Worldwide Drug Threat Assessment

This assessment, done under the auspices of the Committee on Narcotics Intelligence Issues, was prepared and coordinated by representatives from the DCI Crime and Narcotics Center, Defense Intelligence Agency, Drug Enforcement Administration, National Drug Intelligence Center, US Coast Guard, and US Customs Service.

Significant changes over the last decade have made the international drug trade an ever-increasing threat. The end or easing of political and trade bathers and the globalization of international commerce and finance have made virtually every country in the world vulnerable to being a drug transit or market country. Meanwhile, drug trafficking and distribution networks worldwide have become much more sophisticated and savvy than in the past, not merely providing supply to meet market demand but attempting to stimulate the market.

Cocaine consumption in the United States - the world’s most important and largest market - peaked in the late l980s, declined somewhat, but has remained relatively stable for most of the last decade; cocaine remains the dominant hard drug of abuse in the United States. Fueled by high-purity, low-cost heroin introduced into the US market by Colombian traffickers, heroin use in the United States increased significantly in the early-to-mid 1990s and has leveled off in recent years; the purity of heroin currently available in the United States is higher than ever. Synthetic drugs - particularly methamphetamine and MDMA (also known as ecstasy) - are an increasing narcotics threat in the United States.

The evolution of the international drug trade in the last decade has included more worldwide trafficking of synthetic drugs and greater involvement by a growing number of players. Criminal organizations whose principal activities focus on more traditional contraband smuggling, racketeering enterprises, and fraud schemes have become increasingly involved in international drug trafficking. Although they generally are not narcotics producers themselves, many organized crime groups - including those from Russia, China, and Italy - have cultivated and expanded ties to drug-trafficking organizations to obtain cocaine, heroin, and synthetic drugs for their own distribution markets and trafficking networks. Traffickers from many countries increasingly are eschewing traditional preferences for criminal partnerships with single ethnic groups and collaborating in the purchase, transportation, and distribution of narcotics. Some of the biggest cocaine seizures in 1999 involved traffickers of different nationalities from several criminal organizations. Nontraditional trafficking groups - including insurgencies and extremist organizations - have also turned to the drug trade as a means of raising revenues.

Most of the drugs entering the United States are smuggled across the southwest border with Mexico or brought in by couriers arriving at US international airports. In 1999, there were few indications that large amounts of drugs were sealed in commercial air or maritime cargo - although this method has clearly been used by cocaine traffickers in recent years. The most significant recent trend in moving drugs to the United States is the growing use by traffickers of US and foreign postal systems and commercial parcel delivery services. Nigerian, Asian, and Colombian traffickers are all taking advantage of the tremendous volume of mail and parcels moved internationally as a low-cost, lower-risk method of drug smuggling.

Total estimated potential cocaine production for 1999 was 765 metric tons (MT), down from 825 MT in 1998. Overall, potential cocaine production has declined by about 19 percent since 1996, when potential cocaine production peaked at an estimated 950 MT. Although cocaine consumption continues to increase elsewhere in the world, the United States remains the world’s most important and largest market. The US Government estimates that there are approximately 3.6 million cocaine and crack users in the United States.

Changes in the cocaine industry in the Andean-source countries and the significant growth of non-US markets have resulted in a more diversified trafficking environment, offered new opportunities for non-Colombian cocaine traffickers, and expanded the cocaine trade. The pattern of strategic shift in coca cultivation from Peru and Bolivia to Colombia - evident since 1995 - is continuing. Despite law enforcement successes since the mid 1990s that effectively ended the Cali cartel’s dominance, Colombian traffickers remain dominant in the international cocaine trade.

The continuing shift in coca cultivation from Peru and Bolivia to Colombia has increased the central role that Colombia plays in the Andean cocaine industry. Since 1995, the coca crop in Colombia has more than doubled, while cultivation has decreased by more than half in Peru and Bolivia. Declining cultivation in Peru and Bolivia has been so great that the substantial increases in Colombian coca production have not compensated for lost Peruvian and Bolivian production. The changes that have taken place in coca cultivation have also changed the dynamics of cocaine production and trafficking in South America.

Andean Coca Cultivation and Potential Cocaine Production. Despite Bogotá's aerial coca eradication effort, CIA's imagery-based estimates show that coca leaf production in Colombia reached a new record high for the fifth consecutive year - increasing by 20 percent in 1999 - enough to potentially produce some 520 MT of cocaine. Meanwhile, the coca crop in both Peru and Bolivia continued to decline; in 1999, coca cultivation in Peru dropped 24 percent and coca cultivation in Bolivia fell by 43 percent, according to CIA's narcotics crop estimates.

Of the Andean coca-growing countries, Colombia remains the only one willing to use air-sprayed herbicides against the crop. The Colombians reportedly sprayed 41,250 hectares of coca last year. Nonetheless, high prices for cocaine base, the apparent willingness of traffickers to finance the up-front costs of larger-scale cultivation, and insurgent control in many of the growing areas have prevented Colombia’s eradication efforts from cutting into the coca crop. The increased coca crop in Colombia last year was mostly the result of expansion in existing growing areas.

Unprecedented crop eradication efforts by Peru and Bolivia were most responsible for reduced coca production in 1999. In Peru, [REDACTED WORDS] coca cultivation has shifted toward the south, where farmers are rejuvenating some previously abandoned fields. [REDACTED WORDS] farmgate prices for coca leaf in Peru have increased substantially, encouraging new cultivation. Local prices for Bolivian coca products are at record highs, but Bolivia’s unparalleled eradication campaign is rapidly reducing the country’s once bountiful coca crop.

Regional Trafficking Patterns. The past effectiveness of Peru’s air interdiction campaign has caused Peruvian and Colombian traffickers to develop new methods and routes for moving coca products - particularly cocaine base - in the Andean region. Small private aircraft remain the traffickers preferred means for moving cocaine base; during the past year, pilots from Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia have increasingly been focused on air transshipment out of southern Peru’s coca-growing region. They are also flying circuitous routes over western Brazil and southern Venezuela to evade possible interdiction. These tactics, as well as better communications security, have helped prevent the Peruvian Air Force from shooting down any drug-smuggling aircraft since October 1997.

The potential threat of air interdiction has also caused many Andean traffickers to use land or riverine routes to move cocaine base to cocaine processing laboratories. Many traffickers are now moving cocaine base from production areas west of the Andes Mountains in Peru to staging areas for highway transportation to Colombia or Ecuador. Other traffickers are using Peru’s vast Amazon River network to ship base from growing areas in central Peru to border airstrips, as well as directly into Colombia, Bolivia, and Brazil.

Traffickers in Peru and Bolivia increasingly are producing finished cocaine for export - primarily to South American and European markets. Colombian traffickers now appear to accept and, in some cases, even support international cocaine trafficking by some non-Colombian traffickers. For example, one Peruvian group, financed by Colombian traffickers, is believed to have processed at least 10 MT of cocaine for European markets in 1998-99. Bolivian and Peruvian traffickers, however, have not yet demonstrated the unilateral capability to process and move multiton cocaine shipments to international markets on a regular basis. [REDACTED] reporting in late 1999 suggests that finished cocaine production in Bolivia may be declining - in large part because of successful precursor chemical control enforcement by Bolivian authorities.

Colombian trafficking groups, however, still dominate the international cocaine trade - and are likely to continue doing so for the next several years. Colombian traffickers have greater expertise, more capital, and better overseas networks than emerging rivals from Peru and Bolivia while becoming less dependent on Peruvian and Bolivian traffickers for supplies of cocaine base. Reinforced by substantially greater coca production in Colombia, Colombian traffickers continue to process most of the world’s finished cocaine. Finished cocaine produced by Bolivian traffickers is often not high quality, which has made it unattractive to US and European markets.

The growth of non-US markets in recent years is influencing cocaine trafficking patterns. The United States continues to be the single-largest consumer market for cocaine, but growing demand elsewhere is taking an increasing share of Andean cocaine production.

Growing Market in Europe. After years of significant growth since the mid-1980s, Western Europe remains the world’s second-largest market after the United States. Cocaine prices generally are higher than in the United States, and street purity is lower, suggesting a comparatively strong market for the drug. Cocaine use in Europe continues to rise, although the rate of growth in the European cocaine user population may have slowed in recent years. Many European health and law enforcement experts estimate that cocaine demand in Western Europe is between 100 and 150 MT.

Increased seizures of cocaine in Europe, or destined for Europe, reflect the upward trend in West European drug use. European seizures have increased uniformly from less than 1 ton in the mid-1980s to approximately 39 MT in 1999. In the last five years alone, West European seizures have nearly doubled, according to available data.

Rapidly Rising Use in Latin America. The demand for cocaine in Latin America is growing at a greater rate than in Western Europe, particularly in the drug transit countries. Levels of abuse appear highest in the cocaine production countries; prevalence surveys in Colombia and Peru show that rates of consumption among the adult population are only slightly behind those in the United States. While use rates are somewhat lower in most transit countries, those countries appear to be experiencing even faster growth.

The fast-growing markets for cocaine in both South American and Central American transit countries are the result of traffickers developing new markets and methods of paying local trafficking groups in cocaine for transshipment and other services provided. Bolivian traffickers in particular, much of whose finished cocaine product is below export quality for the European and US markets, have targeted South American transit countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Chile as lucrative markets. Andean traffickers using other South and Central American countries as export avenues, meanwhile, are increasingly inclined to pay local surrogates in drugs rather than cash. This practice allows them to simultaneously reduce costs, avoid the expense and risk of "laundering" large payrolls, and has the added benefit of encouraging new markets. Abuse levels of powdered cocaine and crystalline crack cocaine in several transit countries have reached alarming levels; particularly worrisome are reports that crack abuse is epidemic in some Brazilian cities and Central America.

The growing demand for cocaine in Latin America is also causing cocaine production to expand beyond the Andean countries. Most specifically, recent reporting indicates traffickers in Brazil are processing some finished cocaine using cocaine base from all three Andean-source countries.

Emerging Markets. Several new markets for cocaine appear to be developing, including South Africa, Australia, and the former Soviet Bloc. Nigerian traffickers, who smuggle cocaine to Europe often through the African continent, have developed a strong and vibrant market for cocaine in South Africa. Part of the demand in Eastern and Central Europe was developed as cocaine traffickers sought new entry points into the lucrative West European market that avoided law enforcement scrutiny.

Cocaine movement patterns are reflecting the increasingly global nature of cocaine consumption. Interagency data show that worldwide cocaine seizures amounted to 300 MT in 1999 - nearly the same as in the two previous years. Seizures in the US-bound transit countries and in the US arrival zone declined slightly last year but more than doubled in the non-US transit and arrival zones. Particularly significant was the large increase in multiton movements to the European continent. Counting those shipments captured while in preparation for delivery to Europe, en route to Europe, or on European soil, some 50 MT of cocaine were seized during 1999, up from about 32 MT the previous year.

Coming to America. According to interagency data, the volume of detected movements to the United States has changed little in recent years - not surprising given stable US usage rates - but the traffickers’ methods have altered to reflect their perceptions of the interdiction threat. The balance of cocaine flows from South America to the United States through the primary transshipment corridors also appears remarkably consistent. In recent years, about 60 percent of detected primary movements have been directed through Mexico, about 30 percent through the Caribbean, and about 10 percent directly to the United States via commercial shipping or airline flights.

In 1999, however, the detected movement of cocaine across the southwest border with Mexico dropped to about 54 percent, but flows through the Caribbean increased to about 43 percent and transport directly into North American ports-of-entry decreased sharply to 3 percent.

Trafficker use of the high seas- particularly the eastern Pacific - was the primary means for moving cocaine from South America to Mexico, for overland smuggling into the United States. In 1999, some 60 MT of cocaine were seized in the Mexico-Central America corridor - most of it from fishing vessels in the eastern Pacific. Colombian traffickers have reacted to frequent US interdiction of small boats and planes bound for Mexico by increasing their reliance on commercial freighters that offload cocaine onto fishing boats off the southern Mexican coast. Cocaine also continued to be brought overland into Mexico through Central America, but the data indicate that detected cocaine movements through the western Caribbean to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula were substantially lower than in recent years - possibly the result of increased law enforcement pressure in the Yucatan and interdiction efforts off the coast of northern Colombia and of disruptions to a major trafficking organization operating in the area.

The Mexican drug-trafficking organizations that control cocaine movements through Mexico continue to grow in power and size. Powerful Mexican traffickers receive up to half of each Colombian cocaine shipment as payment for a successful smuggling operation. They also appear to have increased outright purchases of Colombian cocaine and have taken other measures to assert their independence from Colombian traffickers. [REDACTED SENTENCE] Mexican traffickers are purchasing some cocaine directly from Peru. [REDACTED PARAGRAPH] planned multiton cocaine base shipments from Peru to Mexico.

Increased vigilance of Colombia’s Pacific coast by interdiction forces has increased Ecuador’s importance as a crossroads for international movements of cocaine, as well as essential precursor chemicals bound for Colombia. Ecuadorian seaports have emerged as major departure points for cocaine shipments to Mexico. The expansion of coca cultivation in southwestern Colombia is likely to result in increased cocaine processing and more finished cocaine movement through Ecuador.

The Caribbean trafficking corridor, meanwhile, had a much more prominent role than previously detected cocaine flows to the United States. Haiti remained the most active transshipment route in the Caribbean, but primary drug flows to Puerto Rico increased. Venezuela continues to be a major cocaine transshipment country, with large quantities moved to the United States and Europe through the Caribbean or directly in commercial air or sea freight. More aggressive US Coast Guard tactics against small boats in the Caribbean have encouraged traffickers to increase their use of small airplanes that are impervious to surface patrol operations. Colombian traffickers, moreover, have reacted to an air and sea interdiction surge in the Bahamas in recent years by shipping more drugs through Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where law enforcement and judicial institutions are weak or corrupted. Some 15 percent of detected primary cocaine movements to the United States passed through Hispaniola in 1999, according to interagency data. In a shift from previous years, most of the drug flow to Haiti was by airdrops rather than go-fast boats from the north coast of South America.

Dominican groups dominate drug trafficking in and around the Caribbean. including Puerto Rico. [REDACTED SENTENCE] Dominican traffickers participate in nearly every facet of the cocaine trade after the drugs leave South America, including transportation, wholesale distribution, and street-level sales. Some Dominican transportation groups now receive as payment up to 20 percent of each load they move for Colombian traffickers. [REDACTED WORDS] in 1999 there was increased level of cooperation between Caribbean-based groups - particularly Bahamian and Jamaican traffickers - who coordinate cocaine smuggling operations from Jamaica to The Bahamas for eventual shipment to the United States.

Going to Europe. Significant amounts of cocaine destined for the lucrative European market are in large shipments - often in multiton amounts - hidden in containerized maritime cargo. Probably more than half of the cocaine going to Europe transits the Caribbean, with seaports in Colombia and Venezuela serving as major departure points. Commercial maritime shipments of cocaine to Europe also depart from the Pacific coast of South America, including from Peruvian seaports.

As the European market has grown and law enforcement pressures increased against drug shipments in the Andean countries, cocaine trafficking and transshipment have increased throughout non-Andean South America - a region historically on the periphery of the drug trade. Cocaine trafficking through Brazil has accelerated in recent years as interdiction programs have to some extent compromised traditional smuggling routes between the source countries and the United States and Europe. Common borders with Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia—including vast unpatrolled remote land regions and uncontrolled airspace - numerous Atlantic coast seaports, and free trade zones make Brazil an ideal transit route for South American cocaine destined for international markets. Most of the cocaine leaving Brazil appears to be headed to Europe. In the Southern Cone [REDACTED WORDS] Argentina has been a particuuany important transit avenue for cocaine traffickers.

While Latin American drug-trafficking organizations control nearly all import and wholesale distribution of cocaine in the United States, many purchases of cocaine for the European market are negotiated in South America by representatives of European, Eurasian, or Nigerian criminal groups. International criminal syndicates from outside Latin America have expanded involvement in the global cocaine trade, exploiting their presence in emerging consumer markets. [REDACTED WORDS] Russian organized crime groups are involved in the coordination of maritime cocaine transshipment to Europe and, to a lesser extent, cocaine transportation from South America to Western Europe via Russia. Russian criminal groups, however, appear to be only minor players in the strategic context of the Latin American drug trade.

Sicilian, Calabrian, and other Italian organized crime groups are also involved in negotiating cocaine deals with South American trafficking groups. Italian syndicates maintain a presence in or near major Andean narcotics-producing countries and in key transshipment states, such as Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil. [REDACTED WORDS] in Bolivia suspect that members of the large Italian expatriate community in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and in Buenos Aires, Argentina, are involved in arranging cocaine deals with European counterparts [REDACTED WORDS] Italian criminal groups control virtually all cocaine shipments leaving Chile by air to Europe.

Nigerian and other African syndicates are increasingly active in cocaine trafficking, according to diplomatic and press reports. Nigerian syndicates move cocaine via Brazil to southern and western Africa, according to sensitive reports and DEA. They find air and sea ports in South Africa and, to a lesser extent, Ghana, attractive gateways for both cocaine and heroin movements into Western Europe.

The sharp increase of new, highly productive coca cultivation in Colombia in recent years ensures that Colombian traffickers will remain in control of most of the world’s cocaine supply. Colombian traffickers feeding the US market, however, are likely to continue working closely with increasingly powerful Mexican drug lords, who control cocaine drug shipments through Mexico. Meanwhile, independent Peruvian and Bolivian traffickers - motivated by growing market demand in Europe and South America - will continue to develop their capability to produce finished cocaine for export.

As happened in Europe, the growing demand for cocaine in Latin America is forcing South American governments to reconsider their approach to counter-narcotics. Many of the affected governments are likely to become more receptive to antidrug cooperation with the United States, particularly if they believe enhanced efforts at drug interdiction would earn increased US support for local demand reduction programs. Nevertheless, the diversification of South American trafficking organizations - including those in Colombia - transshipment routes, and methods will be a major challenge to US and Latin American counterdrug programs.

Potential illicit opium production worldwide in 1999 totaled about 3,100 MT. according to CIA’s imagery-based estimate, most of which is processed into heroin for global markets.¹ Unlike in the case of cocaine, the United States accounts for only a small share - less than 10 percent - of the global demand for heroin. The United Slates, however is the only market for which all of the principal heroin-producing regions - Colombia, Mexico, Southeast Asia, and Southwest Asia - are a source of supply. An interagency assessment of the global heroin threat concluded that about 75 percent of US demand is met by heroin from Colombia and Mexico, with Colombian heroin having the largest US market share. Heroin from the Asian-source regions, primarily from Southeast Asia, accounts for about 25 percent of the US market.

In 1998, there were an estimated 980,000 hard-core heroin users in the United States, an increase of 56 percent from the estimated 630,000 hard-core heroin-user population in 1992. Counting occasional users, the number of Americans using heroin is probably between 1.2 and 1.5 million. The introduction of high-purity heroin into the US market in the early 1990s and the related perception of reduced risk are probably the most significant factors accounting for increased numbers of heroin users in the United States. Greater polydrug use among drug users has been an important contributing factor.

Southeast and Southwest Asia remain the primary sources of opium supply for the international heroin. Throughout the 1990s, about 90 percent of the world s illicit opium was produced in two countries - Burma and Afghanistan. In both countries, weather and opium market dynamics have been the only significant constraint to opium poppy cultivation and production. UN- and US-supported alternative development programs, as well as weather, have contributed to reduced poppy cultivation in Laos - the world s third-largest source of illicit opium - since the early 1990s, while intensive opium poppy eradication efforts in Thailand and Pakistan reduced both countries to marginal producers of opium in Southeast and Southwest Asia, respectively, by 1999. Eradication efforts have also helped keep opium cultivation and production in check in Mexico and Colombia, which are major sources of supply for the US market.

Southeast Asia. Until last year, Southeast Asia - and Burma alone - accounted for more than half of worldwide opium, according to CIA s imagery-based estimates. In the absence of sustained or effective alternative crop substitution programs and consistent narcotics crop eradication efforts (except in Thailand), only weather fluctuations have had a significant impact on opium poppy cultivation and production in Southeast Asia. From 1989 through 1998, when it was the world’s single-largest producer of illicit opium, Burma averaged nearly 2,300 MT of opium annually, about 62 percent of global production during that time. A major drought in 1998 and 1999 caused Burma‘s opium production in particular to plummet sharply to about 1,090 MT in 1999 - only about 36 percent of the world supply of opium, placing Burma second to Afghanistan’s 55 percent of global production. A return to normal weather conditions is likely to result in a significant rebound in opium and heroin production in Burma.

Opium cultivation and heroin production in Burma take place in remote areas where Rangoon is both unable and unwilling to challenge the activities of the largest of the well-armed drug-trafficking armies - the UWSA - that is the dominant producer of Southeast Asian heroin. The UWSA controls much of Burma’s prime opium-growing areas, and the military regime typically does not enter Wa territory without its approval. Moreover, the military regime’s priorities have been to control Burma s urban areas, keep the prodemocracy movement suppressed, and combat other ethnic insurgencies that were more immediate and direct threats to the military’s authority. To achieve these goals, the regime negotiated cease-fire agreements with the largest drug-trafficking armies, including the UWSA, that allow them virtual autonomy in the areas they control, including a free hand to continue and expand their drug-trafficking activities.

Much of the heroin from Southeast Asia is smuggled into the United States by Nigerian-controlled couriers transiting any number of countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe on their way here. Canada has become a major gateway into the United States for Southeast Asian heroin trafficked by ethnic Chinese criminal groups. [REDACTED WORDS]

ethnic Chinese traffickers take delivery of large consignments of Southeast Asian heroin concealed in maritime containers shipped to the port of Vancouver and move the drugs across country to staging areas in Toronto and Montreal for smuggling in small amounts into the northeast United States.

Southwest Asia. Opium cultivation and production in Afghanistan have skyrocketed since the Soviet military withdrawal in 1989. Reaching a new record high in 1999, Afghanistan’s opium production is more than four times higher than in 1990, according to CIA s imagery-based estimates, and now accounts for 55 percent of the world total, surpassing Burma for the first time as the leading producer. From 1990 through 1998, Afghanistan averaged about 25 percent of global illicit production. Afghanistan has achieved successive years of record production largely because its opium yields, about double those of Burma, are by far the highest of any of the world’s major illicit opium poppy crops. Although little Southwest Asian heroin comes to the United States, the heroin trade in Southwest Asia threatens fundamental US interests because the Taliban, which supports terrorist and extremist groups like Usama Bin Ladin, encourages and profits from the drug industry in Afghanistan and heroin trafficking is contributing to growing criminality and corruption in Russia and Central Asia.

There is no constraint to continued expansion of Afghanistan’s opium poppy crop other than the market for opium gum and the potential for drought. Afghan farmers lack viable economic alternatives to growing and harvesting opium poppy, particularly given the significant damage done to the country’s transportation system and commercial infrastructure caused by two decades of fighting. While Afghanistan’s position as the world’s majority producer of opium may be temporary if normal weather conditions return in Burma, opium production in Afghanistan will probably rival Burma’s in the years ahead.

The boom in opium cultivation in Afghanistan was accompanied in the 1990s by the development of a large narcotics-production infrastructure capable of producing multiton amounts of morphine base and heroin near the high-density southern growing region.

In recent years, multiton seizures of the heroin precursor chemical acetic anhydride bound for Afghanistan and the sharp increase in seizures of heroin from Afghanistan by the Central Asian countries and Iran are strong indicators that large-scale heroin production is taking place there. Most of the labs in southern Afghanistan are controlled by or associated with a powerful consortium of traffickers known as the Quetta Alliance. [REDACTED SENTENCE]

Pooling resources to negotiate drug transactions, arrange production, assemble drug loads for shipment, and transport morphine base and heroin shipments to wholesale buyers in Turkey or directly to European markets, the Quetta Alliance has established a regionwide network that makes it the dominant trafficking organization in Southwest Asia.

The drug trade in Afghanistan has prospered under Taliban rule. Cultivation in the southern growing region increased from about 27 percent of the total crop in 1993, before the Taliban’s conquest in the south, to 76 percent in 1995. Opium cultivation also increased dramatically in Afghanistan’s northeast growing area after the Taliban seized control there in late 1996. [REDACTED WORDS] the Taliban has institutionalized its support for the narcotics industry by encouraging and taxing opium production, licensing opiate-processing laboratories, and seeking payment from traffickers for safe passage of their precursor chemical and drug shipments. The rival Northern Alliance also profits from narcotics production and trafficking and uses the revenue to help finance its war efforts.

Colombia. Colombia’s opium crop expanded rapidly in the early 1990s but has remained relatively stable since surpassing Mexico in the mid-1990s as the largest grower of opium poppy in the Western Hemisphere. In 1999, potential heroin production in Colombia increased to nearly 8 MT - up from approximately 6 MT that had been typical for Colombia between 1995 and 1998 - due to decreased eradication of the opium poppy crop.

Bogotá has waged a persistent eradication campaign against the opium poppy crop since it emerged as a significant factor in the Colombian drug trade in the early 1990s. With Colombia’s climate providing optimal conditions for opium poppy cultivation, allowing for two to three growing cycles per year, Bogotá's aerial spray eradication program has been a major factor keeping the opium crop from rapid growth. The highest rates of increase in opium poppy cultivation in Colombia in 1999 were recorded in growing areas where little or no eradication occurred.

Unlike in Southeast and Southwest Asia, heroin processing and trafficking are not dominated by large trafficking organizations. The heroin industry in Colombia remains fragmented and decentralized, with small trafficking groups most responsible for heroin production and exports [REDACTED] as well as multiple seizures made last year of Colombian heroin mixed with cocaine shipments, indicate some of Colombia’s large cocaine-trafficking groups may be increasing their involvement in the heroin trade.

Low-Level opium poppy cultivation in Venezuela and even more limited cultivation in Peru that currently provide only marginal production could be the foundation for expanding opium and heroin production beyond Colombia. Opium poppy cultivation in Venezuela is found only in the mountains opposite the Perija growing area in Colombia and appears to be grown and harvested by Colombians. Colombians are also responsible for opium poppy grown in Peru; there are indications that opium production in Peru may be moving beyond the experimental stage. Both Caracas and Lima have successful eradication programs that have helped prevent the opium crop in their countries from becoming firmly established.

Mexico. Opium cultivation and potential heroin production in Mexico have been relatively stable through most of the 1990s. In 1999, however, a drought in the best growing season of December to April reduced opium cultivation for the year; potential heroin production was slightly more than 4 MT of heroin. The potential 6 MT of heroin produced in 1998 is more typical of Mexican production in recent years.

Mexico City's extensive poppy crop eradication program has effectively balanced cultivation, destroying about two-thirds or more of the crop annually and is the primary constraint to increased opium production. More than 90 percent of the fields claimed to have been destroyed by the Mexican Government in 1998, mostly by the military, were confirmed as eradicated [REDACTED WORDS] however, the lack or roads and infrastructure in the remote growing areas make manual and spray operations difficult and dangerous. Moreover, counterinsurgency operations and disaster relief missions in recent years have strained overburdened military resources and may have resulted in the transfer of some personnel from eradication requirements - although this does not seem to have had any appreciable impact on the eradication effort. The scope and effectiveness of Mexico’s poppy eradication program have caused growers to plant their illicit crops in extremely small, widely dispersed fields to conceal them from eradication forces. Growers also employ nontraditional cultivation patterns or use terrain masking and nearby vegetation for cover. The powerful drug-trafficking organizations that control the cocaine trade through Mexico are not extensively involved in heroin production. For the most part, the Mexican heroin industry remains highly fragmented with small-scale trafficking groups operating independently or in transactional business relationships in processing and moving heroin.

The significant growth in worldwide supplies of opium and heroin in recent years has fueled large increases in heroin use around the world, and demand continues to grow. The most explosive increases in heroin abuse have been in China, Central Asia, and Russia and other European countries of the former Soviet Bloc - all of which emerged as major transshipment routes for international heroin shipments in the 1990s. The immediate source and adjacent transit countries for Southwest Asian heroin - including Iran, Pakistan, and India - have also experienced a much greater heroin abuse problem. Traditional markets for heroin in Western Europe and Southeast Asia have seen slower or marginal increases in heroin use, but remain large consuming markets.

The Largest Historical Export Market. Demand for heroin in Western Europe, the largest Western market for heroin, continues to grow at modest levels. A notable exception is the United Kingdom, where there has been a dramatic increase in heroin abuse. During the last decade, the number of heroin addicts in the European Union (EU) countries has either risen slowly or held steady, but - like in the United States - the addict population is getting younger. The lure of higher-purity heroin that can be smoked instead of injected has contributed to increasing use by young adults in Europe. A number of countries, however, are reporting that many of these users switch to injecting heroin within one or two years as their tolerance levels rise above the narcotic effect they gain from smoking heroin. Data published by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Abuse suggest the total heroin addict population in the EU countries is between 1 and 1.5 million.