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Drug report: Latin American trade is worrying

02 March 2011 23:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Drug trafficking in Mexico is on the rise despite government action, and Brazil is increasingly being used as a transit point for the shipment of South American cocaine to West Africa, a narcotics watchdog group said in an annual report released Wednesday, APA reports quoting â€œAssociated Pressâ€.
The International Narcotics Control Board also criticized the Bolivian government for a lack of action in combating production of coca, the raw material of cocaine.
Coca is a mild stimulant that has high religious and social value in the Andean region, where it is used to fight hunger and alleviate altitude sickness.
President Evo Morales, a former coca growers union leader who expelled U.S. drug agents three years ago, has promoted traditional uses of coca leaf while professing zero tolerance for cocaine trafficking.
But the INCB cited a report from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime noting that Bolivia’s overall coca cultivation had increased 1 percent in 2009 over the previous year, to 119 square miles (308 square kilometers). INCB said that was enough land to allow for the harvest of 40,200 tons of coca leaves â€” the largest amount in Bolivia since 1998.
"Those developments could increase the risk of coca leaf being diverted for use in the illicit manufacture of cocaine," the report stated.
The INCB lauded the Mexican government’s efforts to battle drug gangs despite brutal violence. It also applauded efforts to fight corruption, but stated that "strong ties continue to exist between drug cartels and some law enforcement authorities."
"Corruption has severely hindered the effectiveness of law enforcement in Mexico," the report concluded, noting that the government acknowledged as much when it announced a need to reduce the ability of drug cartels to infiltrate and corrupt authorities.
The report also said that 90 percent of the cocaine that enters the U.S. flows through Mexico, but that Mexican cartels get most of their money from marijuana sales: $8.5 billion annually, or 61 percent of their annual income.
In Brazil, drug traffickers are increasingly using the country’s northeast to smuggle "a significant portion of cocaine from Bolivia, Colombia and Peru," the report found.
The INCB’s report recognized Brazil’s efforts to curb this trade, but called upon the government "to further intensify its efforts in this regard."