widely varying results from year to year and place to place.” Second, because the figures assume no losses between the opium harvest and its processing into opium gum, they estimate potential: they assume that the entire crop is duly processed into drugs. Third, the efficiency with which opium gum is processed into heroin may not be a constant variable, as is typically assumed. The DOS noted, “Differences in the origin and quality of the raw material used, the technical processing method employed, the size and sophistication of laboratories, the skill and experience of local workers and chemists, and decisions made in response to enforcement pressures all affect production.” Fourth, a 2001 research project found that yield and efficiency had improved in Colombia, further suggesting that potential heroin production had been underestimated for quite some time. Fifth, the DOS
initially based its figures on pure heroin yield; however, the yield of mere “export-quality” heroin would be markedly higher, and it appears that when figures were recalculated to correct for prior underestimating, the U.S. standard also shifted from pure to export-quality heroin. A further complication is that black tar heroin has also sometimes been exported and yet would require even less pure heroin than would export-quality. Quotes from INCSR (2009), 31–32; see also INCSR (2002, 2:14) and DEA, Special Report.
65. See Crandall, Driven by Drugs, 123–34.
66. See INCSR (1997), 89; INCSR (2001), available at http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2000/888pf.htm; and INCSR (2002), 4:25.
67. Kirkpatrick, Turning the Tide, 39.
68. See “Marijuana of the Eighties,” Los Angeles Times (United States) (hereafter cited as LAT [US]), 4 December 1985, 2, and the testimony of U.S. attorney Alan Bersin, U.S. House, Border Security, 17, quoted in Andreas, Border Games, 75.
69. After the 1988 seizure in Miami of almost 5.5 tons of marijuana in a shipping container, Michael Shaheen of U.S. Customs noted it could be smelled blocks away. “Drug Smugglers Join,” 1A.
70. Note, however, that virtually pure cocaine brought the highest price and most enhanced the seller’s business reputation.
71. “Conspiracy to Corrupt,” Financial Times, 14 February 1987, 1.
72. Waldorf, Reinarman, and Murphy, Cocaine Changes, 281–82, quoted in Wilson and Zambrano, “Commodity Chains,” 299.
73. See INCSR (1998), 9; Shannon, Desperados, 374, 388; “Drug Smugglers Join,” 1A; and “Stemming the Drug Flow,” TT (CR), 3 December 1999, 17.
74. The most authoritative U.S. estimate, a 2006 interagency assessment, concluded that 517–732 tons of cocaine were departing South America for the United States annually, with more directed to Europe. INCSR (2007), 15–16.
75. Coca shrub leaves contain fourteen alkaloids, that is, psychoactive compounds naturally found in various plants. Although coca will grow in tropical lowlands and has been cultivated in such places as Africa, India, Taiwan, Okinawa, and Indonesia (Gootenberg, Andean Cocaine, 73, 125–31), there “‘life is too easy’. . . . In the intense and humid heat it produces dense foliage, but the leaves have little potency. Lower-altitude plantations are also prey to a butterfly, the ulo, whose larvae feed on the leaf, and to various destructive lichens.” Nicholl, Fruit Palace, 296. “In the mist-filled valleys on the eastern slope of the Andes . . . water vapor from the Amazon rain forest rises upward, providing the proper warmth and wetness for the shrubs that bear the coca leaf.” Gugliotta and Leen, Kings of Cocaine, 120.
76. For Suárez Gómez, see Gamarra, “Criminal Organizations,” 175–83, and Henkel, “Bolivian Cocaine Industry.” While Bolivian and Peruvian organizations undertook some international transshipment, as Colombian syndicates assumed a dominant position, the Suárez organization came to supply Pablo Escobar.
77. A DEA agent who worked undercover in South America during the late 1970s noted that Colombian
traffickers would then buy base in Bolivia to convert to cocaine in Colombia because Bolivians grew the most potent coca. Levine, Deep Cover, 34. He estimated that Bolivia’s “Santa Cruz Mafia” supplied 80 percent of the world’s coca at that time. Levine, Big White Lie, 10.
78. Wilson and Zambrano, “Commodity Chains,” 304.
79. Gootenberg, Andean Cocaine, 303–4.
80. Zaitch, Trafficking Cocaine, 29, 37.
81. CIA, Allegations of Connections, 7. The U.S. Southern Command likewise figured that in 1995 Peruvians had cultivated 115,300 hectares of coca (54 percent of world production), Colombians 50,900 (24 percent), and Bolivians 48,680 (22 percent). “EU mantiene centro antidrogas desde 1992,” LP (PA), 26 September 1996, 2A. For earlier figures, see INCSR (1992), 27.
82. See INCSR (2002), 2:3, and “Colombia produce dos tercios de hoja de coca en el mundo,” LA (PA), 23 January 2001, 4A.
83. In 1998 the U.S. government reported that Colombian organizations were refining 80 percent of the world’s cocaine, a figure that rose to 90 percent by 2004. INCSR (1999), 3; INCSR (2005), 13.
84. For an estimate by a former member of the Federal Commission on Organized Crime, see “Colombian Chieftains Rule Drugs in U.S.,” Chicago Tribune, 3 April 1988, 6, and for a statement by the FBI assistant director of intelligence, see U.S. Senate, Structure, 46.
85. CIA analysts frankly conceded, “There are no authoritative estimates of the quantities of cocaine moved through Central America in the 1980s.” CIA, Allegations of Connections, 7.
86. For Judge Miguel Izaguirre’s estimate, see “En dos años Honduras puede ser como Panamá en asuntos de drogas,” La Prensa (Honduras) (hereafter cited as LP [HO]), 2 July 1988, 5.
87. See “Una tonelada semanal de cocaína pasa por el país,” El Gráfico (Guatemala), 30 May 1990, 7. For the U.S. estimate of one ton weekly, see “Guatemala Seen Slipping into a Haven for Drugs,” LAT (US), 30 August 1989, 1. See also “Guatemala: A Major Cocaine Player,” TR (BZ), 12 April 1992, 4.
88. See “Investigan base ‘narco’ en el Pacific Sur,” LN (CR), 2 June 1991, 10A, and “Embajador critica lucha antidroga,” LN (CR), 13 September 1991, 6A.
