A top United Nations anti-drug official has predicted cocaine prices in the United States and Europe will rise next year, reflecting the fruits of a six-year, US-funded effort to eradicate drug production in Colombia.
Last year was a record-breaking year in the fight against drugs in Colombia. Authorities destroyed more than 140 000ha of coca, the plant used to make cocaine; nearly 150 tonnes of cocaine were seized; and 1 098 clandestine cocaine-making factories were discovered and burned down, according to the Colombian government.
”Considering Colombia supplies 80% of the world cocaine market, we think prices are going to rise starting in 2006,” said Sandro Calvani, director of the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia.
A rise in cocaine prices will silence critics of US drug policies who point out that despite the notable progress in the expensive fight against drug production in Colombia, the cost for the drug on city streets remains unchanged, a sign there is no shortage. Calvani said a pound (0,45kg) of cocaine in a city such as Washington costs about $25 000 (about R151 200).
The UN official said the stable cocaine prices are a result of drug traffickers who have been willing to absorb the higher costs of production — due to increases seizures and less crops — without passing those rises on to the consumer.
Also, he said drug traffickers have for years been storing cocaine stocks so they could maintain prices and supplies in the US and Europe, the main consumers of cocaine, even during periods such as now when production is down.
”These warehouses allow them to have enough to satisfy the market for two years,” the UN official said. ”So when the availability drops in Santa Marta or Barranquilla [Colombia], there is no lack of cocaine the next week in New York.”
UN statistics show coca production in Colombia, which grows most of the world’s coca, fell to 86 000ha in 2003, a 30% drop from 2000.
The drop is mostly due to the billions of dollars the US has poured into Colombia since 2000 to reduce production. A key part of the so-called Plan Colombia aid package goes to aerial fumigation, in which crop dusters fly over fields of coca and spray them with herbicides.
Calvani said illegal armed groups involved in drug trafficking in Colombia may begin pressuring rural peasants to grow more coca in the face of increased fumigation. But he said such tactics may not work.
”Aerial fumigation does not ask for permission from the armed groups. It destroys the crops, whether they like it or not,” Calvani said. — Sapa-AP