Descriptive Epidemiology of International Cocaine Trafficking (From Epidemiology of Cocaine Use and Abuse, 1991, P 275-296, Susan Schober and Charles Schade, eds. -- See NCJ-135854)

• NCJ Number: 135861
• Author(s): M Montagne
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 22 pages
• Sale Source: Superintendent of Documents, GPO; National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The illicit cocaine industry is comprised of four functional phases: cultivation and production, export (smuggling), distribution in the consumer country, and processing the money. Illicit cocaine production and distribution is often affected by economic, political, sociocultural, legal, geographical, and meterological factors.

Abstract

Data on international cocaine trafficking are collected by, inter alia, the Permanent Central Opium Board, the U.S. Treasury Department Bureau of Narcotics, and the National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee. Internal estimates of coca leaf cultivation and production are made by a number of governmental agencies in the producer countries. Seizure data are collected and analyzed by different U.S. agencies as indicators of trafficking activity. The volume of trafficking can also be measured from the demand side. While most coca cultivation and processing occurs in South America, large-scale cocaine production could begin in a number of other regions including the Philippines, Indonesia, and Madagascar. The distribution and transshipment channels into the U.S. have shifted over the years in response to changing demographic patterns and law enforcement efforts. Over the past few decades, cocaine trafficking had been carried out by organized networks using high technology equipment and clandestine facilities. Cocaine trafficking can be stopped only by reducing or eliminating production or reducing international demand for the drug. 9 tables and 82 references