Despite Drug War, Cocaine Purer, Cheaper

Drug's Prices Have Dropped From $600 Per Gram In 1981 To $135 Despite Nearly $5 Billion Spent By U.S.

(AP)  Cocaine prices in the United States have dropped and the drug's purity increased, despite years of effort and nearly $5 billion spent by the U.S. government to combat Colombia's drug industry, the White House drug czar acknowledged in a letter to a key senator.

The drug czar, John Walters, wrote Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that retail cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006, to about $135 per gram of pure cocaine — hovering near the same levels since the early 1990s. In 1981, when the U.S. government began collecting data, a gram of pure cocaine fetched $600.

The purity of this cocaine, meanwhile, has “trended somewhat toward former levels,” as well, Walters said in the letter, citing data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Colombia supplies 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States. Declining prices and rising purity could also suggest weakening demand, but several household and school-based surveys show that America's cocaine consumption has barely budged since 2000, and demand in Europe has increased.

Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, is set to meet with President Bush at the White House on Wednesday to discuss U.S. support for Plan Colombia, the anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program that has cost American taxpayers more than $4 billion since 2000.

Walters' letter to Grassley, the Republican co-chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, was sent in January in response to a request from the senator. It was made available to The Associated Press by the Washington Office on Latin America, a liberal lobby group.

U.S. officials have insisted repeatedly that Plan Colombia is reducing the quality and availability of to American users.

But Grassley, in an e-mailed statement to the AP, said the new data is “all the proof that anybody needs” that the White House drug office “has gotten quite good at spinning the numbers, but cooking the books doesn't help our efforts to curb cocaine and heroin production and consumption.”

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said senior U.S. Embassy officials gave him older, more encouraging data during a visit to Bogota in March — two months after the drug czar quietly released his more downbeat appraisal.

“We've given this program a chance to work and clearly this is not producing the results we were promised,” McGovern said. “Cocaine is priced as low and purity is as high as it was before Plan Colombia began six years and $5 billion ago.”

Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the AP that Walters would not comment on the letter but Lemaitre described it as “an accurate reflection of our agency's thoughts on the issue.”

In November 2005, Walters announced that cocaine prices had risen by 19 percent and purity had dropped by about the same. He touted the development as a sign that the United States had turned the corner in the drug war. Drug policy experts rejected his assertions at the time, and Grassley called for his dismissal.

“When the data show a brief rise in cocaine prices, the drug czar holds a high-profile press conference,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for International Policy. “But when the trend goes back down again, the drug czar sends it in a letter to one senator. Why is that?”

[nottellin1]

Marijuana has been illegal for over 70 years and today it is America's #1 cash crop.
The MADNESS OF PROHIBITION MUST END!

Stop this idea in its tracks. Please do not take away my extra tax free income.

The government, the CIA, and the DEA run the drug trade, and their operatives distribute almost all of the cocaine and heroin that comes into this country.

Oh, pleeease. If this were true the govenment would be in a lot better financial shape.

[inventagod2]

Is the purity a result of the Bu$h White House drug purity testing???

[condumism]

Let's make this "war on drugs" a huge campaign issue in 2008. This war on the people of America must end NOW! Time to rid America of the neocon scum that come up with these worthless "war on" projects that have proven to be losers everytime. Even the US Military industrial Welfare program has done NOTHING good for America since it was develpoped by a Fascist/Extremist GOP Congress in the late 1940's.

[delfmast]

Prohibition enriches criminals, note our failed prohibition of alcohol. A 17,000 percent profit is enough to tempt any hoodlum to build a submarine and import drugs to any rich market. It is enough to corrupt any level of government, police or military, and it is enough to destroy any prohibitor nation, with the costs of jails, treatment, and clean up of damage and waste, including collateral damage to those stolen from to support the habits of those enslaved by the drug lords. If addicts could surrender their driver's licenses, and get their fix for the price of a good cough medicine, what hoodlum would enter the business. We would lose some addicts, and we would have to find productive employment for hundreds of thousands of police, jailors, counselers, and all the other folks who have made the hoodlums rich with their failed punishment and prohibition efforts. Good Riddance! Perhaps they could drive those identified addicts around, in taxi cabs, since we would not have drug addicts with driving licenses.

[pawsglo]

My boyfriend soon to be ex has been on crack from the time I met him 2 yrs ago he has stolen my car not one but 2 and loaned them out even giving one away for the crack. I finally got tired today and put him in jail for Grand Auto Theft their should be some means of him being forced to get help. But I doubt the courts will do that so we the victims continue to suffer in silence. I think if they legalize it it will stop some of problems but most certainly not fix the problem when they loos jobs, because they most certainly can't perform under the influence. Not to mention the violent behavior it may cause from their usage so I feel prayer just has to take control of the situation and putting your trust in God. I finally had the courage to say enough is enough. He may get deported back to Belize even.

[gunownerdan]

Marijuana has been illegal for over 70 years and today it is America's #1 cash crop.
The MADNESS OF PROHIBITION MUST END!

http://www.leap.cc
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

http://www.mpp.org
Marijuana Policy Project

[harp1963]

Another lost war. The money is so big, I believe most cops from the local to the Federal level are afraid to really take on the mafias that are selling it in every town and city in America. Anyone who would really stand up to this scourage would be in constant danger. It doesn't seem like there are any heros left in America.

[toolmangler-2009]

Having had a crackhead in the family (by marriage)I am in favor of the medical people making crack legal and free to all. Do not interfere with anybody using it, give them all they want. This is known as survival of the fittest. Those that are predisposed to drug abuse will O.D. and remove themselves from the system. This will remove the motive to make and sell this crud. By the time the demand reaches "0"m the supply will also. Cold blooded? Yes! Effectiveness.... who knows.

[dustfullman]

We need to put Haliburton in charge of The Drug War.

[dustfullman]

We need to put Haliburton in charge of The Drug War.

[dustfullman]

We need to put Haliburton in charge of The Drug War.

[dustfullman]

We need to put Haliburton in charge of The Drug War.

[dustfullman]

We need to put Haliburton in charge of The Drug War.

[keithtwrnch]

in the drug world coke doenot sell for 135 a gram.at wholesale prices it goes between 25-35 a gram. this is why there is such a big market.the war on drugs was allways a scam.for every big bust 10 are let through.

[gunownerdan]

We must protect our children:
Cops Say LEGALIZE AND REGULATE DRUGS!

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
http://www.leap.cc

[crater7]

Panel Recommends Lighter Crack Sentences;

Despite Drug War, Cocaine purer, cheepe;

WOW! Sounds like good news for the DRUG SMUGGLERS AND USERS?
Sounds like the Bush administration is taking care of their supporters?

[toldyouso21]

Billions upon billions waisted for 40 years now?

Drugs are more widely available and of greater purity than ever its time to legalize and regulate narcotics now THE WAR IS LOST!!!

Posted by didntinhale at 03:04 PM : Apr 28, 2007


we hope this does not mean, we have to spend billions upon billions in Iraq and then put our soldiers and Iraqis through hell for 40 years--before you realize that one is lost also. Sometimes--you just have to bite the bullet--not for prides sake, or because terrorists will follow us home (so, what if they do?) but because no one deserves their country turned into a battle ground over a war started by outsiders. If we want a war, we should fight it on our own turf and if we want to win wars on anything social--we better remember that force never changed any social system--but time and better choices do. TV, the internet and goods will do more to change Iraq than bombs and guns ever will and it will do it in less than 40 years.

[toldyouso21]

WAr on drugs. War on poverty. War on illiteracy. War on terrorism. All of them waged for decades and none even close to being won. Because all are behavior and that is something that cannot be stamped out, or killed. it is a choice. Social wars are just slogans the government uses to pretend to fight a certain element, all the while profiting by tweaking some parts and repudiating others.

Drugs are still prevalent in America, with meth and ecstasy now added to the other designer drugs and old standbys such as heroin, coke and marijuana. Now, journalists can't spell and often borrow phrases and slang from ethnic cultures to describe the news. (like Bush's mojo and nappy headed hos) Still got lots of poor with the middle class steadily losing ground. And then we have the war on terror. Being instigated and fought in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, Al Qaeda or the Taliban--but hey--all these things divert attention from the fact that our government is corrupt, out of control and not listening to us anymore.

[incog-nito]

Just think: another $5 billion more dollars into the war on drugs, and U.S. drug users will have the cheapest, purest cocaine anywhere.

[billpl-2009]

the billions spent on the "war on drugs" is peanuts next to the money we spend on "locking up" the drug users.

....America will ever learn.