01 March 2001

Text: Anti-Drug Certification Overview

Preventing expansion of the total Andean coca crop is cited as an important achievement in the international anti-drug campaign, according to the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) released by the U.S. Department of State March 1.

A decrease of an estimated 70 percent in coca production is reported for both Bolivia and Peru. However, expansion of cultivation in Colombia offset decreases in the other two nations. A global assessment of narcotics control efforts is presented in an "Overview" section of INCSR.

The "narco-political" alliance between the drug trade and rival parties attempting to destabilize Colombia "is likely to remain the most important antidrug challenge facing us over the next few years," the report says. This partnership gives the drug traffickers guerilla protection for their illicit trade, and gives the insurgent groups a share of the drug profits to fund and arm their anti-government movement.

The July 2000 enactment of Plan Colombia provides a comprehensive $1,300 million aid package to assist Colombia in facing these multi-dimensional problems, and is cited as another important development in the counter-trafficking strategy in 2000.

In assessing the progress of the efforts to reduce the cultivation of opium poppies, the INCSR presents a markedly different struggle than that waged against coca cultivation. Two countries with which the United States has "limited influence" -- Burma and Afghanistan -- are among the world's largest producing nations for poppies. Colombia and Mexico, however, are the cultivating nations from which heroin flows into the United States, and the INCSR cites progress in working with those governments to eradicate the crop. The report cites the lowest level of poppy cultivation in Mexico in 2000 since the first surveys were undertaken in 1986.

INCSR also cites a notable 2000 achievement in the "virtual elimination of opium poppy from Pakistan," which has been a major producer in recent years. Effective work is also noted in Southeast and Southwest Asia where the U.S. government works cooperatively with other governments to reduce poppy crops.

Beyond the efforts to control drug cultivation and trafficking, INCSR describes a variety of other approaches the United States and other governments are using to deter the drug trade. The report notes progress in "striking at the syndicates" with arrests of drug kingpins. The United States has also been working with other nations to curtail the profitability of drug trafficking by strengthening judicial and banking systems, and creating blockades to money laundering.

In conclusion, the overview notes the progress achieved through strong partnership with other nations and projects that "in the year ahead we must continue to press the drug trade at every point -- reducing drug cultivation, breaking up drug syndicates, destroying labs, interdicting large drug shipments, disrupting the supply of the necessary processing chemicals, and attacking drug money flows."

U.S. law requires that drug-producing or transit countries receiving U.S. assistance be reviewed each year to assess their efforts to meet the goals and objectives of the 1988 United Nations Drug Convention. The INCSR assesses whether nations have fully cooperated with the United States to achieve those counter-trafficking goals or taken steps on their own to meet those ends. If a country is not certified as being conscientious in pursuit of those goals, most foreign assistance from the United States is cut off, and the United States will be required to vote against other assistance to that nation from multilateral development banks.

Following is the text of the "Overview" section of the INCSR:

Overview for 2000

For U.S. international antidrug programs, the year 2000 was one of important accomplishments and serious challenges. Long-term cooperation with our Western Hemisphere allies continued to bear fruit. We successfully attacked drug crop expansion, enhanced interdiction efforts, worked to arrest leaders of drug trafficking syndicates, and narrowed the opportunities for the drug trade to launder drug profits. At the same time, we provided our partners essential training assistance to strengthen their law enforcement and judicial systems, while helping them with programs to reduce drug consumption in their own countries.

The year's most noteworthy accomplishment was to keep the total Andean coca crop from expanding significantly. Six years of joint air and riverine interdiction, eradication operations, and alternative development programs have profoundly altered the map of coca cultivation in the Andes. There have been dramatic reductions in two major coca growing countries, Peru and Bolivia. Once the world's two leading coca-producers, both countries saw cultivation drop to unprecedented lows in 2000. In 1995, Peru had 115,300 hectares and Bolivia 48,600 hectares of coca under cultivation. Five years later, U.S. Government surveys show 34, 200 hectares for Peru and 14,600 hectares for Bolivia, a drop of roughly 70 percent in both countries. This is an extraordinary achievement. Given the deep-rooted traditions of coca use that predate Columbus in both countries-along with the intense pressures from trafficking organizations to protect their enormously lucrative crop-such reductions represent progress that few could have anticipated a few years ago. Even with an 11 percent increase in cultivation in Colombia, total Andean coca cultivation at the end of the year remained essentially stable at 185,000 hectares, with a statistically insignificant increase of less than two percent over last year's total of 183,000 hectares.

Outside of our hemisphere, a major achievement was the virtual elimination of opium poppy from Pakistan, which as recently as 1992 was the world's third largest supplier of illicit opium. Over the last decade poppy cultivation has fallen from 8,530 to 515 hectares. The Government of Pakistan has demonstrated leadership and political will in uprooting poppy cultivation from numerous remote and inaccessible areas. The U.S. has worked closely with Pakistan in a sustained manner to provide the local population with real choices, investing in roads and improvements to the infrastructure in traditional opium production areas.

The major drug syndicates' campaign to expand coca cultivation in Colombia again offset the reductions in Bolivia and Peru. USG experts estimate that in 2000, coca cultivation in Colombia increased by 11 percent to 136,200 hectares. Much of the increase was in San Jose del Guaviare province. USG surveys also detected new cultivation in the northern departments of Bolivar and Norte de Santander, areas where the smaller ELN guerrilla movement exercises influence. The drug trade seems to be hedging its bets, by dispersing cultivation to widely separated corners of the country to put the maximum strain on the Colombian government's finite eradication resources.

The Colombian drug syndicates have not only expanded coca cultivation, they have achieved extraordinary levels of efficiency in extracting cocaine from coca leaf. Fieldwork carried out under Operation Breakthrough, an interagency yield study that has been underway for nearly a decade, indicates that higher yielding varieties of coca are being cultivated in Colombia. The study also indicates that Colombian laboratory operators have become more efficient in processing coca leaf into cocaine base. USG experts believe that this improved efficiency ratio enabled Colombian refiners to produce about 580 metric tons of cocaine in 2000.

We have also found ourselves facing a new kind of challenge. The drug trade has, in effect, become the silent partner of all the rival parties seeking to destabilize Colombia. This "narco-political" alliance has developed gradually over the past five years. The Colombian syndicates, witnessing the vulnerability of Peruvian and Bolivian coca supply to joint interdiction operations in the late 1990's, decided to move most of the coca cultivation to Colombia's southwest corner, an area controlled by the FARC, the country's oldest insurgent group. The guerrillas have provided protection-at a price. The syndicates continue to reap their enormous profits, which the FARC, as well as its enemies, the rival AUC self-defense units, "tax" in order to buy arms and war supplies. As the 37-year struggle has escalated, drug revenues have become the lifeblood of the armed conflict, with all parties prepared to go to great lengths to protect this source of economic survival. Making illicit drugs the main funding source for the insurgency has raised the stakes for all concerned. With the drug trade now an organic part of the Colombian civil conflict, the question facing the antidrug coalition will be how to reduce the supply of illegal drugs without exacerbating local conflicts that threaten regional stability. This is likely to remain the most important antidrug challenge facing us over the next few years.
In July 2000, the U.S. took a major step toward meeting this challenge by enacting legislation that provided a comprehensive $1.3 billion assistance package to support the Government of Colombia's "Plan Colombia." The U.S. assistance package will help Colombia address the breadth of the challenges it faces-its efforts to fight the illicit drug trade, to increase the rule of law, to protect human rights, to expand economic development, to institute judicial reform, and to foster peace. It supplements ongoing U.S. counternarcotics programs totaling $330 million that were already in place. Under Plan Colombia, the U.S. will support justice sector reform and alternative development projects and will provide equipment, training, and technical assistance to the Colombian antinarcotics police and the military to increase their capability to eradicate illicit coca and opium poppy cultivation and to conduct interdiction operations. The initial geographical focus is in the department of Putumayo in southern Colombia, where the majority of illegal crops are cultivated and where the greatest number of illegal armed groups operates. To counter this threat, the U.S. aid package provides for the training and equipping of a 2,900-person Counternarcotics Brigade. The second battalion in the brigade completed its training in December 2000 and, along with the first (which completed training in 1999), is now operational.

We faced different obstacles in limiting the cultivation of opium poppy, the source of heroin. Unlike coca, which currently grows in only three Andean countries, one can find opium poppy in nearly every region of the world. As an annual crop with as many as three harvests per year, opium poppy is much harder to eliminate, especially since 93 percent of the world's estimated opium gum is produced in Afghanistan and Burma, countries where we have limited influence. The opium poppies that affect us most directly, however, are those cultivated in Colombia and Mexico. Although between them they account for less than three percent of the world's estimated production, the bulk of the heroin entering the United States comes from these two countries, where we assist the governments in opium poppy eradication campaigns. Therefore, eradication programs in these two countries can have a significant impact on the flow of U.S.-bound heroin.
The USG estimates that Mexico effectively eradicated 7,600 hectares of opium poppy in 2000. Factoring in the ravages of a drought, the year-end total harvest was only 1,900 hectares of opium poppy, or about one percent of global cultivation. This is the lowest level recorded in Mexico since accurate surveys were implemented in 1986. The Mexican crop potentially could have produced an estimated 2.5 metric tons of heroin. As a result, in 2000, nearly two tons less heroin were available to the U.S. market than in 1999. In Colombia, the Colombian National Police estimates that aerial operations eradicated 9,254 hectares of opium poppy in 2000. Final opium cultivation totals, however, were not available at time of publication.

We have continued to work effectively in Southeast and Southwest Asia, formerly the priority producers of heroin that affected the United States, to eliminate crops in Thailand, Laos, and Pakistan. Because of the political situation there, we do not work directly in Burma, the world's second largest producer of opium. We do, however, support a small United Nations Drug Control Program there and have supported regional law enforcement efforts to stem transit of opium and heroin out of Burma. The USG has strongly supported and encouraged counternarcotics cooperation, aimed at Burmese producers and traffickers, in Thailand, China and other ASEAN countries. Burmese production is at its lowest level in years and has held steadily at that level for the past three years. Thailand has continued to operate one of the most successful crop eradication and substitution programs in the world. This year eradication forces destroyed 758 hectares of poppy, leaving Thailand with a harvest considerably less than 1,000 hectares for the second year in a row.

As in Thailand, opium production in Pakistan continues to fall, but neighboring Afghanistan remains the world's largest producer. While the political situation in Afghanistan also prevents direct action there, we have worked with regional neighbors, including the Six Plus Two Group, to put pressure on the Afghanistan authorities to curtail the trade. Preliminary reports indicate that the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan may have put into place an apparently effective ban on production in the 2000-2001 growing season. However, other reports indicate that a sufficient stockpile exists from earlier years so as to meet demand easily. It is vital to keep the pressure up in these regions even though they produce only a small portion of U.S. consumption at this time, because traffickers will come back to these sources if those in Colombia and Mexico are eliminated.

Striking at the Syndicates

Law enforcement authorities in key countries continued to weaken the drug syndicates by arresting important operatives. For example, in March, Mexican authorities arrested the financial chief of the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO), Jesus Labra Aviles. Two months later, the Mexican military captured its operations chief, arrested Ismael "El Mayel" Higurera Guerrero. Peruvian authorities, in turn, arrested Adolfo Cachique Rivera (whose brothers, Segundo and Abelardo were arrested earlier), co-head of a major Peruvian cocaine base trafficking organization. His arrest effectively ended the illegal cocaine operations of this organization, which had exported multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine base to Brazil and Colombia for over nine years. Likewise, improved cooperation in Southeast Asia has led to arrests of several major trafficking figures associated with Burmese organizations. Though the position of drug boss never remains vacant for long, losing a leader inevitably impairs a drug syndicate's effectiveness. Moreover, arresting high-level traffickers demonstrates-to the criminals and to the governments fighting them alike-that over time even the strongest syndicates are highly vulnerable to coordinated and sustained international pressure.

Systemic Improvements

We have been working with many governments to strengthen their judicial and banking systems to restrict the possibilities for penetration and manipulation by the drug trade. Judicial systems are particularly vulnerable. There have been instances where law enforcement agencies in source and transit countries have successfully jailed prominent traffickers, only to see them released after a seemingly indefensible or inexplicable decision by a single judge.
That situation is changing, thanks to U.S. assistance. In 2000, several countries continued to modify their laws and professionalize their court systems through reforms ranging from installing more modern equipment to changing the way judges are appointed. Though there are still instances of judges arbitrarily dismissing evidence against or releasing well known drug traffickers, the number of such cases is declining, thanks to courageous action on the part of some governments. In August 2000, for example, a former Bolivian narcotics judge was sentenced to 12 years in prison for accepting a bribe in a 1999 narcotics trafficking case. This court decision represents the first time a Bolivian judge has ever been prosecuted and convicted under Bolivian narcotics statutes. The investigation, arrest, and sentencing of the judge represent a tremendous achievement for the counternarcotics effort in Bolivia and set an example for other governments whose judiciary is also open to manipulation by the drug trade.

Extradition

Among the fates that the drug lords fear most is extradition to stand trial in the United States. The long sentences meted out to notorious drug criminals in the U.S. are stark reminders of what can happen to even the most powerful cartel leaders when they are subject to the U.S. system of justice and can no longer control their environment through bribes and intimidation. However, many countries still prohibit the extradition of their nationals. In negotiating new extradition treaties and protocols to existing treaties, we work hard to persuade other countries to accept provisions providing for extradition of nationals.

Money Laundering

In 2000, we also worked with our allies to narrow the drug trade's ability to bank their profits. Money laundering is indispensable to organized crime. Even astronomical sums of illegal drug money are worthless until they can be legitimized-laundered-and moved into legitimate financial and commercial channels. During the past year, we continued to work with our partners in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to make it as difficult as possible for the drug trade to legitimize its fortune. At the conclusion of the FATF June 2000 plenary meeting, the FATF published a report that stated that 15 countries and territories had "serious systemic problems with money laundering controls and that they must improve their rules and practices as expeditiously as possible or face possible sanctions." The publication of this report represents enhanced international cooperation in the fight against money laundering; however, several countries' financial institutions-especially banks in offshore jurisdictions-are still willing to accept-or even solicit-funds of questionable provenance. With the FATF initiative, the Transnational Organized Crime Convention and the Wolfsberg Principles, we have seen important international progress over the past year Thanks to a greater awareness of their global financial responsibilities, more countries are tightening loopholes that favor criminal funds, as the Money Laundering section of the report indicates. Such measures move us closer to a common goal of eventually shutting drug money out of the international financial system altogether. The INCSR section on Money Laundering and Financial Crimes contains a full discussion of money laundering issues, including country by country profiles.

The Threat from Synthetic Drugs

The demand for methamphetamine and other synthetic amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), including MDMA ("Ecstasy") has been increasing both in the industrialized nations and most of the countries of the developing world. Methamphetamine rivals cocaine as the stimulant of choice in many parts of the globe, including the U.S., where "meth" is one of the fastest growing drugs. The relative ease of manufacturing methamphetamine from readily available chemicals appeals as much to small drug entrepreneurs as to the large international syndicates. It eliminates the need to rely on vulnerable crops, such as coca or opium poppy. Synthetics allow individual trafficking organizations to control the whole process, from manufacture to sale on the street. They also have large profit margins and can be made anywhere. There are centers of methamphetamine production in countries as far apart as Burma, China, North Korea, Mexico, and Poland. In Southeast Asia, methamphetamine has displaced heroin as the main drug menace, although the trafficking organizations are the same as those that produce heroin.

The 2001 National Drug Control Strategy, quoting the Drug Enforcement Administration, notes that methamphetamine also represents one of the fastest-growing drug threats in the U.S. today. Well-entrenched drug trafficking organizations, based in Mexico and California, control a large percentage of the U.S. methamphetamine trade. Though Mexico is the principal foreign supplier of methamphetamine and precursors for the United States, we also have our own domestic methamphetamine production, as demonstrated by DEA's seizure of over 1,810 methamphetamine laboratories in 2000. State authorities seized thousands more.

Ecstasy, an amphetamine analogue, is another drug that has gained popularity in the U.S. It is the street name for 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA. Ecstasy first gained notoriety in the 1990's along with the "rave" dance culture that swept over Europe's younger generation. Ecstasy's stimulant properties provided a chemical boost allowing participants to dance for hours at all-night discotheque parties known as "raves." Over the years, Ecstasy has developed its own international cult following, as one can see from internet sites that give detailed instructions on how to make and use MDMA "safely." Much of the MDMA available on the international drug market is manufactured in clandestine laboratories in the Netherlands and, to a lesser extent, in Belgium.
Ecstasy's most pernicious quality is that many of its young users do not consider it a dangerous drug. It is viewed by users as a non-addictive stimulant without lasting side effects. When an addictive drug develops a reputation for being relatively benign, efforts to suppress it become correspondingly difficult. In much of Europe, ecstasy has become the drug of choice for young people in their late teens and early twenties, as seizure data in various INCSR chapters indicate. Authorities in countries as different as France, Estonia, and Iceland report disturbing increases in ecstasy consumption and seizures. Ecstasy use has also enhanced the role of relatively new representatives of organized crime. According to the U.S. 2001 National Drug Strategy, Israeli Organized Crime syndicates-some composed of ��igr�� with links to Russian Organized Crime syndicates-have gained control over a significant share of the European market.
Europe is not alone. We have our own ecstasy problems at home. The University of Michigan's 26th Monitoring the Future survey reported in December 2000 that more American teenagers use ecstasy than cocaine. In one year, the percentage of 12th graders reporting any use of ecstasy in the previous twelve months rose from 5.6 percent to 8.2 percent. While Ecstasy use began primarily as an East Coast phenomenon, it has since become more widespread. If Ecstasy use continues to rise, it may well become a national drug priority requiring more stringent international control efforts of the type used to contain the flow of cocaine and heroin.

Precursor Chemicals

Though they do not rely on botanical sources, trafficking organizations that manufacture stimulants and other synthetic drugs have a vulnerable point-the need for precursor chemicals. Where cocaine and heroin refining operations require widely available and relatively substitutable "essential chemicals," ATS production requires "precursor chemicals", such as ephedrine, pseudoephedrine or phenylpropanolamine. These chemicals have important but fewer legitimate uses and are commercially traded in smaller quantities to discrete users. It is crucial to chemical control that each country have an effective, flexible system that regulates the flow of key precursor chemicals, without undue burdens on legitimate commerce. For that reason, the United States, the European Commission, and the UN's International Narcotics Control Board worked in 2000 with other states to establish an informal multilateral system of information exchange on chemicals.

Controlling Supply

The Department of State's mission is to stem the flow of drugs to the United States. To do so, we attack drug supply at critical points along a five-point grower-to-user chain linking the consumer in the U.S. to the grower in a source country. In case of cocaine or heroin, the chain begins with the growers cultivating coca or opium poppies, for instance, in the Andes or Burma, and ends with the cocaine or heroin user in a U.S. town or city. In between, lie the processing (drug refining), transit (shipping), and wholesale distribution links.

Our international counternarcotics programs target the first three links of the grower-to-user chain: cultivation, processing, and transit. The closer to the source we can attack, the greater our chances of halting drug flows altogether. When source crops are destroyed or left unharvested, no drugs can enter the system. It is the equivalent of removing a malignant tumor before it can metastasize. Crop control is by far the most cost-effective means of cutting supply. In an ideal world, with no drug crops to harvest, no drugs could enter the distribution chain and there would be no need for costly enforcement and interdiction operations.

The real world of counternarcotics programs, however, is much more complex. Crop reduction has enormous political and economic implications for the producing country, since it always means attacking the livelihood of an important sector of the population. Implementing crop control programs takes time, as governments develop viable alternatives for the affected population. As a result, while pursuing the goal of crop elimination, we cannot neglect the processing and distribution stages. Our programs therefore must constantly shift resources to those links where we can have both an immediate and a long-term result.
Though it is the most efficient way of eliminating a drug crop, large-scale eradication is neither politically nor socially feasible in many countries. As our experience over the past few years in Peru and Bolivia has demonstrated, the right combination of effective law enforcement actions and alternative development programs can produce truly remarkable results. We remain prepared to work closely with the governments of the coca growing countries to find the best way to eliminate illegal coca in different national contexts.

Coca Reduction

The coca crop offers the most immediate opportunity for radical reductions. For now, at least, extensive coca cultivation occurs in only three countries-Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. With modern technology we can locate the growing areas precisely. Thus, unlike a multi-ton load of finished cocaine distributed among trucks, boats, and aircraft, a coca field is a large, stationary target. Eliminating coca on the ground is also highly cost-effective. USG studies indicate that in Bolivia and Peru, where the alkaloid content of the coca leaf is high, every 200 hectares of coca taken out of production deprives the drug trade on average of a metric ton of refined cocaine. So even manual eradication can make a difference. By this measure, the 15,353 hectares taken out of production in Bolivia and Peru are the equivalent of keeping approximately 77 metric tons of cocaine from entering the system.

The most effective crop control alternative, however, is to use our high-speed spray aircraft. If these planes had unobstructed access to the principal coca plantations, they could destroy a large percentage of the coca crop in a matter of months using environmentally safe herbicides. With the shift of the bulk of coca cultivation into the rebel-control zone of southwestern Colombia, our aircraft have faced a more difficult situation. Though he concentration of coca cultivation in a geographically confined area gives the planes a better target, it also exposes them to a level of hostile gunfire for which they were not designed. The United States Government's $1.3 billion narcotics assistance to Colombia should offer possibilities for dealing with this threat.

Political Will

The most potent weapon against the drug trade is an intangible-political will. It determines whether any given program will succeed or fail. If political will is weak when criminal organizations are strong, corruption soon creeps into political structures. Left unchecked, such corruption gradually undermines the rule of law and weakens democratic institutions. Therefore, a basic objective of U.S. counternarcotics policy is to bolster political will in the key source and transit countries in order to prevent drug interests from becoming entrenched. In those nations where political leaders have had the courage to sacrifice short-term economic and political considerations in favor of the long-term national interest, we have seen the drug trade falter. And where political will has wavered, we have seen the drug syndicates flourish and corruption set in.

The Power to Corrupt

The drug trade's access to nearly unlimited amounts of money gives it the wherewithal to subvert even relatively strong societies. In terms of weight and availability, there is currently no commodity more lucrative than drugs. Illegal drugs are relatively cheap to produce and offer enormous profit margins that allow the drug trade to generate criminal revenues on a scale without historic precedent. At an average retail street price of one hundred dollars a gram, a metric ton of pure cocaine has a retail value of $100 million on the streets of a U.S. city-two or three times more if the drug is cut with adulterants. By this gauge, the 132 metric tons of cocaine that the United States Government seized in 1999-full figures are not yet available for 2000-are worth as much as $13.2 billion to the drug trade-more than the gross domestic product of many countries. If only a portion of these profits returns directly to the drug syndicates, we are still speaking of hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars not subject to any control. To put these sums into perspective, for FY 2001 the United States Government's budget for international drug control operations was approximately $18.8 billion dollars. That is the street value of roughly 19 metric tons of cocaine. The drug cartels have lost that much in a few shipments and scarcely felt the loss.

Such wealth gives the large trafficking organizations a virtually unlimited capacity to corrupt. In some ways, the drug syndicates may pose a greater threat to democratic government than armed insurgencies, since they operate out of sight. Guerrilla armies or political terrorist organizations use open violence to topple governments. In contrast, the large drug syndicates covertly seek to corrupt and manipulate existing governments to guarantee themselves a secure operating environment. They do so by co-opting certain key officials, such as a Minister of the Interior, a Defense minister, or a chief of the national police. A real fear of democratic leaders should be that one day the drug trade might take de facto control of a country by putting a majority of elected officials, including the president, directly or indirectly on its payroll. Though such a scenario has yet to play out, in the past few years there have been some disturbing near-misses. We can forestall the possibility of a government manipulated by drug lords from ever becoming a reality by keeping the focus on eliminating corruption.

The Certification Process

Drug corruption needs anonymity for survival. Exposing it regularly to public scrutiny brings drug corruption out of the shadows. Section 490 of the Foreign Assistance Act requires the President to certify annually that each major drug producing or transit country has cooperated fully or has taken adequate steps on its own to meet the goals and objectives of the 1988 UN Drug Convention, including rooting out public corruption. Governments that do not meet the standard-only a handful have failed to do so in 15 years-lose eligibility for most forms of U.S. military and development assistance. Humanitarian aid, narcotics-related assistance, and some other forms of assistance are not affected, but the governments face a mandatory "no" vote by the United States Government on loans in six multilateral development banks.

Most governments are now aware that U.S. law requires the President to provide this annual assessment of counternarcotics cooperation. Many governments resent what they perceive as a unilateral, subjective assessment of their performance, with no reciprocal accountability from the United States. However, each determination is the product of a year-long consultative process. We work with our partners to establish realistic, mutually acceptable goals for certification evaluation purposes, based on the goals and objectives of the UN Convention. The relevant benchmarks are established by both governments and the factual basis for any judgment is clearly set forth in the certification determinations. Though controversial, throughout its 15 year-existence the certification process has proved to be a powerful, if blunt, policy instrument for enhancing counternarcotics cooperation. We will continue to examine the entire certification process to ensure that it continues to enhance cooperation and will look for additional opportunities to advance our counternarcotics goals. As noted in this report, recent years have seen a dramatic shift towards greater international cooperation on narcotics matters, and certification, or any alternative, must reflect the evolving international environment as is seeks to further heighten international cooperation.

Next Steps

The balance sheet at the end of 2000 shows that we are on the right track. Sustained cooperation with our partners over the past decade has kept the drug syndicates constantly on the defensive. To maintain this edge, in the year ahead we must continue to press the drug trade at every point- reducing drug cultivation, breaking up drug syndicates, destroying labs, interdicting large drug shipments, disrupting the supply of the necessary processing chemicals, and attacking drug money flows. Though action at all points of the process is necessary, we know that we can inflict the most lasting damage at the crop cultivation and financial operations stages. We have shown that through concerted action, drug cultivation can be significantly reduced. Now we need to make equally important progress in disrupting the illegal drug conglomerates' financial operations.

Though organized crime is powerful in its underworld milieu, it loses its advantage when it has to operate in the legitimate world. The drug syndicates are especially vulnerable when it comes to cashing in their profits. The enormous revenues of the he drug trade are at the same time its strength and its weakness. To stay in business the drug trade needs a reliable supply of drugs to generate revenue; at the same time it requires a steady flow of money to buy the drugs. Like a legitimate enterprise, the drug syndicates partially finance future growth by borrowing against future earnings. Consequently, every metric ton of drugs that does not make it to market represents a potential loss of tens of millions of dollars in essential revenue. On the revenue end, cash proceeds are useless unless they can be reinvested in new drug crops, arms, bribes, advanced technologies and other assets to keep the syndicates operating. By cutting off the flow of money and drugs long enough, we can choke off the lifeblood of the drug trade.

The international financial community, working through the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the regional Financial Action Task Forces, has made considerable headway in closing off the major avenues for legitimizing the proceeds of international crime. The days when criminal organizations could deposit large blocs of cash or transfer enormous sums to anonymous bank accounts with no questions asked are long behind us. Yet, despite our progress, we have only closed off some of the more obvious avenues for money laundering. International drug syndicates are nothing if not adaptable and have become more sophisticated in circumventing our roadblocks. Therefore, working closely with our partners, we will encourage all governments to refine their oversight mechanisms, tighten regulations, enact anti-money laundering legislation, and strictly enforce all money laundering laws. We will also develop better ways to identify, freeze and, ultimately, cause forfeiture of illegal drug proceeds before they can be invested. In the United States, we will continue to use the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to keep the drug trade from exploiting legitimate companies for criminal purposes.

We have advanced considerably in the decade and half since the crisis years when coca cultivation was exploding upward exponentially and the United States confronted a cocaine problem of epidemic proportions. Well-targeted programs and close international cooperation have helped us achieve many of our immediate goals. Cocaine use is down dramatically from the peak years and has been kept in check since. The coca crop is has been contained; most of the big drug cartels have been fragmented, and the most violent of the drug bosses of the 1980s and '90s are either dead or in jail. The mechanisms for long-term international cooperation are in place and working effectively. The international drug control community can take pride in this progress.

There is still, however, a long way to go. The drug trade has too much to lose not to exploit every opportunity to expand production and try to divide the international coalition threatening it. Yet it knows that it cannot survive a concerted, sustained campaign by a coalition of democracies individually determined to crush it. Our responsibility is to keep that coalition strong.

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