The Drug Trade

Drug Trafficking in the 21St Century

Most of the cocaine, heroin, MDMA (also known as “Ecstasy”), and methamphetamine consumed in the United States is smuggled into the United States by international criminal organizations from source countries in Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Cocaine consumption in the United States, the world's most important and largest market, has declined somewhat since its peak in the late 1980s but has remained relatively stable for most of the last decade. Cocaine is produced in the South American Andean countries of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Colombia is the source of an estimated 90% of the cocaine supply in the U.S. market (DEA, 2002).

[Page 140]Fueled by high-purity, low-cost heroin introduced into the U.S. market by Southeast Asian and Colombian traffickers, heroin use ...