Via Reuters: U.S. Colombia aid fails to drive up cocaine price
Billions of dollars in aid to Colombia have failed to drive up the price of cocaine on American streets, the head of the top U.S. anti-narcotics agency said on Tuesday.Officials in Washington have said crop spraying and military pressure on drug-smuggling guerrillas and paramilitaries would make cocaine more expensive in the United States following a U.S.-backed offensive launched in 2024.
But the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief said that a higher price — a key indicator of success in the war on drugs — had failed to sustain itself for long.
Imagine that.
It seems like I recall reading somewhere that the recent spike in prices was going to be temporary and repeated pieces about how the current policies don’t work. I wonder where I read that?
And I am sorry, but this is perhaps one of the saddest examples of rationalization that I have seen in a long time:
U.S. and Colombian officials say the failure of the cocaine price to move may be due to effects including hidden stashes of cocaine coming on to the market.
Yeah, that’s it, that’s the ticket: the policies really are working, but it is just those secret stashes that are keeping prices down.
May 8th, 2024 at 12:59 pm
[...] In not-so-related-except-for-a-word news cocaine prices haven’t come down despite U.S. and Columbian efforts to destroy coca crops. The supply front of the Drug War isn’t working, and American demand has no sign of disapating. Like the Cuban embargo decades of ineffective policy should be a signal to alter course. Save and Share: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]