Foreign Policy And Drugs

Drug control is a relative newcomer to the list of global issues that are now an integral part of U.S. foreign policy. While arms control and human rights were already important international issues in the 1970s, drug control lagged behind. In 1971-1972 some members of Congress tried to use foreign-aid restrictions to stop the entry of Turkish HEROIN, but the government did not want to risk hurting relations with an important defense ally over heroin, which was not considered a mainstream drug. The U.S. government found a compromise through diplomatic efforts, which led to the Turkish government severely limiting the cultivation of OPIUM POPPIES (from which heroin is made) and changing the way in which poppies were processed into legitimate medicinal opium. Parallel diplomatic negotiations with MEXICO resulted in cooperation on MARIJUANA eradication efforts. On the international front, the U.S. government pressed hard for the ratification of the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Drugs and created the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC), the predecessor of today's United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP). During the rest of the decade, however, drug control gradually declined as a key U.S. foreign policy objective.

Drug control only gained full diplomatic legitimacy in the 1980s when COCAINE use became widespread among entertainers, athletes, and stockbrokers. The government's inability to stop the EPIDEMIC at home prompted Congress to take the issue abroad.

In 1986, in the first of a series of comprehensive international antidrug laws (the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986), Congress placed the burden of halting drug flows on the governments of the drug-producing countries. Using a traditional carrot-and-stick approach, the law required the major drug-producing and TRANSIT COUNTRIES to cooperate fully with the United States in drug matters in order to receive American foreign aid. Half of all assistance was withheld every year until the president certified that the country concerned had met the criteria for receiving aid. Subsequent laws have expanded the requirement, obliging the major drug-producing and transit countries also to comply with the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. Countries that do not comply not only lose U.S. assistance but incur U.S. opposition to loans from the World Bank and other international financial institutions. For many countries in the developing world, losing access to these loans is an even greater hardship than losing U.S. assistance. Though the certification process has raised tensions with some foreign governments, by 2000 it had become an accepted part of U.S. foreign policy. However, critics noted that the U.S. has recertified countries such as Mexico and Columbia, even when political corruption in these nations has seriously undercut narcotics enforcement efforts.

In earning its diplomatic legitimacy, drug control has had to overcome the same obstacles encountered by other global issues, such as human rights or nuclear nonproliferation. The U.S. foreign-policy establishment favors strategic issues affecting vital U.S. national-security or trade interests over law enforcement or scientific endeavor. It has been reluctant to allow multilateral "functional" questions to affect traditional bilateral negotiations. Congress, however, has left no doubt that it intends to keep drug control high on the list of U.S. foreign-policy issues. By denying virtually all forms of aid—excluding humanitarian and drug-control assistance—to countries that refuse to cooperate, Congress has devised an effective form of leverage over drug countries. Since the law also allows the president to waive sanctions when clearly stated national interests are at stake, Congress has made it difficult for foreign-policy agencies to evade their drug-control responsibilities.

RESPONSIBLE AGENCIES

The U.S. Department of State is responsible for formulating international drug policy. Its Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs oversees the annual certification process and prepares an annual report. Since 1989, formal coordination authority has rested with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the National Security Council. Drug control programs, however, involve a broad spectrum of government agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE, the Coast Guard, the Department of Treasury, the Justice Department, the DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, and the Department of Health and Human Services. A small percentage of the U.S. drug-control budget is spent on international programs. The bulk of the money goes to domestic law enforcement, drug treatment, and public education.

THE REALITIES OF DRUG CONTROL

As presidential administrations have discovered, an effective drug policy is easier to design than to carry out. The drug issue is a typical chicken-and-egg problem. Does supply drive demand or vice versa? The drug-consuming countries traditionally blame the suppliers for drug epidemics, while drug-producing countries allege that without foreign demand, local farmers would not be growing the drug crop at all. Planners must therefore strike the right balance between reducing drug supply and demand. In theory, eliminating drug cultivation in the source countries is the most economical solution, since it keeps drugs from entering the system and acquiring any value as a finished product. Few SOURCE-COUNTRY governments—all of which are in developing nations—will, however, deprive farmers of a livelihood without substantial compensation from abroad. And the price they seek is usually more than the U.S. government is prepared to pay.

THE NATURE OF THE THREAT

Today's illegal drug trade is one of the most lucrative, and therefore powerful, criminal enterprises in history. Drugs generate profits on a scale without historical precedent—especially given their abundance and low production costs. Such financial resources, which are well beyond those of most national budgets, give drug traffickers the means to buy sophisticated arms, aircraft, and electronic and technical equipment available to few countries. More importantly, illegal drug revenues allow trafficking organizations to buy themselves protection at almost every level of government in the drug-producing and drug-transit countries, where drug-related corruption remains the single largest obstacle to effective control programs.

As for the drugs themselves, there is a superabundance. Opium is in especially great supply. In Southeast Asia, Myanmar (formerly Burma) could supply the world's needs several times over with 257.5 metric tons annually. Estimates of heroin consumption in the Unites States range only between 6 and 20 metric tons, less than 10 percent of Myanmar's potential output. In South America, coca production dropped in the 1990s, yet it is enough to satisfy world demand twice over. This surplus is so large that the drug trade easily absorbs losses inflicted by drug-control authorities and still makes enormous profits.

Traffickers have the option of expanding cultivation of drug crops into new areas. For example, although coca plants are currently confined to Latin America, coca once flourished in Indonesia and could do so again if market conditions were right. Opium poppy cultivation is spreading into nontraditional areas, including South America. Gambling on the resurgence of expanding heroin use in the 1990s, South American cocaine-trafficking organizations have been diversifying into opium poppy cultivation. Without active government anti-drug programs, production will grow until the new expanding market is saturated.

CURRENT POLICY

The U.S. government's first priority is to stop the flow of cocaine, which still poses the most immediate threat to potential drug users. Because of rising heroin use promoted by the new, cheaper Latin American producers, the United States must also focus on opium-producing countries. The United States goal is to limit the cultivation of drug crops to the amount necessary for international medical applications. Since all the cocaine that enters the United States comes from coca plantations in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, the U.S. government has active drug-control programs in the three countries. During the 1990s, the U.S. has assisted Bolivia and Peru in their efforts to reduce coca cultivation. While these efforts have dramatically reduced production, drug traffickers increased coca production in Colombia. This resulted in increased political corruption and political destabilization. In 2000, the U.S. approved a $1.3 billion emergency assistance package to Colombia to help the Colombian government. The aid package contains money for police and military training, administration of justice programs, and economic development programs. The U.S. has also increased its military assistance to Latin America to help fight narcotics trafficking, yet many critics question the effectiveness of this approach. Others have expressed concern that direct U.S. military involvement may be requested by Colombia, which could lead to problems similar to those encountered by the U.S. in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s.

Opium control is more difficult than coca suppression, since most of the world's opium poppy grows in countries where the United States has minimal diplomatic influence (Myanmar, Afghanistan, Laos, Iran, etc.). There also appears to be increasingly important opium poppy cultivation in China, Vietnam, and the Central Asian countries. Left unchecked, this opium expansion will make effective heroin control virtually impossible in drug-consuming countries, as Europe is already aware.

AN INTERNATIONAL APPROACH

Since bilateral programs seldom provide solutions to global problems, the United States has been an active proponent of collective action under the 1988 UN Convention. This latest agreement covers not only the traditional aspects of drug production and trafficking, but requires signatories to control drug-processing chemicals and outlaw drug-money laundering. The MONEY-LAUNDERING provisions are critical innovations, since they target the enormous international cash flows that sustain the drug trade. As astronomical as drug profits may be, drug money is useless unless it can enter the international banking system. The major industrialized countries are therefore pressing for uniform laws and regulations to exclude drug money in all key financial centers. If honestly implemented, strict money-laundering controls, along with better use of existing programs to suppress drug supply and decrease consumption, offer the hope of reducing the drug trade from an international threat to a manageable concern.

(SEE ALSO: Crop-Control Policies; Drug Interdiction; Drug Laws: Financial Analysis in Enforcement; Golden Triangle as Drug Source; International Drug Supply Systems; Opioids and Opioid Control: History; Terrorism and Drugs; U.S. Government Agencies)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EHRENFELD, R. (1990). Narco-terrorism. New York: Basic.

MAC DONALD, B., & ZAGARIS, B., (EDS.) (1992). International handbook on drug control. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

SIMMONS, L. R. S., & SAID, A. A., (EDS.). (1974). Drugs, politics, and diplomacy: The international connection. Beverly Hills: Sage.

TAYLOR, A. H. (1969). American diplomacy and narcotics traffic, 1909-1939. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

U.S. CONGRESS. SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY. (1975). Poppy politics. Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE. (1999). International narcotics control strategy report, March 1999. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY. (2000). National Drug Control Strategy: 2000 Annual Report. Washington, DC: Author.

W. KENNETH THOMPSON

REVISED BY FREDERICK K. GRITTNER