Most drug profits go to smuggling organizations, not producers

Who profits from the drug war? Smuggling organizations. That's where all the money is. Eleonora Maria Pani at Equilibri.net breaks down the revenue for cocaine at different stages of the production and distribution chain:

• 2% goes to those that provide for the cultivation of coca leaves;
• 0.7% belongs to those working to transform coca leaves into coca paste and the same amount belongs to those who further the refinement of the drug, transforming it into hydrochloric cocaine, also known as pure cocaine;
• those whose focus is the transportation and wholesale of the product, with an additional 10% of additives, absorb 5.2% of the income;
• what remains, about 91%, is absorbed by the various organizations that provide, in successive phases, for the arrival of the product to consumers.

Imagine: With all the money floating around in the cocaine trade, just 2.7% goes to those who cultivate and process the leaves in their home countries! Yet according to Pani and many others, many regions have become utterly reliant economically on profits from growing coca, poppy, marijuana, and other illegal plants.

How much cheaper might it be to pay for alternative employment at higher wages for poor folks in Latin America than to spend billions attempting to destroy their main source of sustenance? With the stick having failed, perhaps the use of the carrot is in order? Of course, that's not what President Bush wants to do with the $1.4 billion he wants to spend playing cops and robbers in Mexico. But maybe it should be.