The biggest cocaine factory bust this week

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Clare Sammells

I am deeply skeptical when it comes to claims of success in the U.S. [international but U.S.-led] War on Drugs, and not because I think illegal drugs are a great thing (I don’t).  In this, I have lots of company.  Those publicly opposing the U.S. [U.S. Support for the] War on Drugs include Noam Chomsky, Walter Cronkite, Ron Paul (remember him?), and organizations such as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and the ACLU.  Even the U.S. Drug Czar doesn’t really want to call it a “war.” Also see the article by Joe Conason at Salon.com.  This is by no means a complete list.  Opposition to the War on Drugs is growing along with the evidence that it is failing.  It simply does not achieve its own objective, which is the most damning kind of failure.

In addition to this “War” not reducing the supply or increasing the price of street drugs (its actual purpose), the collateral damage has been heavy, in the U.S., Colombia, Peru, and of course Bolivia.

Given all this, when I saw the BBC’s July 6, 2009 article stating:

Drug enforcement officials have raided what they call the biggest cocaine laboratory ever found in Bolivia.

The facility, said to have the capacity to produce up to 100kg (220lb) each day, was discovered in a rural area of the department of Santa Cruz.

I cynically wondered how many times such an announcement had been made.  Luckily, we live in the era of the Internet, so I don’t have to guess.  I typed <<”biggest cocaine factory” Bolivia>>, and some variations thereof, into Google and found:

March 27, 2009.  Fox News:  “Bolivia’s interior minister says police have uncovered one of the country’s biggest known cocaine processing factories.”  (Plane found with 300kg of cocaine)

May 31, 2007.   ABC:  “Bolivian police have found the largest cocaine factory ever discovered in the South American country, with a daily production capacity of 100 kilograms.”  (Note this is the same daily production as that reported in the July 7, 2009 story.  Also reported at WCBSTV.)

Oct 8, 1988.  LA Times:  “Police and U.S. drug agents raided and destroyed a huge jungle cocaine laboratory that produced at least $50 million worth of drugs each week, Bolivian and U.S. officials said Friday.”  (Produces 3.5 tons of cocaine a week — or about 508 kg/day, far more than any of the busts announced above.)

These aren’t all the articles on the drug war — just the ones I found with minimum effort that claimed to have made  huge drug busts.  My point here is not to take all this as straight data, but rather to point to the political purposes served by announcing such busts.  The details are left as an exercise to my very capable readers.

Filed under: Coca, Media, Press, and Internet, Politics, U.S.-Latin American relations

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12 Responses

  1. Kate McGurn Centellas, on July 8th, 2009 at 3:30 pm Said:

    Clare:

    I agree with you about the hyperbole in the media here. However, keep in mind that the DEA has not been in Bolivia for quite awhile – all offices shuttered, all DEA-related aid stopped, the preferential trade agreement (ATPDEA) cancelled to the (conservatively estimated) loss of thousands of jobs. In fact, this has led Evo to claim that the Obama administration is *worse* than the Bush administration, according to today’s paper. In addition, it seems that pretty much every day since we’ve been here there’s another cocaine factory bust, mainly in the lowlands. This is more frequent than I recall in previous years.

    I think the situation here is quite a bit more complicated than attributing such busts to the (mainly U.S. driven) war on drugs. It relates to internal regionalism, money flows, and suspicions about Evo. That’s my 2 cents, anyway.

  2. Miguel Centellas, on July 8th, 2009 at 3:49 pm Said:

    In addition to Kate’s comments, which is to point out that this was BOLIVIAN drug enforcement officials (not DEA, which has been gone from Bolivia for about a year now), I would add that Evo’s own government is using this as a cause celebre. The MAS party paper (Cambio) itself yesterday ran a headline that made clear that Evo/MAS were pleased that they could make big drug busts w/o the DEA.

    I agree that the war on drugs, overall, is a failure (or quagmire, at least). And that these kinds of announcements are all for political purposes. The interesting thing is that Evo’s government is itself engaged in the hyping up of its “tough” stance on cocaine production. Recently, the Bolivian government has even approached Russia for help in the anti-drug effort (to replace the now-gone DEA support).

  3. Clare Sammells, on July 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm Said:

    And neither of you think this has anything at all to do with Obama upholding Bush’s decision to end preferential trade agreements with Bolivia on account of their supposedly lackluster anti-narcotics efforts?! Clearly I should have spelled things out a little more for my readers!

    I didn’t say anything about the DEA; I know full well that situation, believe it or not Miguel. The War on Drugs continues, however, regardless of who is actually doing the dirty work of the busts. In fact, Bolivians have always performed that unpleasant task. All the news articles I listed said the busts were done by Bolivians (except the earliest one, where there were also “US agents” involved).

    One would be naive to think that because the DEA had left Bolivia that the underlying political issue had simply disappeared (as you both know).

    Related links: Democracy Center, Letter from Obama to House Committe on Ways and Means.

  4. Miguel Centellas, on July 8th, 2009 at 5:51 pm Said:

    Clare, we’re not naive. You know that. But the war on drugs is not just a “US war on drugs,” it’s an international one (that’s why there’s a UN agency that monitors such things). The story I mentioned from the official MAS newspaper Cambio ran days *after* the Obama decision. Evo’s government is making a big deal out of the drug busts for its own reasons — to show that it can do what the DEA tried, and even do it better (that was the gist of the Cambio story).

    I guess maybe I was thrown off by your linking a recent drug bust in Evo’s Bolivia w/ a string of US drug war stories from the 1980s & 1990s. So I assumed you were making a point about US policy in Bolivia. Bolivia has its own drug problem, and its own reasons for wanting to wage (or at least look like it’s waging) a (successful) war on drugs. The danger of drug trafficking in Bolivia *for Bolivia* is not just about US drug consumption, but the corrupting effect it has on local politics (cf. Colombia).

    Here’s the Cambio story:

    http://www.cambio.bo/noticia.php?fecha=2009-07-07&idn=2188

    Notice that the picture has in red “Sin la DEA” and that the story is about how Bolivia can do things w/o the DEA. It ran July 7, 2009.

  5. Clare Sammells, on July 8th, 2009 at 6:04 pm Said:

    An “international war on drugs” does not mean that all actors have equal political power. Even Evo Morales has made clear that is not the case. Do you — does anyone — really think the US is no longer a major actor here? Clearly it is — no matter what the Bolivian govt does, it cannot simply ignore the U.S.

    The DEA is gone from Bolivia, but that doesn’t mean that the current “War on Drugs” is somehow completely different from the one before.

  6. Clare Sammells, on July 8th, 2009 at 6:12 pm Said:

    I edited it to make clear that the War on Drugs is an international, but U.S. led and supported effort. I’m still not sure how you two made the jump from what I said to the DEA, however, since I never mentioned them.

  7. Clare Sammells, on July 8th, 2009 at 6:14 pm Said:

    P.S. I’d like to know who sits on that U.N. committee. :-)

  8. Miguel Centellas, on July 8th, 2009 at 9:53 pm Said:

    I’m not sure if it is accurate to say the entire international war on drugs is “US-led.” China, Iran, Russia, & a number or other countries have their own issues w/ narcotics use in their country, for their own reasons. Perhaps living in the US we often see the war on drugs through US-centric lenses. But in the broader international political arena, efforts against various narcotics has been ongoing, shifting, and evolving for at least a century (e.g. the China-British Opium War). :-)

    The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs is part of ECOSOC (the Economic & Social Council) and has 53 members, which serve for 4 year terms. You can find out more about it at this link:

    http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CND/index.html

    The US is on the membership. So are Bolivia, Cuba, Colombia, China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and a host of other countries. It’s a pretty diverse group. Of the 53, only 14 seats are reserved for “Western European and other states,” the rest are for non-Western states. The member states are elected through ECOSOC.

    No one is denying that the US has influence in Bolivia. Just like no one denies that Russia, Iran, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, the EU, and other countries have influence. But I just wanted to emphasize that Bolivia may also have its own reasons for drug busts, some of which have to do w/ the US, some of which may not. The first axiom when I taught IR to my students was: “It’s not always about US.” :-)

  9. Kate McGurn Centellas, on July 9th, 2009 at 7:34 am Said:

    Sure Clare, you didn’t mention the DEA by name. But you mentioned the U.S. Drug Czar (who sets the policy that the DEA enforces) and in one of the articles you cited it referenced US agents. So DEA activity in Bolivia is implied. My understanding of all of this is precisely that Bolivia is trying to *remove* itself from US interest and policy. ATPDEA was cancelled just recently, after being temporarily suspended following the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador, the DEA, and the associated rhetoric around it. I have been really amazed on this trip by how much Venezuela has eclipsed the US here in terms of funds, aid, etc…and that’s intentional, an attempt to unseat the US as the hegemon in the region.

    t isn’t just about drugs here, either. It is no coincidence (in my opinion) that most of the busts recently have been in Santa Cruz (vs. El Alto). This paints the lowlands as corrupt and dangerous while demonstrating the power of the Morales administration, all while (attempting to) distance Morales from his previous role as a cocalero. I find these to be more about internal policy, conflict, and posturing than appealing to international goals.

  10. Clare Sammells, on July 9th, 2009 at 10:33 am Said:

    Tough crowd, for an off-the-cuff post, written in the middle of my box-filled study, meant to be thought-provoking and poke fun at the media more than anything.

    My reason for including links to others US-types who oppose the war on drugs was to indicate that I am not alone in my opposition, for the benefit of our readers who a) speak English only and b) might still think the War on Drugs is a Good Idea — since this is a blog directed at a general, English-speaking audience and all. I assume most who live in Bolivia are already aware of the pros and cons of the situation, although they may have different opinions about it.

    Both of you should feel free to post your thoughts in your own post. I’m sure many would be interested.

  11. Kate McGurn Centellas, on July 9th, 2009 at 4:44 pm Said:

    Sorry if my remarks were misinterpreted: I was pointing out how this recent bust (one of a series) was being interpreted, discussed, and spun in the media here. I agree with you on the hyperbole in the media and the utter failure of the War on Drugs – though the legacies and permutations of this policy of course still influence action by leaders throughout the world.

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