Bloodless Coup

Plan Colombia a Bust

There has been virtually no impact on the drug supply in the US, six years and $4.7 billion later.

Yet recent data show the following results:

¶As much coca is cultivated today in Colombia as was grown at the start of the large-scale aerial fumigation effort in 2000, according to State Department figures.

¶Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, the leading sources of coca and cocaine, produce more than enough cocaine to satisfy world demand, and possibly as much as in the mid-1990’s, the United Nations says.

¶In the United States, the government’s tracking over the past quarter century shows that the price of cocaine has tumbled and that purity remains high, signs that the drug is as available as ever.

Over all, demand in the United States has dipped in recent years, but experts say that may be a result of many factors, including changing social fads and better law enforcement techniques at home. Meanwhile, demand is rising in Brazil, Europe, Africa and elsewhere.

“If we were to evaluate Plan Colombia by its initial overriding criteria, the results of the drug war have been dubious at best,” said Russell Crandall, a former adviser to the White House and the author of “Driven by Drugs,” a book on the drug war in the Andes.

“We can switch metaphors — saying it is first and 10, second and 4, light at the end of the tunnel — but what’s left are often discouraging results on reducing the amount of drugs and cocaine in the United States,” he added.