34. Peter D. Hart Research Associates, for Police Foundation and Drug Strategies, Drugs and Crime Across America: Police Chiefs Speak Out, 2004.
35. According to Coletta Youngers of the Washington Office on Latin America.
36. Michael Hardy, ‘Five to Vie for Counter-Narco-Terrorism Work’, Washington Technology, 10 September 2007.
5. Smugglers
1. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2006, Volume 1: Analysis (Vienna, Austria: United Nations, 2006), p. 16.
2. The UN Office for Drug Control notes that estimates of production and total supply are probably understated by reporting governments, so they are probably seizing a lower percentage than they report (see United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Global Illicit Drug Trends 1999 (New York, NY: UNODCCP, 1999), p. 51.
3. National Anti-Narcotics Agency, Colombian Drug Observatory Report 2005 (Bogotá: DNE, 2005), p. 173.
4. That is, between leaving the factory in the producing country and being sold in retail markets in the consuming country; from R. Fritter and R. Kaplinsky, ‘Who gains from product rents as the coffee market becomes more differentiated? A value chain analysis’, Institute of Development Studies Bulletin Paper, 2001.
5. Matrix Knowledge Group for the Home Office, The Illicit Drug Trade in the United Kingdom (London: 2007), p. 46.
6. Ibid., p. 51.
7. Ibid., p. 51.
8. Dan McDougall, ‘Ghana to UK: the new trail of misery’, Observer, 11 November 2007.
9. International Narcotics Control Board Annual Report 2006, p. 38.
10. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2006, Volume 1: Analysis, p. 17.
11. Colombia’s Deputy President Francisco Santos told me in October 2007 that he would be very surprised if coca were not being grown in West Africa in the next five years. But then, it is in his interests to make Colombia’s problem appear to be an international problem.
12. Ed Vulliamy, ‘How a tiny West African country became the world’s first narco state’, Observer, 9 March 2008.
13. Ibid.
14. According to Hibiscus, there were 105 Jamaican women in prison in the UK in 2007.
15. Crime, Violence, and Development: Trends, Costs, and Policy Options in the Caribbean, a joint report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank, March 2007, p. 96.
16. Ibid., pp. ix, 103.
17. According to Hibiscus, 124 foreigners and 79 Jamaicans were arrested for cocaine offences at Jamaican airports in 2004.
18. Jamaica Gleaner, 16 May 2007.
19. Jeremy McDermott and Colin Freeman, ‘Prince William set for showdown with drugs baron on Royal Navy patrol in Caribbean’, Daily Telegraph, 8 June 2008.
20. Crime, Violence, and Development: Trends, Costs, and Policy Options in the Caribbean, p. 21.
21. Ibid., p. 19, citing statement of Rogelio E. Guevara, Chief of Operations of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, before the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, 10 October 2002.
22. International Crisis Group, Latin American Drugs I: Losing the Fight, Latin America Report, No. 25, 14 March 2008, p. 27.
23. United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, 2004.
24. International Crisis Group, Spoiling Security in Haiti, Latin America/Caribbean Report, No. 13, 2005.
25. According to a poll conducted in 2006.
26. Crime, Violence, and Development, p. 43.
27. Jamaica Gleaner, 17 January 2002.
28. This is not as far-fetched as it might at first appear. The Americans were ready to intervene wherever they saw fit. In 1983 Grenada was invaded by US troops. In 1989 Panama was invaded.
29. The term was coined by University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica, Professor Carl Stone. A fire on Orange Street made the front cover of the papers because one of the arsonists had taken a baby from the arms of its mother as she was fleeing the flames. He had thrown the baby back into the burning house, supposedly while ‘high on cocaine’. The emotional numbness that cocaine can produce makes it well suited for carrying out acts of great violence.
30. A local journalist told me that a popular and effective PNP minister who served for eighteen years from 1989 got his start in the ganja business.
31. Quoted in an article by Elaine Cole in the Independent, 9 October 2000.
32. Laurie Gunst, Born Fi’ Dead: a Journey through the Jamaica Posse Underworld (New York: Owl Books, 1995), p. 22.
33. According to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, as cited in Gunst, Born Fi’ Dead.
34. New York Times, 8 December 1990.
35. Cited in Dunst, Born Fi’ Dead, p. 11.
36. Jamaica Gleaner, 18 June 2007.
37. Carl Williams, ‘Consequences of the War on Drugs for Transit Countries: The Jamaican Experience’, in Crime and Justice International, September/October 2007, p. 36.
38. Jamaican Ministry of Finance and Planning, cited in Williams, ‘Consequences of the War on Drugs for Transit Countries: The Jamaican Experience’, p. 36.
39. Crime, Violence, and Development, p. 83.
40. ‘Raid in MoBay: Two men held for alleged involvement in smuggling, (Jamaica Gleaner, 23 June, 2004).
41. Commissioner of Police, Lucius Thomas, in Jamaica Gleaner, 7 May 2007.
42. Jamaica Gleaner, 3 March 2007.
43. Bernard Headley, A Spade is Still a Spade: Essays on Crime and the Politics of Jamaica, (Kingston, Jamaica: LMH Publishing, 2002), p. 66.
44. According to Commissioner of Police Lucius Thomas in Jamaica Gleaner, 7 May 2007; also Jamaica Gleaner, 15 January 2007. There were 1,139 murders in 2001, 1,805 murders in 2004, 1,674 in 2005, and 1,340 in 2006.
45. Crime, Violence, and Development, p. 87. In 2003, Jamaica’s prison population was 4,744; cited in ibid., p. 85.
46. I am grateful to Barry Chevannes, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of the West Indies at Mona, for his insights on the origin of violence in Jamaica.
47. Crime, Violence, and Development, p. 71, citing a World Bank report from 2003.
48. See Anthony Harriott, Police and Crime Control in Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2000).
49. Headley, A Spade is Still a Spade, p. 44.
6. The Mexican Supply Chain
1. Cited in Mark Cameron Edberg, El Narco-Traficante: Narcocorridos and the Construction of a Cultural Persona on the US—Mexico Border (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2004), pp. 56, 156.
2. Figures refer to flights in 2004, according to the United States Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement, cited in United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2006, Volume 1: Analysis (Vienna, Austria: United Nations, 2006), p. 88.
3. According to the US State Department, cited in At a Crossroads: Drug Trafficking, Violence and the Mexican State, Beckley Foundation and Washington Office on Latin America, November 2007.
4. El Pais; see
5. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2006, Volume 1: Analysis, p. 87. Also Crime, Violence, and Development: Trends, Costs, and Policy Options in the Caribbean, joint report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank, March 2007, p. 20.
6. BBC News online, ‘Mexico in record cocaine seizure’, 2 November 2007.
7. Howard Campbell, ‘Drug Trafficking Stories: Everyday Forms of Narco-Folklore on the US—Mexico Border’, International Journal of Drug Policy, 16, 2005, p. 327.
8. Corrido de los Bootleggers is cited in Edberg, El Narco-Traficante, pp. 41, 149.
9. International Narcotics Control Board Annual Report 2006, p. 48.
10. According to the president of Mexico’s Supreme Agricultural Court,
cited in Beckley Foundation, At a Crossroads. As far back as 1999, Thomas Constantine, then head of the US Drug Enforcement Agency, told Congress that the power of Mexican drug traffickers had grown ‘virtually geometrically’. The DEA can be relied on to match topsy-turvy policies with topsy-turvy syntax.
11. James Siegel, cited in Campbell, ‘Drug Trafficking Stories’, p. 328.
12. International Crisis Group, Latin American Drugs I: Losing the Fight, Latin America, Report No. 25, 14 March 2008, p. 25.
13. Beckley Foundation, At a Crossroads.
14. The Economist, 25 October 2007.
15. US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA 1973–2003: A Tradition of Excellence, p. 144.
16. See Ted Galen Carpenter, ‘Mexico is Becoming the Next Colombia’, Cato Institute Foreign Policy Briefing, No. 87, 15 November 2005.
17. Jorge Fernández Menéndez, ‘Mexico: the traffickers’ judges’, in Transparency International Global Corruption Report 2007 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 77.
18. Quoted in ‘Bishop’s Admission on Drug-Tainted Donations Causes Uproar’ available online at
19. From the song ‘El Tarasco’ by Los Tigres del Norte, cited in Edberg, El Narco-Traficante, pp. 51, 151.
20. See Luis Astorga, ‘Cocaine in Mexico: a prelude to “los narcos”’, in Paul Gootenberg (ed.), Cocaine: Global Histories (London: Routledge, 1999).
21. For a short time after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Moscow and St Petersburg had small but significant cocaine scenes.
22. Cited in Manuel Roig-Franzia, ‘Surge in Violence Shocks Even Weary Mexico: Drug Killings Nearly Doubled in Past Year’, Washington Post, 29 November 2006.
23. Cockburn and St Clair, White Out: the CIA, Drugs and the Press, p. 361.
24. Cited in Carpenter, ‘Mexico is Becoming the Next Colombia’.
25. Brian Winter, ‘Fox Is Victim of Own Success in Mexico Drug War’, Reuters, 15 February 2005, cited in Carpenter, ‘Mexico is Becoming the Next Colombia’.
26. From Reporters Without Borders Annual Report 2007, Reporters Without Borders, Paris, pp. 59–61.
27. The Economist, 25 October 2007.
28. ‘Can the army out-gun the drug lords?’, The Economist, 15 May 2008.
29. Lennox Samuels, ‘Fox Says Mexico Will Prevail In War Against Drug Cartels’, Dallas Morning News, 17 August 2005.
30. ‘Analizarán México y Estados Unidos la violencia fronteriza’, Notimex, La Jornada, 4 June 2005.
31. Quoted in Danna Harman, ‘Mexican Drug Cartels’ Wars Move Closer to US Border’, USA Today, 18 August 2005.
32. Terrence Poppa, ‘Quién Está Manejando la Plaza?’ in Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, John William Byrd and Bobby Byrd (eds), Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots and Graffiti from La Frontera (El Paso, Texas: Cinco Puntos Press, 2003), pp. 93–4.
33. James Pinkerton, ‘Corruption Crosses the Border with Agent Bribes’, Houston Chronicle, 31 May 2005.
34. Department of Justice, ‘Three More Plead Guilty as Operation Tarnish Star Nets 13 Current, Former Soldiers of Conspiracy to Take Bribes’, press release issued 25 April 2006.
35. Department of Justice, ‘Three Current and Former US Soldiers Plead Guilty to Participating in Bribery and Extortion Conspiracy’, press release issued 24 April 2006.
7. ‘Cocaine is the Atomic Bomb of Latin America’
1. A remark attributed to pioneering cocaine smuggler Carlos Lehder.
2. ‘La Caína’ by Rubén Blades. ‘Te agita y te enreda, pecadora/después que la abrazas, te devora/ no se puede querer a la Caína, no se puede creer en la Caína/ tú crees que la tienes controlada, pero tú sin ella no eres nada/ no se puede querer a la Caína, no se puede creer en la Caína.’
3. Figures from the Shared Responsibility website;
4. UNODC, Colombia Coca Cultivation Survey, June 2007, p. 64; cited in Washington Office on Latin America, ‘Chemical Reactions: Fumigation: Spreading Coca and Threatening Colombia’s Ecological and Multicultural Diversity’, February 2008, p. 23.
5. Interview for Underground Online, March 2006; available online at
6. The White House, ‘Report on US Policy and Strategy Regarding Counter-narcotics Assistance for Colombia and Neighboring Countries’, 26 October 2000, cited in ‘Chemical Reactions: Fumigation’, p. 11.
7. Office of National Drug Control Policy, Cocaine Smuggling in 2006, August 2007.
8. UNODC, Colombia Coca Cultivation Survey, p. 40.
9. Ibid., p. 58.
10. Ibid., p. 47.
11. UN World Drug Report 2006, pp. 49, 82.
12. Salazar, Drogas y Narcotráfico en Colombia, p. 112.
13. Washington Office on Latin America, ‘Chemical Reactions: Fumigation’, p. 13.
14. United States Senate, Senate Appropriations Committee Report 107–219 on S. 2779 (Washington: Library of Congress, 24 July 2002);
15. Colombian National Anti-Narcotics Agency (DNE), Colombian Drug Observatory Report 2005, p. 81.
16. Salazar, Drogas y Narcotráfico en Colombia, p. 114.
17. UNODC, Colombia Coca Cultivation Survey, p. 78.
18. Transnational Institute Drug Policy Briefing, ‘The Politics of Glyphosate’, June 2005.
19. Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), ‘Study of the Effects of the Program of Eradication of Illicit Crops by Aerial Spraying with the Herbicide Glyphosate (PECIG) and of illicit crops on human health and the environment’, Washington DC, 2005.
20. International Crisis Group, ‘Guerra y Droga en Colombia’, Latin American Report, No. 11, 27 January 2005, p. 28.
21. Washington Office on Latin America, ‘Chemical Reactions: Fumigation’, p. 4.
22. Cited in Angela Maria Puentes Marin, El Opio de los Taliban y la Coca de las FARC (Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2006), p. 74, my translation.
23. International coffee prices fell from 168 cents a pound in 1997 to 67 cents a pound in 2000.
24. Washington Office on Latin America, ‘Chemical Reactions: Fumigation’, p. 4.
25. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, 10 April 2002, cited in ‘The War on Drugs Meets the War on Terror’, Center for International Policy, February 2003, p. 7.
26. Quoted in Salazar, Drogas y Narcotrafico en Colombia, p. 69, my translation.
27. Ricardo Vargas, ‘A View from a Producer Country: The Impact of Drugs Control Policies at the National Level in Colombia’, Drugs Edition, April 1996.
28. I am very grateful to Francisco Thoumi for his insights into the origins of Colombian illegality; interview, October 2007.
29. House Government Reform Committee hearing on ‘How We Can Improve Plan Colombia’, 12 December 2002, cited in Sojourners magazine, May 2003, p. 23.
30. Trade and Environment Database (TED), TED Case Studies, Colombia Coca Trade (Washington DC: American University, 1997), p. 4.
31. £1 = 3,800 COP Colombian pesos, correct at 4 February 2008.
32. ‘El Computador de Chupeta’, Semana, 1 October 2007, p. 30.
33. For more on the origins of bandits and mafiosi, see Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries, (New York: Norton, 1965).
34. Agar, ‘The Story of Crack: Towards a Theory of Illicit Drug Trends’.
35. According to Congressman Wilson Borja, the Colombian Congress debated legalization
in August 2001, but has never looked into the economic impact of the drugs trade, the links between the legal and illegal sectors or the best way to treat drug consumption.
36. Salazar, Drogas y Narcotráfico en Colombia, pp. 44–8.
37. According to Salomon Kalmanowitz, cited in ibid., pp. 81–2.
38. Ricardo Rocha Garcia, La Economia Colombiana Tras 25 Anos de Narcotrafico (Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre Editores, 2000), p. 18.
39. International Crisis Group, ‘Guerra y Droga en Colombia’, p. 30.
40. UN World Drug Report 2006, p. 91.
41. Camilo Echandia, Geografía del Conflicto Armado y las Manifestaciones de la Violencia en Colombia (Bogotá: Centro de Estudios sobre Desarrollo Económico, 1999), p. 78; also Francisco Thoumi, ‘The Numbers Game: Let’s All Guess the Size of the Illegal Drugs Industry’, Journal of Drug Issues, Winter 2005.
42. Statement before the House Committee on Government Reform, 17 June 2004.
43. Colombian National Anti-Narcotics Agency (DNE), Colombian Drug Observatory Report 2005, p. 67.
44. Interview with Francisco Thoumi, September 2007.
45. US Library of Congress statistics.
46. Salazar, Drogas y Narcotráfico en Colombia, pp. 86–7.
47. UNODC, Colombia Coca Cultivation Survey, p. 69.
48. Comisión Internaciónal de las FARC-EP, San José, Costa Rica, Narcotráfico en America Latina y el Caribe, 1997; available online at
49. International Crisis Group, ‘Guerra y Droga en Colombia’, p. 9.
50. See Pino Arlacchi, The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) for the sociology of narco-traffickers in Italy, how the Mafia emerged from rural communities, and was transformed by the drugs trade.
51. The M-19 were urban guerrillas, formed in protest at what they considered to be fraudulent elections in 1970 and disbanded in the late 1980s. The M-19 movement was responsible for the siege of the Palace of Justice in 1985. The government’s attempt to lift the siege resulted in the deaths of over 100 people.
52. Congressional testimony of DEA head James Milford in 1997, House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, 16 July 1997.
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