and Cave, Sealing the Borders, v, 1n2.
15. See generally Kenney, From Pablo to Osama.
16. We are indebted here to Alan Knight’s views on empiricism and theory in scholarship regarding Latin America; see his “Modern Mexican State,” 177–80.
17. Strange, Retreat of the State, xvi.
18. Fowler and Bunck, Sovereign State, 2–3.
19. Krasner, Sovereignty; Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty.
20. See Strange, Retreat of the State, 68.
21. See Walker, “Limits of Coercive Diplomacy,” 143; and Friman and Andreas, Illicit Global Economy, vii, 2.
22. Cf. Claude, Global System, 35.
23. With a few liberties we paraphrase here Strange, Retreat of the State, xii.
24. Friman and Andreas, Illicit Global Economy, 3.
25. At present, very few Central Americans and no governments favor legalization of all or even most drugs. A 1993 Costa Rica poll, for example, found 93 percent opposed to legalizing drugs. “Ticos opuestos a legalizar venta de drogas,” LN (CR), 14 October 1992, 1. In 2009, however, the Argentinian and then the Colombian Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional prosecution for possession of drugs for personal use, an approach that may gain traction in Central America. “New Approach to Drugs Seeks Footing in C.R.,” Tico Times (Costa Rica) (hereafter cited as TT [CR]), 16 April 2010, 3.
26. See, for instance, Decker and Chapman, Drug Smugglers, and Reuter and Haaga, Drug Markets.
27. See Robinson and Scherlen, Lies; Gootenberg, Andean Cocaine, 327; and Reuter, “Mythical Numbers.”
28. Consider, for instance, the following exchange recounted in the memoirs of a DEA agent temporarily assigned to a desk job in the Latin American unit. Another agent advised him, “‘The other half of the job is makin’ up fact sheets and briefing papers—you know statistical bullshit, how we’re winnin’ the war—so one of these clowns can go on TV or testify before Congress.’ ‘Where do you get the statistics?’ Tom laughed, ‘Outta your head, where else?’” Levine, Big White Lie, 129. If some DEA statistics have lacked reliability, one must wonder about the data compiled by police forces across Central America that may be less professional still.
29. Here, the situation in Central America has analogues elsewhere in the region. For instance, for the allegation that the U.S. State Department was underestimating Mexican marijuana production for political reasons, see Shannon, Desperados, 126.
30. Thoumi, Political Economy, 180, 201n4.
31. For example, when annual marijuana seizures are reported without distinguishing between domestic marijuana and Colombian marijuana being transshipped through a country, its utility is reduced for those studying bridge-state trafficking, as it is when annual totals of seized cocaine erratically factor in instances in which traffickers jettisoned their cargo while being pursued or U.S. Coast Guard seizures with national ship riders on board. Statistics can mislead in more subtle ways as well. For instance, much of the marijuana grown in Central America for export is of the sinsemilla strain, in which the top is the most valuable portion. However, when governments reported that a certain number of marijuana plants had been eradicated, they did not state whether the tops of the plants had already been harvested, a ploy used by marijuana traffickers in league with corrupt antidrug officials in Mexico. See Poppa, Drug Lord, 68.
32. Andreas, Border Games, 145.
33. That unclassified information is readily available does not necessarily mean that it “is automatically available to officials who need it, or in the form they need it.” Betts, Enemies of Intelligence, 5.
34. Although some use the terms trafficker and dealer synonymously—indeed, some provisions in the laws of bridge states have failed to distinguish clearly between them—we use the former with reference to those moving drugs and the latter with reference to those engaged in retail or wholesale drug sales. An individual could be a trafficker and a dealer, and an organization could be engaged in trafficking and dealing, or these functions could be separated.
35. Andreas, Border Games, 17.
36. Chepesiuk, Hard Target, 14.
37. INCSR (1998), 173.
38. A sealed federal indictment in 1986 declared,
“The Medellín cartel . . . consisted of controlling members of major international cocaine and manufacturing and distribution organizations. . . . Through the cartel, major cocaine organizations were able to pool resources, including raw materials, clandestine cocaine conversion laboratories, aircraft, vessels, transportation facilities, distribution networks, and cocaine to facilitate international narcotics trafficking. . . . The cartel members met at ‘brokerage houses’ in Medellín—private estates where drug lords dickered for pilots and lab service. The cartel maintained inventory control, corrupted officials of foreign governments, and carried out murders to ‘protect its business operations and enforce its mandates.’” Gugliotta and Leen, Kings of Cocaine, 278.
39. See Zaitch, Trafficking Cocaine, 59; Kenney, From Pablo to Osama, 26; and Thoumi, Political Economy, 142. Although cartels have sometimes been able to influence market prices, supply and demand have remained the main price determinants, because many small organizations provide a significant percentage of the drugs consumed in major markets. Zabludoff, “Colombian Narcotics Organizations,” 27.
40. See, for instance, Kenney, From Pablo to Osama, 88–89.
41. See Zabludoff, “Colombian Narcotics Organizations,” 26, and Thoumi, “Illegal Drug Industry,” 119.
42. For the role of entrepreneurs in the Mexican marijuana industry, see Kamstra, Weed, 75, 105.
43.
