Thursday, August 11, 2005

Carded for Buying Bleach…The War on Drugs at Work

I was in line at the grocery store yesterday, stocking up on canned peaches and plain yogurt, when I saw it coming. The woman standing in line just in front of me had run into some snag at the cash register and when I looked down at her purchases I knew right way what the matter was.

She was seeking to commit one of those most suspicious of acts under the US War on Drugs. She was trying to buy a bottle of bleach. You know, like Clorox (but not actually Clorox).

Bleach you see, that fine chemical the smell of which reminds us of over-chlorinated high school swimming pools, is what is called in the Drug War trade, “a precursor”. In this case US anti-drug officials do not mean a precursor to, say, sparkly white socks. It is one of the chemical ingredients (kerosene, FYI, is another) used to transform the simple green coca leaf into coca paste and cocaine. So now you know why cocaine is white. It’s the Clorox.

In Bolivia, under the US financed and supervised War on Drugs, if you want to buy bleach you have to present a state identification card and sign a special register which is kept by the store’s manager. Now, to put this into perspective. When my son was 11 and it would be a hot day and I decided in my backyard that a cold beer might be nice, I could send him to the store to buy me one. The only rule covering that transaction was that he could use the change back to buy himself a coke.

This is a country with no rules. You can jam ten people in a Toyota station wagon. No one has heard of seatbelts. Hell, you an even block the nation’s major roads and get away with it. But do not try to buy bleach at a large grocery store. Nope, they need to register everyone who does that. Of course, if you go to the “cancha”, the large open-air marketplace where 90% of the city shops, you can buy bleach there both hassle free and perhaps cheaper.

This, my friends, is the war on drugs, which puts innocent people in jail for years (see this article I wrote years ago about one such case) in the name of ratcheting up arrest statistics to make the Embassy look good to Congress and the State Department. This is the war on drugs that thinks it will cut illegal drug production by making the young mother in front of me (the four year old, I am certain, was a drug trafficker in disguise) register her purchase of bleach.

It is all about looking like we have a War on Drugs. It is not about actually having a war on drugs. When I lived in California one f the campaigns that I help lead was to expand drug recovery programs for pregnant women. If we don’t have drug recovery services on demand for drug users in the US then we do not have a war on drugs.

And here is my favorite tale. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has a huge office here, in a vast old Bolivian mansion now hidden behind hideous black iron walls – Fort Gringo – guarded 24/7 by Bolivian police. Many times, if we are walking late at night, my wife and I pass by the entrance and give our greetings to the poor cop stuck with the overnight shift. To stay awake his mouth is jammed full of coca, something that many, many Bolivians do who work long hours. Narcotically speaking a mouthful of coca is a notch or two below a small-sized Starbucks cappuccino.

And there you have it. The US DEA headquarters, from which my government launches its War on Drugs, is kept safe at night by a policeman kept alert by a mouthful of coca.

Any more questions?

22 Comments:

Anonymous Paul V said...

"It is not about actually having a war on drugs."

So if there is no "actual" war on drugs, the U.S. presence must be benign, and there is little reason for the Bolivian people to be upset. Especially the cocaleros.

Honesty, I tried to find articles touting the benefits of the US' international war on drugs, but I didn't find any. Please, post 'em if you got 'em.


Assorted articles, in no particular order...

Everingham and Rydell: Projecting Future Cocaine Use and Evaluating Control Strategies

Drug War Facts: Cocaine and Crack

Terence T. Gorski: Drug Treatment Fact Sheet

Eight Steps to Effectively Controlling Drug Abuse And the Drug Market

Bilateral Drug Interdiction with Mexico Won't Work

Mexico now top supplier of U.S. drugs

Cheap cocaine on the way, thanks to a new Colombian law

The President's
National Drug Control Strategy


Highlights of the Bush Administration's 2005 Latin America aid request

Cocaine

Newsbatch Drug Policy Issues

What's Wrong With the War on Drugs
Latin America

Bush's War on Pot

Cocaine.... on SBS....!!!!

History of the American Drug War (old)

This Is American History On Drugs

A shapshot History of Coca, Cocaine and Crack

Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, 1914
NOTE: I suspect this act was the result of numerous World War I inspired morphine addictions.


Columbia Ambassador William Wood June 14, 2005

"In counter-drug policy, we are attempting to end the more than 3,000 U.S. deaths per year that are directly related to drugs coming from Colombia."

"Counter-terror is our second principal goal. There are more than 25,000 active terrorists in Colombia, and an unknown additional number of militia, fellow travelers, sympathizers, supporters and otherwise."

"Our third goal is to assist Colombia to be the sort of firm ground for democracy, decency, development, and stability in an increasingly troubled region."

"We estimate, and we don't really know, that--estimates for the Andean drug trade range from $2 billion to $12 billion a year. So with that variance, you can tell we don't know what we're talking about."

"Now, I want to emphasize that I include decimal points in there simply to prove that I have a sense of humor. We really don't know."

"In one province, the province of Nariño, the U.S. numbers, the most conservative numbers in the world, estimated 6,000 hectares of coca growth as of December 31, 2004. In the first quarter of the year 2005, our fumigation operation destroyed 48,000 hectares, a difference of a factor of 8."


Up in Smoke

6:39 PM  
Blogger Dan said...

I think part of the problem is that there can no more be a war on drugs than there can be a war on terrorism. Wars are on people. In both cases (and the two collide spectacularly in Afghanistan, but that's for another blog...), there is an actual war, or at least an actual sustained and violent/repressive campaign - it's just not designed to work the way we're told it is supposed to work. Hence what Jim writes, that "(i)t is not about actually having a war on drugs."

People do, however, have plenty of reason to be upset. For people unfamiliar with this issue in Bolivia, a good place to start is by researching "ley mil ocho" or "law 1008," Bolivia's omnibus, unconstitutional, draconian anti-drug law, written and pushed through by the U.S. Embassy.

Paul, I was hoping your "Up In Smoke" link would actually be to a site about the Cheech and Chong movie. But the NYT article was interesting, too. Dave's not here, man.

7:00 PM  
Anonymous Paul V said...

"Guilty until proven innocent, by a court, an appeals court, and the supreme court, if and when we get around to it", was actually written by the U.S. Embassy?

7:55 PM  
Blogger Dan said...

I don't actually have the documentation handy to prove that, but I've not only read it and heard it in human rights circles -- DEA agents at said embassy have told me the same. I'm not clear on whether U.S. lawyers worked as "advisers" to Bolivian lawmakers, or if the political section simply drafted it and handed it to a loyal congressman to sign, but the precise context in one conversation with a DEA guy - then the head of a major DEA office in Bolivia, was that he couldn't believe the law, because it would never be allowed in our own country, and yet our own lawyers wrote it and forced it on Bolivia.

And for anyone who questions how we could "force" a law on a sovereign democracy like Bolivia, look up the U.S. certification program, by which we give other countries report cards on how we think they are doing at fighting our "war on drugs," and then make loans and other aid on which they are dependent contingent on their cooperation.

Yes, 1008 is our creation. And Paul mentions one of many problematic aspects of the law, which he quite accurately described as "Guilty until proven innocent, by a court, an appeals court, and the supreme court, if and when we get around to it." Not only is that true, but the state is REQUIRED to appeal, ie. double and triple jeopardy are not only allowed, but mandated.

Furthermore, if you do get convicted, the state still appeals in hopes of a stiffer sentence. This means that there are Bolivians in prison who have already served their entire sentences, but they are awaiting final appeal - yes, by the state, appealing the degree of its own victory - which can take years to be heard by the Supreme Court (the Supreme Court in Bolivia is more akin to the Federal District Appeals Court in the US, as it hears all kinds of cases, not merely constitutional matters, which are appealed to a relatively new and somewhat toothless constitutional tribunal). If the Supreme Court then denies the appeal, declaring the original sentence sufficient, then, "Hey, sorry about those extra years in prison you'll never get back, but we were just doing our jobs. Just fill out some more papers, pay a few more bribes to the guards, and you're free to go - no hard feelings?"

One thing I would question about Jim's characterization of the war on drugs is the degree to which its inadequacies are by design. To a significant degree, particularly at the political, policy-making level, I agree that they are. But I think there are people involved in shaping and carrying out these policies who really think they are fighting drugs, and believe that this kind of "hardline" approach will be more effective. They are wrong, but they believe it.

By the way, I believe one of the best (and most accessible) portrayals of many of the contradictions involved in the U.S. approach to drug enforcement is the film "Traffic." It hardly paints a pretty picture, but I know many critical-thinking DEA people think it was a great film, too. Plus, Catherine Zeta Jones and Benicio del Toro - something for everyone!

2:18 AM  
Anonymous japaza said...

For newbies to this blog, go here first:

http://www.publiushpundits.com/?p=1308

and/or here

http://bolicarreras.blogspot.com/2005/07/
ngos-shenanigans-what-is-behind-bolivia_06.html

12:36 PM  
Blogger Boli-Nica said...

, In Bolivia, under the US financed and supervised War on Drugs, if you want to buy bleach you have to present a state identification card and sign a special register which is kept by the store’s manager. .

is the law draconian? yes, is it kind of silly, yes? But it is not that far off base (no pun intended). You can make a fortune selling chemicals like acetone to the pichicateros.
In several states in the U.S. they are looking to control sales of over the counter allergy remedies, because they are used to cook meth.

Goni and then Banzer's strategy of criminalizing the sales of certain chemicals is credited with forcing out some of the labs - which of course moved to Brazil.

[i]It is all about looking like we have a War on Drugs. It is not about actually having a war on drugs.[/i]

Eradication in Bolivia, seems to have worked in the strict sense of reducing the coca crop destined for cocaine. Part of it is due to the multi-prong eradication effort, that went beyond simple enforcement, and actually provided for growing alternative crops. Then again, with the FARC's zona de despeje, Colombian operations became more self-contained, needing less of Bolivias crop.


The flip side is that the drastic reduction, first of all caused the cocaleros (and their "backers") to freak out, and set out to not only protect their interests but to destabilize the government. Second , there was much less U.S. dollars circulating which affected the economy. One of Bolivia's dirty secrets, is that the country was kept afloat in the early 80's by the influx of Narco-dollars. The loss of billions of dollars in cash, simply aggravated the economic malaise.

10:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One of the funniest sites related to drug prohibition is http://www.waronjunk.com/warning.htm

Considering the current political climate, this author is practically begging to be arrested.

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