war on cocaine :: essays research papers

â€Å"The potential supply of drugs is virtually unlimited; trafficking routes and points of entry into the U.S. are multitudinous; and once destroyed laboratories, drug shipments, planes, money, chemicals, and other trafficking assets can be replaced easily.† Robert L. Clawson and Rensselaer W. Lee give their readers insight into cocaine trafficking, the effects of cocaine on the Andes, and what has been done to lower the amount of cocaine produced and exported. Together the authors paint a picture that the cocaine trade is here to stay and that it has not fundamentally changed since the 1980s. They are realists about the severe limitations on any element of U.S. and international strategy to control supplies of coca and cocaine in countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. Clawson and Lee state, â€Å"Our suspicion is that the most effective counter narcotics program for the Andean nations will be ones that are designed by and implemented by governments concerned, rath er than by the United States or International Aid Agencies.† When the counter narcotics efforts were initially implemented they sometimes seemed successful, but the drug traffickers quickly learned how to beat the system. International counter narcotics efforts in the 1980s and 1990s have been unsuccessful in eliminating the drug cartels by extraditing, eradicating coca, or having a strong, counter trafficking effect on the supply of drugs in the Andean countries. These counter narcotics efforts are the best examples of the poor performance level of International cocaine control.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the counter narcotic efforts was to eliminate the drug cartels, which were revolutionizing the production and transport of multiton loads of cocaine to foreign markets. The Medellin cartel and the Cali cartel are often remembered as two of the more dominant drug trafficking organizations in the 1980s and 1990s. The Medellin Cartel is considered to be the more violent drug organization. Followed by the less violent organization, known as the Cali cartel, which took over the cocaine trade after the Medellin cartel fell apart. Pablo Escobar was the original pioneer of the Medellin Cartel. He also was the leader of it from the mid eighties all the way till his assassination by the Medellin Search Bloc in December of 1993. Pablo Escobar and other members of the Medellin cartel successfully accomplished their political objective, which was to defeat the U.S.-Colombian extradition treaty and dominate the Colombian justice system. The U.S. extradition treaty was important in that it allowed for Colombia to send traffickers to the United States for trial and sentencing.