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 in the United States increased significantly in the early to mid-1990s. The purity of heroin currently available in the United States is higher than ever. Southwest Asia's “Golden Crescent” (Afghanistan and Pakistan) and Southeast Asia's “Golden Triangle” (Burma, Laos, and Thailand) are the world's major sources of heroin for the international market, but Colombia is the largest source for the U.S. heroin market and Mexico the second largest. Colombia and Mexico account for about 75% of the U.S. heroin market, with heroin from Southeast Asia making up most of the remainder (U.S. Department of State, 2002).

The use of synthetic drugs in the United States, many of which come from abroad, increased markedly in the last decade of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1990s, there was a dramatic surge in the worldwide production and consumption of synthetic drugs, particularly amphetamine-type stimulants, including methamphetamine and Ecstasy. The majority of methamphetamine available in the U.S. market is produced by Mexican traffickers operating in the United States or in Mexico. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates that Mexican trafficking groups control 70% to 90% of the U.S. methamphetamine supply. There has been a significant increase in methamphetamine production in Southeast Asia in recent years. Although little has found its way to the U.S. market from Southeast Asia, increasing quantities of “Thai Tabs” have been seized in the western United States.

Most of the Ecstasy in the U.S. market is produced in the Netherlands. Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, and Paris are major European hubs for transshipping Ecstasy to foreign markets. The Dominican Republic, Suriname, and Curacao are used as transshipment points for U.S.-bound Ecstasy from Europe, and Mexican and South American traffickers are also becoming involved in the trade.

Marijuana remains the most widely used and readily available illicit drug in the United States. Although most of the marijuana consumed in the United States comes from domestic sources, including both outdoor and indoor cannabis cultivation, a significant share of the U.S. market demand is met by marijuana grown in Mexico, with lesser amounts coming from Jamaica, Colombia, and Canada. Very little of the cannabis grown by other major producers—including Morocco, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Cambodia—comes to the United States.

International drug-trafficking organizations have extensive networks of suppliers, front companies, and businesses to facilitate narcotics smuggling and laundering of illicit proceeds. As mentioned, Colombian and Mexican trafficking organizations dominate the drug trade in the Western Hemisphere. In the Asian source regions, heroin production is dominated by large trafficking organizations, but the networks smuggling heroin from Asia are more diffuse. Asian heroin shipments typically change hands among criminal organizations as the drug is smuggled to markets in the United States and elsewhere.

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