are concentrated. Either of these could be a cause of any disruption of the cocaine market.
The reorganization of the Mexican cartels shows that even if the Mexican government can provoke a shortage of cocaine in American cities, it will be difficult to maintain. Drug cartels, like most successful businesses, are nothing if not adaptable. For four decades, drug cartels have managed to bribe or bully their way past every government obstacle. If demand for cocaine remains strong, we would be naïve to assume that simply with a little more determination the cartels can be deterred.
Link!
