XPost: talk.politics.drugs, alt.politics.republicans, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: noreply@dirge.harmsk.com   
      
   A few weeks ago, a police officer made a routine traffic stop in Upland,   
   California, just outside of Los Angeles. The officer was accompanied by   
   a police dog named Petey.   
      
   As they approached the car, Petey began barking. Something about this   
   car was clearly strange. Sure enough, they discovered that the vehicle   
   had about 66 pounds of cocaine stashed in a hidden compartment.   
      
   "Drugs off the street, smuggler went to jail, and our good boy got a   
   steak," the Upland Police Department posted about the drug bust on   
   social media.   
      
   Drug busts like these are mounting around the nation, but they are just   
   a small fraction of what's estimated to be a record-breaking surge in   
   the supply of cocaine. In their most recent annual World Report, the   
   United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime found that, after a decade of   
   rapid growth, "Global cocaine production has hit an all-time high once   
   again, accompanied by significant increases in cocaine seizures, cocaine   
   users and – most tragically – cocaine-related deaths in many countries."   
      
   So what's behind this surge? And how is it affecting us in the United   
   States? A new working paper from economists Xinming Du, Benjamin Hansen,   
   Shan Zhang, and Eric Zou — "Coca's Return and the American Overdose   
   Fallout" — has some answers.   
      
   Why cocaine supply is surging   
   A decade ago, it seemed like the heyday of the cocaine market was mostly   
   behind us. The drug was still popular in certain places, but it was also   
   something of a relic, associated more with discos in the 1970s and Wall   
   Street in the 1980s.   
      
   Du and the other economists suggest that at least part of cocaine's   
   decline was the result of fierce supply-side interventions in Colombia.   
   With significant U.S. involvement, Colombia "waged an aggressive   
   campaign against the plantation of coca, the raw plant used to make   
   cocaine," they write. As a result, "Colombia's coca fields shrank from   
   about 168,000 hectares in 2000 to just 48,000 by 2013, and cocaine   
   became much less available in the United States."   
      
   But around 2015, the economists write, a couple of policy changes   
   "created a perfect storm for coca's resurgence." First, the Colombian   
   government ended its U.S.-supported aerial fumigation program on public   
   health grounds. Many feared that the chemical they sprayed (glyphosate)   
   was carcinogenic. Then, in late 2016, the Colombian government signed a   
   historic peace deal with the Marxist revolutionary guerilla group FARC.   
   For decades, FARC had tried to overthrow the Colombian government, and   
   to finance their war, they got heavily involved in the cocaine trade.   
      
   "For years, the FARC had tightly controlled and taxed coca production in   
   the areas it dominated," the economists write. "When the rebels   
   demobilized, a power vacuum formed in remote coca-growing regions. A   
   variety of other armed groups ranging from dissident FARC factions to   
   cartels rushed in to seize these territories. These new traffickers   
   actively encouraged local farmers to plant more coca as they   
   consolidated control."   
      
   Also, in a classic case of unintended consequences, the Colombian   
   government introduced "a coca crop substitution program that promised   
   stipends and development aid to farmers who eradicated their coca," but   
   that plan backfired because farmers "quickly realized they needed to   
   have coca plants in the ground to qualify for compensation, which led   
   many to start new coca plots or expand existing ones in hopes of   
   securing the promised subsidies." (Side Note: Check out a recent Planet   
   Money episode about a U.S. effort to get Peruvian coca farmers to grow   
   blueberries).   
      
   Because of these and other factors, the program to eradicate coca   
   farming in Colombia failed, and production exploded. "By 2022,   
   Colombia's coca cultivation area and potential cocaine output were more   
   than three times their 2015 levels," the economists write.   
      
   Much of this cocaine came to the United States (as well as Europe, which   
   has also been seeing a historic cocaine boom). Data from the Drug   
   Enforcement Administration (DEA) shows that, after 2015, "the average   
   size of cocaine seizures jumped markedly, while seizures of other drugs   
   did not follow the same pattern."   
      
   And, hello classic supply and demand, with a surge in cocaine production   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)