NCJ Number
134994
Date Published
1991
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This summary paper on drug trafficking in the American region for 1990-91 summarizes cocaine trafficking in Europe, describes the routes used to smuggle cocaine from source South American countries (primarily Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia) to the markets, and reviews recent international efforts to counter cocaine trafficking.
Abstract
As the cocaine market has reached the saturation point in the United States, cocaine cartels in South American countries have sought to expand their markets in Western Europe as well as Japan. River/sea routes, overland routes, and air routes are used in combination for trafficking. Some effects of the cocaine enterprise are the power and influence cocaine cartels exercise over the institutional, political, and economic life of States and the development of loose networks of cooperation between cocaine cartels and subversive armed guerrillas. The year 1990 saw the development of new multilateral approaches in efforts to counter drug trafficking. They included the United Nations World Programme of Action, the World Conference on the Reduction of Drug Consumption held in London, and the United Nations Convention on the Illegal Traffic in Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances. There has also been significant anti-drug activity in cocaine source countries and through Interpol. This report recommends support for the Interpol General Secretariat's decision to develop a joint statistics system for data concerning illegal drug trafficking, including seizures and arrests.