(Above: from White House publication on Cocaine smuggling 2007, available here in pdf form).
David Penberthy works himself up into a fine old lather today under the header How poseurs and clubbers helped kill 10,000 Mexicans.
As rants go, it's the mother of all rants.
And every celebrity who revels in the attention of their own pathetic battle with substance abuse, and uses their “brave” decision to go into detox as some kind of fashion statement, should also take some of the credit too.
Penberthy indulges in some heady second hand reporting of the Mexican drug crisis, noting that deaths from raging battles in the country are worse than the deaths from the troubles in Northern Ireland and the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq the second time around.
On and on he goes with his recycled stores about the criminal behavior of the Mexican ganglands, and how the current war's an example of supply and demand at work.
There's just one problem with the header, and that's the reality that Australia gets most of its cocaine from Colombia, the traditional supplier for the Pacific region.
Now you can argue that the cartels who run the drugs game don't respect boundaries - why should they - but the reality is that Mexico's problems largely stem from its position between Colombia and the United States. And boy does a market with a potential 300 million customers whip the ass of a market of 21 million when it comes to living high and dying young.
Colombia, whatever its government might claim, remains the world's main cocaine exporter, despite having received some US$6 billion to fight the drug war. While there was an increase in production in Bolivia of 5% and and in Peru of 4% in 2008, Colombia managed a 27% increase in coca production, as noted in a story in The Guardian in March. (here)
It's Mexico which unfortunately cops the burden of Colombian drugs heading into the American consumer market, with all kinds of fingers from the CIA to the drug lords in the mix.
What's interesting is that Mexico in the last few days has decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin for personal use, with the new law setting out maximum "personal use" levels for a variety of drugs, including LSD and methamphetamine (the level for marijuana is 5 grams, enough for three or 4 joints, half a gram for cocaine, or say three or four lines, 50 milligrams for heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine, and 0.015 milligrams for LSD). The law's designed to sort drug addicts and casual users from the turf wars which have killed more than 11,000 people since President Calderon took office in 2006.
Instead of wasting time on tadpoles, the police can stay focussed on the bigger crims, which is logical seeing as how most of the small users arrested never even ended up facing charges, let alone spending time in Mexico's chaotic prison system.
But back to Penberthy. If you take a look at the Crime Commission's paper on Cocaine in pdf form (here), in 2004-05 scatter importation in the postal stream was the most frequently detected method of drug smuggling, while of the bigger busts, the biggest involved 100 kilos seized from a Brazilian bulk grain carrier. Other busts involved aircraft from Peru and Jamaica, while another was an air shipment from Mexico. Activity involved West African and Asian organized crime syndicates.
Embarkation points of significant attempted cocaine imports were (in descending weight order): Brazil, Argentina, United States, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Japan, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, Jamaica, South Africa, Panama, China, United Arab Emirates and Colombia. The South African and Middle Eastern embarkation points are associated mostly with the trafficking of cocaine by West African criminal syndicates. It should be noted that embarkation data are affected by air transport connection patterns and location of air traffic hubs, and do not necessarily reflect the true origin of drugs. For example, a significant detection of cocaine recorded as originating from the United Arab Emirates was actually an American air passenger courier traveling to Australia from Nigeria via the United Arab Emirates.
So sure drugs come from all over the place and fly all over the place, and are handled by all kinds of criminal syndicates, but let's help clear the eastern suburbs of Sydney, starlets, and gormless clubber kids of Penberthy's major charge - that they've played a hand in the current Mexican drug wars.
For that, you need to turn to gormless kids, starlets, and other dumb consumers in the United States of America.
The local dummies can take credit for helping out gangs and suppliers and growers in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, most likely using a Brazilian connection to deliver the goods to Australia.
Oh and before you get too wedded to the concept of poseurs and clubbers as the main users of cocaine, the Crime Commission report also noted the following:
... a recent study funded by the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund (NDLERF) examining the characteristics and dynamics of cocaine supply and demand in Sydney and Melbourne identified two distinct groups of cocaine users. The first group occasionally snort cocaine, typically in conjunction with a range of illicit and licit drugs and are employed and well-educated, funding use through their own paid employment, with ‘shouting’ and gifts also commonly reported (similar to the traits described above). The second group typically inject cocaine, often in conjunction with heroin and fund their use through government benefits, sex work and drug dealing. Primarily located in Sydney, this second group of economically and socially marginalised users appear to be the highest users of cocaine in Australia.
(If you want the full NDLERF report, you can get it in pdf form (here), and they have an extensive assortment of monographs on drug related matters (here)).
Oops, so while Sydney remains the cocaine capital of the country, even that particular stereotype has less grams per needle than Penberthy allows. And it should also be noted that it's not quite the glam problem his beat up would suggest, with users variously estimated at between 1% to 1.6% of the total Australian population.
Now none of this means I'm saying cocaine from Colombia can be righteously used by poseurs and clubbers, because it's most likely supplied through Brazil to the Australian market, rather than through Mexico when they're busy taking care of their major US clients.
I'm no advocate for hard drugs, but in trying to get a sense of what's really going down, you face relentless confusion and pathetic distraction, when you have to read this as a closer for Penberthy's piece:
...the Mexicans are largely fending for themselves in this one-sided battle.
The origins of which can be traced back to our trendier bars and nightclubs where, unlike on the streets of Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Nogales, people are having the time of their lives.
The origins of which can be traced back to our trendier bars and nightclubs where, unlike on the streets of Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Nogales, people are having the time of their lives.
Which simply isn't true, unless you think Australia is the United States and we're all morally culpable anyway, and just go 'whatever'.
And it's even more remarkable that Penberthy thinks a drugs crisis of this proportion - to the point where narco terror is the latest variation on the terror riff - is being ignored, either in the United States or in Mexico, or amongst any other interested stakeholder.
So while he provides a link to the LA Times and its pieces on the war, let me provide a link to a New Yorker piece Letter from Mexico: Days of the Dead (here) and the New York Times piece on Mexico's Drug Traffickers Continue Trade in Prison (but you may need to register).
Which if nothing else will help explain why Mexico has introduced its new personal use laws.
And which is why it is remarkable that Penberthy manages to froth and foam without once mentioning the need for a changed approach, which might happen to include a changed approach to the cheap shots and hysteria in his piece. Back to The Guardian story:
"We consider the war on drugs a failure because the objectives have never been achieved," said César Gaviria, Colombia's former president and co-chair of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy.
"Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalisation have not yielded the expected results. We are today farther than ever from the goal of eradicating drugs."
The commission is urging a "paradigm shift" from repression to a public health approach, including decriminalisation of marijuana. Dismal statistics about coca cultivation, cocaine exports and murder rates have amplified calls to replace a policy which dates back to Nixon with one which focuses on curbing demand.
"The strategy of the US here, in Colombia and Peru was to attack the raw material and it has not worked," said Colonel René Sanabria, head of Bolivia's anti-narcotic police force.
A report by the Brookings Institution, and a separate study by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron which was endorsed by 500 economists, have joined the chorus demanding change.
That's right, help those gormless starlets in their personal detox campaign to get off the crap, and while we're at it, help the other poor stiffs who are users but who somehow evade the limelight of Penberthy's header.
Suggested header for Penberthy's next piece on drugs?
Cheap jibes about poseurs and clubbers helping kill 10,000 Mexicans, including blaming celebrities in a pathetic personal battle with substance abuse and detoxing, or cokehead casual users in a discreet loo line in a groovy Sydney wine bar, together with shock horror stories of the drug war in Mexico, make for excellent tabloid fodder, but hide the complexities of drug usage and supply in Australia, while also obscuring the complexities of international drug trafficking, the interconnectedness of the United States, Mexico and Colombia, and the recent willingness of Mexico to provide 'personal use' laws for poseurs and clubbers interested in the use of a diverse range of substances currently illegal in Australia.
Whew, it's long, but I think you catch my drift. Now say 'no' to drugs and to media distortions ...
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