The President's
National Drug Control Strategy
March 2004
- Disrupting the Market: Attacking
the Economic Basis of the Drug Trade
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Budget Highlights
DEA�Priority Targeting Initiative: up $34.7 million. This initiative will strengthen
DEA�s efforts to disrupt or dismantle Priority Target Organizations, including those linked to
trafficking organizations on the Attorney General�s Consolidated Priority Organization Target list.
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Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Assistant U.S. Attorney
Initiative: up $9.6 million. This proposal includes 113 positions to address existing staffing
imbalances within the U.S. Attorney workforce, thereby achieving an appropriate balance between
investigative and prosecutorial resources. This request represents the first phase of a four-year plan
to achieve a ratio of one Assistant U.S. Attorney for every 4.5 investigative agents.
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OCDETF Fusion Center Initiative: up $6.3 million. This request supports and expands
the capacity of the fusion center, which analyzes drug trafficking and related financial investigative
information and disseminates investigative leads to OCDETF participants. This enhancement
provides a total of 60 positions to coordinate and conduct nationwide investigations generated
as a result of analysis by fusion center personnel.
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OCDETF Financial Initiative: up $4.5 million. This enhancement funds 28 additional
positions to include Internal Revenue Service (IRS) participation in all OCDETF investigations.
The IRS�s expertise is critical to identifying, disrupting, and dismantling the financial infrastructure of
drug trafficking organizations.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement�P-3 Flight Hours: up $28 million. P-3 aircraft
are critical to interdiction operations in the source and transit zones because they provide vital radar
coverage in regions where mountainous terrain, expansive jungles, or large bodies of water limit
the effectiveness of ground-based radar. This request will increase P-3 flight hours from 200 to
600 per month.
Department of State�Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI): $731 million. The fiscal
year 2005 request will fund projects needed to continue enforcement, border control, crop reduction,
alternative development, institution building, and administration of justice and human rights
programs in the region. The ACI budget provides support to Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador,
Brazil, Venezuela, and Panama.
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The drug trade is a profit-making business, one
whose necessary balance of costs and rewards can
be disrupted, damaged, and even destroyed. The
main reason supply reduction matters to drug
policy is that it makes drugs more expensive,
less potent, and less available. Price, potency, and
availability are significant drivers of both addicted
use and casual use.
The drug trade is a worldwide market, embodying
the strengths of a flexible, multinational enterprise
and the weaknesses of a complex, far-flung illegal
network that has to launder proceeds, pay bribes,
and deal with the risks of betrayal by
coconspirators and violence from competitors.
The agencies that implement supply control
measures face a challenge: how to identify and
exploit the key vulnerabilities of a business that
operates in secrecy.
Both abroad and at home, for the past two years
the Strategy has focused on such sectors as the
drug trade�s agricultural sources, its processing
and transportation systems, its organizational
hierarchy, and its financing mechanisms.We
are now attacking the drug trade in all of its
component parts, and we have made progress on
all fronts.
The U.S. Government�s master list of targeted
trafficking organizations is shorter this year, thanks to
the elimination of eight major trafficking organizations
during the past fiscal year (see box on pages 34 and
35). Another seven organizations were weakened
enough to be classified as �significantly disrupted.�
Interdiction forces from the Departments of
Defense and Homeland Security registered
impressive interdiction successes during 2003.
These successes are partly the result of Operation
Panama Express, an intelligence-driven program
managed by the Departments of Justice and
Homeland Security that targets fishing and other
vessels departing from Colombia�s Pacific and
Caribbean coasts.
Data available as of the end of 2003 showed a
consistent, high level of cocaine interdiction
despite four Orange Threat Level alerts that
forced the reallocation of certain interdiction
assets to homeland security missions (see Figure
9). A surge in the air trafficking of cocaine from
Colombia�128 documented flights during the
first nine months of 2003, compared to 34 in all
of 2002�was met with the reinstitution of the
Airbridge Denial program in Colombia.
In Latin America, in a reverse of the pattern of
the 1990s, cocaine production is down in
Colombia, by far the world�s largest supplier
of raw coca. Colombia saw a 25,000 hectare drop
in cultivation in 2002, representing a 15 percent
reduction from 2001. The Putumayo growing
region, which in 2001 produced almost
20 percent of the world�s coca, was left with
just 1,500 hectares of coca in April 2003. This
number was down from nearly 40,000 hectares
two years before�a 96 percent reduction�as
farmers moved to replant in other parts of the
country. Opium poppy cultivation dropped as
well, by 25 percent.
This performance was followed by a second
consecutive record year for eradication, with
127,112 hectares sprayed by the eradication forces
of the Colombian National Police during 2003
(see Figure 10). Opium poppy cultivation was hit
hard as well, with over 2,800 hectares sprayed
during 2003.
Standing at the ready to dismiss such progress are
critics of supply-control activities. The critics�
metaphor for the drug trade is a �balloon� that,
when pressed in one place, simply pops up in
another. It is true that criminal enterprises
invariably attempt to reestablish themselves in
an environment with the most permissive rule of
law. It is also true that traffickers have more than
once been driven out of a country by drug control
efforts only to reconstitute their business in a
neighboring country�as in the mid-1990s, when
plummeting coca cultivation in Peru was offset by
rapid planting in neighboring Colombia.
Figure 9: Cocaine Interdiction Trends by Quarter
Source: Consolidated Counterdrug Database
But not this time. Crucially, progress in Colombia
has not been offset in traditional growing areas in
Peru. Nor have regular increases in cultivation in
Bolivia come close to offsetting the drop in
Colombia. A small increase in cultivation in
Bolivia during 2002 (taking back less than a third
of the reduction in cultivation in Colombia) was
followed in 2003 by a net decrease in the total
area cultivated for Bolivia and Peru�including a
remarkable 15 percent drop in Peru. Nor has
production expanded to Venezuela, Ecuador,
Panama, or Brazil, where only trace amounts of
coca are cultivated.
The coming year may be a critical juncture for
the U.S. cocaine market. During 2004, for the
first time in more than a decade, as enforcement
pressure in Colombia works its way through
the system, we may begin to see a meaningful
reduction in the supply of cocaine available
for domestic consumption�a remarkable
accomplishment for Colombian President Alvaro
Uribe, and further incentive for cocaine addicts
to enter drug treatment. The possibility of a
reduction in cocaine availability underscores the
importance of the President�s Access to Recovery
treatment initiative, described in Chapter II,
which will offer treatment services to an
additional 100,000 people each year.
Colombia�s Cocaine Trade
In the 30 years since Colombian marijuana
growers began exporting cocaine to the
United States, the business has expanded into a
worldwide drug trafficking empire, producing
roughly 700 metric tons of pure cocaine annually
for three markets: the United States (which
consumes 250 metric tons), Europe (roughly 150
metric tons), and Brazil (up to 50 metric tons).
Additional quantities are accounted for by
seizures and other losses.
Figure 10: Eradicating Coca in Colombia
Source: Department of State
Over the years, as the cocaine business changed,
Colombian traffickers retained their
preeminence as the only group capable of
exporting hundreds of tons of cocaine annually.
Even the mid-1990s shift of cultivation out of
Peru and Bolivia turned out, in the end, to be
a boon to Colombian traffickers. As cultivation
retreated into Colombia, it moved closer to
cocaine processing laboratories and was less prone
to air interdiction.
Cocaine shipments originating in Colombia
were also that much closer to that country�s
north and west coasts, historic departure points
for off-continent distribution. Growing
involvement by leftist rebels seemed to
cement Colombia�s connection to the drug
trade, the more so in 1998, when Colombia�s
president granted FARC guerrillas a 42,000-
square-kilometer safe haven as an inducement
to peace talks, only to see the area used to
facilitate drug processing.
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TARGETING THE TOP OF THE
TRAFFICKING PYRAMID Confronting a hidden, illicit business requires
discipline, intelligence, and creativity. To a
degree not commonly imagined, it also
requires coordination, since trafficking
organizations can span dozens of states and
hundreds of jurisdictions, and investigating
them can involve dozens of law enforcement
agencies. The multi-agency Special
Operations Division (SOD) has performed
a critical role in coordinating investigations
that, like the trafficking organizations they
pursue, span many jurisdictions and extend
across national boundaries.
The recent indictment of Mexican drug lord
Ismael Zambada-Garcia and members of his
trafficking organization, for instance, resulted
from the coordination by SOD of more than 80
separate investigations involving seven Federal
agencies and over 60 state and local agencies
within the United States. Also instrumental
were the cooperation and assistance of
foreign counterparts, particularly the
Federal Investigative Agency in Mexico
and the Colombian National Police.
Yet, focusing Federal as well as state and
local law enforcement agencies on the
same set of targets�and inducing them to
share intelligence�has been a perennial
challenge. Agencies have not always been
disciplined enough to forego targets of
opportunity in favor of more timeconsuming,
coordinated investigations.
As the Zambada-Garcia case suggests, that
is beginning to change, thanks in large part
to leadership from the Department of Justice.
In 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft
called upon Federal law enforcement
agencies to create a single list of the most
significant international drug trafficking
and money laundering organizations and
those primarily responsible for the Nation�s
drug supply.The first Consolidated Priority
Organization Target (CPOT) list was
issued later that year.
The CPOT list is not public. The list
represents the collective judgment of
investigators and intelligence analysts from
the DEA, FBI, the IRS, U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, the U.S.
Marshals Service, and other agencies. The
CPOT organizations thus identified are a
top priority for the Department of Justice
and for the Organized Crime Drug
Enforcement Task Forces Program, better
known by its acronym, OCDETF.
The CPOT list for fiscal year 2004
contains 40 targets, including organization
heads, drug manufacturers, transporters,
major distributors, and money launderers.
In addition, the list identifies the hundreds
of active investigations not only of the
CPOT targets themselves but also of
major associates and related distribution
networks, which move and market the
illegal drugs throughout the United States.
The CPOT strategy seeks to incapacitate
the foreign-based organization heads, their
transportation and smuggling systems, their
regional and local distribution networks, and
their financial operations, thereby interrupting
the flow of drugs into the United States
and diminishing the capacity of the
organizations to reconstitute themselves.
The fact that all CPOT targets are based in
foreign countries places a particular premium
on extradition, a favorite tool of prosecutors
and one that has led to substantial progress
in some countries. Colombia�s President
Alvaro Uribe, for instance, has moved
decisively to extradite high-level traffickers
to the United States, 68 of whom were
sent to this country for prosecution during
Uribe�s first full year in office.
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The subsequent remarkable turnaround in
Colombia owes much to President Uribe and his
continuing commitment to attack and eliminate
all coca cultivation in Colombia. President Uribe
seeks to cut off the revenue that sustains armed
groups of the extreme right and extreme left, as a
milestone on the way to the defeat and
elimination of the guerrillas who control the
remote areas of Colombia and who are slowing
the country�s economic and democratic
development. (The renewed campaign against
Colombia�s insurgent armies has brought needed
attention to the role of the American drug
consumer as the single largest financial supporter
of antidemocratic forces in this hemisphere.)
Coca cultivation is an attractive target for law
enforcement for precisely the same reasons that
it offered an opportunity to rebel groups and
paramilitaries seeking to control and tax growers:
the crop is critically vulnerable. Virtually the
entire crop is visible from the air; most coca grows
on terrain level enough to permit effective spray
operations using crop duster aircraft to dispense
herbicides; and the coca bush is a perennial that
requires roughly twelve months to mature after
initial planting.
Confronting Colombia�s
Heroin Problem
Heroin users in the United States consume 13
to 18 metric tons of the drug per year, according
to consumption-based models, with supplies
historically originating in Southeast and
Southwest Asia, as well as Mexico. Since the early
1990s, especially in the eastern United States, an
increasing portion of the heroin market has been
supplied by traffickers from Colombia selling
heroin produced in that country.While estimates
of heroin �market share� are based on analysis of
selected seizures and are inherently imprecise,
most analysts believe that the majority of the
heroin sold in the United States is of South
American origin (principally from Colombia).
South American heroin also carries the
distinction of being, on average, the purest
heroin available on U.S. streets. DEA�s Domestic
Monitor Program, a retail heroin purchase
program, tracks the price and purity of urban
street-level heroin. The most recent data available
show that in 2002, the average purity for retail
purchases of South American heroin was 46
percent. The purity of Mexican-source heroin,
by contrast, averaged 27.3 percent, while
heroin from Southwest Asia averaged 29.8
percent pure. Southeast Asian heroin averaged
23.9 percent pure.
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FOLLOWING THE MONEY: TARGETING
THE BLACK MARKET PESO EXCHANGE Recognizing that the drug trade is profit
driven, drug enforcement agencies are
strategically refocusing resources to attack
the financial infrastructure of trafficking
organizations. Attacking the financial
underpinnings of drug trafficking
organizations places a premium on
cooperation among various agencies and
with the private sector.
Law enforcement is working with the
financial services industry and Federal
regulators to close the financial system to
drug traffickers. As progress is made on
closing down the legitimate financial
system to drug money, traffickers resort to
bulk cash smuggling and the use of the
Colombian Black Market Peso Exchange
system to move their drug proceeds.
Coordinated efforts are under way with the
governments of Colombia and other
affected nations and with the private sector
to attack and disrupt this system as well.
Toward that end, the Departments of
Justice, Homeland Security, and the
Treasury are working jointly to plan the
creation of a Financial Attack Center.
The center will bring together our most
experienced financial investigators and
analysts to prioritize targets and develop
plans to attack them.
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Our strategy for attacking the heroin trade in
Colombia has three principal components:
eradication, organizational attack, and airport
interdiction.
Eradication: The cultivation of opium poppies
in Colombia expanded from just over 1,100
hectares in 1991 to 6,000 hectares (two annual
harvests of 3,000 hectares each) by the mid-
1990s. Unlike the coca crop, poppy has proved
stubbornly resistant to aerial eradication efforts
because it is a four- to six-month annual plant that
can be inexpensively replanted after eradication.
The 2002 cultivation estimate is 4,900 hectares,
a 25 percent reduction from 2001 but still
enough to produce 11.3 metric tons of pure
heroin (see Figure 11). The U.S. Government
and the Government of Colombia have moved
decisively to redouble efforts to counter this
threat, using both eradication and law
enforcement resources. In 2003, during hundreds
of surveillance and eradication missions, the
Colombian Government sprayed 2,821 hectares
of poppy�a surface area equal to the entire
known area of poppy cultivation.
Figure 11: Colombia: Potential Heroin Production
Source: Major Narcotics Producing Nations: Cultivation and Production Estimates,
1998–2002
In recent years, propagation of more and smaller
poppy fields in the high, cloud-covered Andes has
hindered eradication efforts, but the program has
responded with a comprehensive reconnaissance
and targeting approach that now seeks to spray all
locatable poppy every 120 days. Program
managers maintain logs of previous cultivation
areas as a guide for searching out new fields, and
more recently have begun incorporating informant
information from DEA�s toll-free informant �tip
line� and law enforcement sources such as the
Colombian National Police.
Attacking the Organization: Investigators and
prosecutors on the East Coast of the United
States, an area facing a particular threat from
South American heroin, have stepped up their
efforts to disrupt and dismantle organizations
trafficking heroin in the region.
Figure 12: Federal Heroin Seizures (All Types of Heroin)
Source: DEA, Federal-wide Drug Seizure System
DEA has transferred agent positions from offices
in nearby countries to create a heroin task force in
Colombia. This 13-person Bogota heroin group is
working with the Colombian National Police on
cases involving high-level traffickers supplying
U.S. markets and has scored a number of
important enforcement successes. DEA plans to
add a second dedicated heroin group this year to
further its efforts to disrupt, arrest, and prosecute
members of the 20 identified Colombian heroin
trafficking organizations, along with other groups.
This second group will be part of a 28-position
DEA enhancement in Colombia that is also to
include a money laundering group that will focus
on identifying and seizing illicit proceeds flowing
back into Colombia.
Airport Interdiction: DEA�s Bogota office is
assisting with the installation of X-ray systems at
all Colombian international airports to further
increase the seizures of heroin shipments that
typically depart by commercial air on their journey
to the United States. More than 1.3 metric tons
was seized in 2002 in South American airports.
Airport interdiction efforts in Colombia are
supplemented by similar programs in the United
States, with encouraging results�1.8 metric tons
of heroin was seized at U.S. airports during 2002,
much of it from South America. Additional
amounts were seized at other ports of entry and
through investigative activities (see Figure 12),
equating to more than 20 percent of exportable
Colombian heroin production. The results should
improve this year, as more X-ray equipment
becomes operational in Colombia and as U.S. law
enforcement at arrival airports on the East Coast
become even more effective at seizing heroin
delivered by courier.
Tightening the Coca
Belt: Colombia�s
Andean Neighbors
Although massive cultivation increases are not
threatening Peru and Bolivia, there have been
internal shifts that bear watching, as in Bolivia�s
Yungas region, which has seen cultivation
intensify. Controlling Bolivia�s shifting growing
areas has been complicated by a renewed
politicization of the coca industry and political
instability generally (in the past year, radical
groups launched violent protests that damaged
the economy and led to the ousting of President
Sanchez de Lozada). Coca farmers in Bolivia
have protested against coca eradication, and
these demonstrations have turned violent
on occasion, with radical leaders using the
demonstrations to advance their political
ambitions and undermine the government�s
legitimacy. There have been direct attacks on
coca eradicators in some areas.
These leaders purport to seek the expansion of
legal coca cultivation (some areas of the Andes
permit the chewing of unprocessed coca leaf ) as a
cash crop for indigenous farmers, even though the
legal market is amply supplied and any additional
coca leaf will eventually be processed into illicit
cocaine. The lack of economic opportunity
in Bolivia has sustained a modest level of
support among the Bolivian populace for this
rationalization of supporting an international
criminal business. In addition, in the wake of the
protests that ousted President Sanchez de Lozada,
Bolivia�s new president, Carlos Mesa, will be
pressed to grant concessions that could undo drug
control gains made by previous administrations.
In 2002, Peru produced about 140 metric tons of
pure cocaine, leaving 120 metric tons available for
export once Peruvian use and internal seizures are
subtracted. Peruvian cocaine is believed to be
exported in roughly equal amounts along three
vectors: through Bolivia to Brazil/Argentina and
to Chile, to the Peruvian west coast for offcontinent
shipment to Europe and the United
States, and to Colombia. Peru�s sheer vastness
makes interdiction of cocaine most feasible at
chokepoints, such as the roads west of the Andes
and at maritime departure ports, where the drug is
stored before being loaded onto freighters.
Also of note in Peru, the Shining Path guerrilla
movement has revived a cadre of nominally 500
members. Clearly, it poses a threat to security and
is cause for concern. But at this point, the scope
of the problem is small and the Peruvian forces
have shown their ability to intervene against the
Shining Path when necessary. At this time, the
Shining Path has not made significant inroads
into the Peruvian coca business.
Responding to the two differing threats in Peru
and Bolivia, the United States will continue to
construct programs that are country specific,
while providing basic support for manual
eradication, interdiction, law enforcement,
alternative development, and criminal justice
reform. Complementing these efforts will be
initiatives to work with government and
international financial institutions to help ease
the economic challenges that have gripped
these countries in recent years.
Ecuador, sandwiched between Colombia and
Peru on the Andean Ridge, is a significant transit
country for cocaine and Colombian heroin, as is
Colombia�s eastern neighbor, Venezuela. Estimates
indicate that upwards of 50 to 80 metric tons of
export-quality cocaine is exported from
Ecuadorian ports annually headed for the United
States and Europe, with an additional 100 to 150
metric tons exported from Venezuelan ports,
much of it toward Europe, where cocaine
consumption has been on the increase. The
United States is providing support to the
Government of Ecuador to improve security
measures on the border with Colombia and to
push forward needed economic reforms. U.S.
counterdrug efforts in 2004 will continue to
support Ecuadorian National Police efforts to
combat traffickers, especially along the northern
border and at maritime ports.
Venezuela poses a more difficult challenge.
Narco-terrorists take advantage of the long,
porous border between Venezuela and Colombia,
often using remote areas of Venezuela as a
sanctuary. The United States will continue to
support law enforcement port interdiction efforts
in Venezuela and will provide training to improve
Venezuelan counterdrug law enforcement
capabilities to counter the increased drug
movement through Venezuela.
Exploiting Opportunities
for Success in Mexico
Since taking office, President Vicente Fox has
made historic progress against some of the most
powerful drug trafficking organizations in the
world. Cooperation between the United States
and Mexico continues to grow, with the goal of
reducing the 5,000 metric tons of Mexican
marijuana and more than 300 metric tons of
export-quality cocaine (roughly two-thirds of U.S.
consumption) that Mexican traffickers move
through Mexico and to the Southwest border of
the United States.
Mexico is also a source of other illegal drugs.
About ten metric tons of export-quality (roughly
50 percent pure) Mexican heroin enters the
United States each year. In recent years, Mexican
traffickers have also become major
methamphetamine producers, smuggling into the
United States both the finished drug (rough
estimates place it at twelve metric tons per year)
and the pseudoephedrine and other chemicals
needed to make it.
Drug trafficking clearly remains a critical issue for
U.S. and Mexican security interests, and for bilateral
relations. During the past year, the Government
of Mexico, working in close coordination with the
DEA, apprehended Osiel Cardenas-Guillen and
Armando Valencia-Cornelio, the leaders of two
trafficking organizations on the CPOT list.
The bilateral exchange of real-time intelligence,
fostered by these takedowns, has resulted in highly
productive initiatives. One example is Operation
Trifecta, which targeted a �cell� of the Ismael
Zambada-Garcia organization, a CPOT-listed
organization that transported drugs from Mexico
to Arizona and New York. This investigation led
to simultaneous arrests on both sides of the
border, including the �cell head,� Manuel
Campas-Medina in Mexico. Other high-level
arrests last year included Arturo Hernandez-
Gonzalez, and a key Guzman-Loera organization
lieutenant, Jose Ramon Laija-Serrano.
In addition to these organizational attack efforts,
the Mexican Attorney General�s Office (PGR)
and the Mexican Army continue to wage
aggressive marijuana and poppy eradication
campaigns, using aerial spraying and manual
eradication. The results are very promising�about
80 percent of each crop has been eradicated in
recent years, and in addition to limiting the
overall supply, eradication has led to heroin
shortages on the U.S.West Coast in years when
the weather does not support a good poppy crop.
There may also be an opportunity for the
Government of Mexico to seriously affect the
internal flow of cocaine by establishing land
checkpoints along key roads in the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec. Over a hundred metric tons of
cocaine that arrives in Central America and in
southern Mexico is moved by road through the
isthmus. Because of the mountainous terrain, the
flow must move along two major roads, providing
a natural chokepoint for inspections and
interdiction. Flying the drugs over the isthmus
would represent a difficult and costly logistics
challenge for traffickers, and would require more
than 200 flights annually�a major change from
the current smuggling pattern and, again, one that
would force traffickers to raise the price of the
drugs they sell.
Depending on Marijuana
It would surprise few people to learn that
marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug in
the United States�with more than 14 million
current users. A lesser-known fact is that marijuana
smokers account for the lion�s share of Americans
who are dependent on illegal drugs�more than
four million of a total of seven million individuals
whose use of illegal drugs of all types is serious
enough to be labeled as abuse or dependence.
To establish a diagnosis of abuse or dependence,
an individual�s drug use must have progressed to
the point where it typically is causing them some
combination of health problems, difficulties with
work, or conflict with a spouse or loved one. By
this standard, elaborated in detail by the American
Psychiatric Association�s Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), twice as
many Americans confront problems of abuse and
dependence stemming from marijuana smoking as
from cocaine and heroin use combined.
The marijuana Americans smoke comes from
three main sources: U.S. outdoor and indoor
cultivation, Mexican outdoor cultivation, and
high-potency indoor cultivation from Canada.
Although estimating marijuana production is
an imprecise science, and while formal
estimates of domestic production on public lands
are a work in progress, a rough estimate for
marijuana consumed in the United States per
year would place U.S. imports from Mexico
at approximately 5,000 metric tons, with
roughly another 1,000 metric tons coming
from Canada, and more than 2,500 metric tons
produced domestically.
Marijuana cultivation is prevalent in many
regions of the United States, with substantial
concentrations in California, Hawaii, Kentucky,
and Tennessee. In a national survey, 75 percent
of law enforcement respondents reported outdoor
marijuana cultivation in their areas. Some 74
percent reported �indoor grow� cultivation as well.
Outdoor cultivation typically involves small plots
where significant profits can be made with limited
risks, but larger plots have been observed in
locations such as National Forest Service lands in
California, where cannabis eradication rose from
a reported 443,595 plants in 2000 to 495,536
plants in 2001, the most recent year for which
data is available. Indeed, much of the outdoor
cannabis cultivation in the United States is
believed to take place on public lands because
of their relative remoteness.
Figure 13: Depending on Marijuana: Dependence or Abuse by Illicit Drug
Note: Methamphetamine abuse and dependence are classified separately, under nonmedical use of stimulants.
Source: National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2002
Nationally, the National Drug Intelligence Center
(NDIC) reports that cannabis cultivation on
public lands has been on the rise. In response to
this threat, during the 2004 growing season,
NDIC will conduct a limited-scope pilot project
that seeks to estimate the amount of cannabis
being cultivated on public lands in California,
with the eventual goal of producing an annual
scientific estimate of total domestic cannabis
cultivation and production.
In addition, over the coming year, Federal, state,
and local law enforcement agencies will expand
their efforts to target the organizations misusing
public lands to grow millions of dollars� worth of
marijuana. Law enforcement agencies typically
wait to find marijuana plots on public lands until
the marijuana is ready for harvest. This year, by
contrast, Federal, state, and local law enforcement
in key areas will begin efforts much earlier, using
the pre-harvest months to train officers and
review actionable intelligence. And while much
emphasis historically has been placed on
eradicating already-cultivated marijuana in the
late summer, law enforcement will increase efforts
to prevent the planting of marijuana itself, which
typically occurs in the spring.
Mexico: Mexico is the largest foreign source of
marijuana consumed in the United States,
including both the relatively low-THC
commercial grade (1�6 percent THC) and more
potent sinsemilla varieties (averaging 10�15
percent THC).
The Government of Mexico has maintained
an aggressive eradication program to counter
marijuana production, with Mexican military and
police units eradicating almost 80 percent of the
total estimated cultivation�some 36,000 hectares
of cannabis�during 2003.While production
estimates are not available for 2003, in recent
years Mexico has produced roughly 8,000 metric
tons of marijuana.
Mexico�s marijuana interdiction program seized
2,100 metric tons in 2003, and the United
States seized another 863 metric tons along the
Southwest border during the first nine months of
2003�meaning that eradication and interdiction
removed more than four-fifths of Mexico�s
marijuana supply stream, leaving approximately
5,000 metric tons of Mexican marijuana for
distribution to the U.S. market.
Mexico has devoted more funds to interdiction
and has restructured its institutions to increase
interdiction capacity to more effectively stop
the flow of drugs, including the use of X-ray
technology to identify contraband in cars and
trucks. In 2004 and 2005, the United States
will intensify its support to the Government
of Mexico�s marijuana control efforts through
operational planning and technology assistance,
with a goal of eradicating almost all of the crop.
Canada: The United States remains concerned
about widespread Canadian cultivation of highpotency
marijuana, significant amounts of which
are smuggled into the United States. The Royal
Canadian Mounted Police, Customs Canada, and
other dedicated Canadian law enforcement
agencies have worked hard to close down grow
houses and to arrest and prosecute their operators.
Despite their efforts, the problem remains
extremely serious.
Consider the sheer numbers of producers. In
2001, more than 2,000 grow operations were
seized throughout the United States. In Canada,
the previous year, 2,800 indoor grow operations
were seized in British Columbia alone, according
to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Nor are
such grow operations confined to western Canada:
one Canadian Government report estimated that
there may be �as many as 15,000 grow ops active
in Ontario.� The United States is a likely market
for a large percentage of the high-potency
marijuana produced at such sites. Building on
Canadian Government estimates for the number
of indoor cultivation sites and their average
size, we estimate that Canadian shipments of
marijuana to the United States could exceed 1,000
metric tons annually.
Both Canada and the United States face
challenges in estimating marijuana production.
The United States Government is currently
studying ways to improve our estimates for
domestic production, but we cannot wait for
perfect intelligence before beginning to deal
more aggressively with the serious problem of
high-potency indoor grows, at home and abroad.
The U.S. Government is committed to working
closely with Canadian authorities to address
this serious problem. The United States intends to
engage in frequent consultations with the new
Canadian Government on an array of important
drug control issues, including the importance of
having and enforcing appropriate criminal
penalties for marijuana traffickers, engaging in
combined efforts at border interdiction, and
attacking organized criminal groups that are
directly involved in marijuana production
and trafficking.
Afghanistan: Accelerating
Anti-drug Efforts
Afghanistan remains the world�s largest cultivator
of poppy and producer of opiates. If all the poppy
grown in Afghanistan in 2003 were converted to
heroin, the result would be 337 metric tons (see
Figure 14). This compares with about 46 metric tons
produced in Burma in 2003. Colombia and Mexico
produce less than 20 metric tons combined, more
than enough to satisfy annual U.S. consumption of
13 to 18 metric tons. Burma�s production largely
supplies the Chinese market, whereas Afghanistan�s
outsized production is directed at Europe and
feeds large addicted populations in Iran, Pakistan,
Russia, and to a lesser extent, Central Asia.
Poppy cultivation is a major and growing
problem for Afghanistan. According to United
Nations estimates, illicit poppy cultivation and
heroin production generate more than $2 billion
of illicit income, a sum equivalent to between
one-half and one-third of the nation�s legitimate
gross domestic product. The drug trade in
Afghanistan fosters instability, and supports
criminals, terrorists, and militias. Historic high
prices now being commanded by opium are
inhibiting the normal development of the Afghan
economy by sidetracking the labor pool and
diminishing the attractiveness of legal farming
and economic activities.
Still, the drug trade does not dominate
Afghanistan. Poppy is planted on 1 percent of
the arable land, and its cultivation and processing
involve roughly 5 percent of the population. A
challenging security situation on the ground
during the past year has significantly complicated
the task of implementing counternarcotics
assistance programs and will continue to do so
for the immediate future. A more stable
environment will facilitate such programs, which
have stabilized or reduced cultivation where they
have been attempted, as in Nangarhar and
Helmand provinces. Almost all of the growth
that occurred during 2003 was driven by
cultivation that spread to more remote valleys.
We are working closely with the United
Kingdom, which is taking the lead in coordinating
international counternarcotics assistance to
Afghanistan�s transitional authority, to implement
a strategy that focuses on promoting alternative
livelihoods for farmers; strengthening drug law
enforcement and interdiction programs; supporting
capacity-building for Afghan institutions; and
raising public awareness to promote the central
government�s anti-drug policies and help the
country�s leaders tackle drug use and production.
In addition, the Afghan Government is planning
an aggressive eradication plan that calls for
significant efforts to reduce poppy cultivation
over the next two years. Eradication efforts will
be tied to development of alternative livelihoods
where practical, but such programs are less critical
in regions where opium poppy is not a historic
crop and was grown for the first time during 2003.
In addition to the obvious reason, eradication is
needed to begin instilling in the minds of the
populace that the government is serious about not
tolerating opium cultivation�and that by
extension there is significant monetary risk in
planting opium poppy.
The eradication program will be followed by the
first substantial deployment of law enforcement
forces in Afghanistan. As part of the current
$1.6 billion acceleration initiative for Afghanistan,
roughly 20,000 new provincial and border police
will be trained and deployed this summer. Their
law enforcement presence will start spreading
the rule of law throughout Afghanistan, further
placing the illicit poppy and heroin trade at risk.
Figure 14: Potential Heroin Production in Afghanistan
Sources: Major Narcotics Producing Nations: Cultivation and Production Estimates, 1998–2002, and U.S. Government estimates.
A New Focus on
Synthetic Drugs
Recent years have seen a significant rise in the
use of synthetic drugs, a worldwide trend
implicating Europe, China, Thailand, and other
countries. In the United States, the synthetic drug
market has centered around methamphetamine
and Ecstasy. Methamphetamine use has been
migrating from the West Coast eastward, leaving
devastating social consequences wherever it takes
hold. Ecstasy remains a serious concern but
appears to have peaked in popularity among
American youth.
By their very nature, synthetic drugs present
special challenges. Production often takes place in
industrialized nations, and because the drugs are
made in laboratories and not harvested from
fields, there are no crops to eradicate, as with
marijuana, heroin, and cocaine. Supply reduction
efforts must instead focus on limiting access to
precursor chemicals, shutting down illegal labs,
and breaking up the organized criminal groups
that manufacture and distribute the drugs.
Disrupting the synthetic drug market requires
strengthening international and domestic law
enforcement mechanisms, with emphasis on
flexible and rapid communications at the
operational level.We must be as nimble as the
traffickers who fuel the market, developing
policies and methods that allow us to adapt
quickly and seize every opportunity to disrupt the
trade, with a particular emphasis on chemical
control efforts.
Most of the methamphetamine consumed in the
United States is manufactured using diverted
pseudoephedrine and ephedrine. This internal
production is dispersed among thousands of labs
operating throughout the United States, although
a relatively small number of �super labs� are
responsible for most of the methamphetamine
produced.
To counter the threat from methamphetamine,
we and our neighbors, Mexico and Canada, must
continue to tighten regulatory controls on
pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, thousands of
tons of which are smuggled illegally into the
United States each year. Controls on other
precursor chemicals, such as iodine and red
phosphorus, are equally important.
In recent years, an inadequate chemical control
regime has enabled individuals and firms in
Canada to become major suppliers of diverted
pseudoephedrine to methamphetamine producers
in the United States. The imposition of a
regulatory regime last January, combined with
U.S.-Canadian law enforcement investigations
such as Operation Northern Star, appears for the
moment to have reduced the large-scale flow of
pseudoephedrine from Canada into the United
States. There are signs that some of this reduction
has been offset by the diversion from Canada
of ephedrine.
Pseudoephedrine diversion from Mexico is also a
serious threat to the United States. Once the drug
is diverted from legal applications, numerous drug
trafficking organizations efficiently smuggle it
across the Southwest border and ship it to major
methamphetamine labs in the United States,
many of which are managed by Mexican
traffickers. During just two months last year,
authorities made seizures totaling 22 million
pseudoephedrine tablets that were being shipped
to Mexico from a single city in Asia. In addition
to the pseudoephedrine threat from Mexico,
methamphetamine is produced in Mexico for
onward shipment to the United States�more
than a ton of methamphetamine was seized on
the Southwest border last year.
The National Methamphetamine Chemical
Initiative targets domestic methamphetamine
production by fostering nationwide sharing of
information between law enforcement agencies
and providing training to investigators and
prosecutors. The initiative focuses on stopping the
illegal sale and distribution of methamphetamine
precursors. It also maintains a national database
that tracks clandestine laboratory seizures,
providing Federal, state, and local law enforcement
with up-to-date information on methamphetamine
production methods, trends, and cases.
Roughly two-thirds of the Ecstasy seized
worldwide can be traced to the Netherlands.
Smugglers use methods such as express mail
service, commercial air couriers, and air freight,
with shipments to the United States typically
containing 10,000 tablets or more. The United
States is working closely with the Netherlands
to disrupt this trade. Results from bilateral
meetings last year include collaboration on more
Ecstasy investigations, an exchange of information
on Ecstasy seizures, and Dutch development of a
risk indicator and profiles for targeting traffickers.
More remains to be done, however, to dismantle
the criminal organizations responsible for this
illicit trade.
Because the chemical industry is highly
international, multilateral cooperation in
chemical control is critical. DEA has encouraged
international consensus for voluntary, informal,
flexible, and rapid systems of international
information exchange on precursor chemical
shipments. For example, under the Multilateral
Chemical Reporting Initiative, countries report
chemical transactions to the International
Narcotics Control Board, a UN-based body that
tracks licit and illicit chemicals worldwide.
To target synthetic drugs, DEA has initiated
Project �Prism,� which involves 38 countries
that are major manufacturers, exporters,
importers, or transit countries of key chemicals
that are illegally diverted to manufacture
synthetic drugs. Project Prism helps governments
develop and implement operating procedures to
more effectively supervise the trade in the
precursor chemicals that are diverted to make
methamphetamine and similar drugs. DEA is
also coordinating an initiative with eleven
countries in the Far East to prevent the diversion
of Ecstasy precursor chemicals.
Last Updated: March 29, 2004
