High cocaine prices cited as success sign

BOGOTA, Colombia – Interruptions of the flow of cocaine to the United States are causing street prices to rise, a sign that the war on drugs is working, the White House drug czar said here Thursday.

John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, told reporters that interdictions in Colombia, in other countries along cocaine transit routes and on the open seas were reducing supplies of the drug in the United States. His assessment was based on price and purity data from 37 major U.S. cities.

As a result of reduced supply, street cocaine prices over the first nine months of the year rose to an average $136.93 per pure gram at the end of September, a 44 percent increase over the average in January, he said. Price and purity data were supported by other measures, including reduced evidence of cocaine use as measured in workplace tests, he said.

Bumps in U.S. street prices for cocaine have occurred before, and each time they have been touted by U.S. law-enforcement officials as evidence that counternarcotics policies work. But previous spikes have proved temporary – followed by supply adjustments by drug dealers and a settling back of cocaine prices.

However, Walters said his office had not seen a rise in prices this extended since the White House started tracking the data. “Nine months isn’t temporary in my view,” Walters said.

Critics who concede that more cocaine is being seized point out that data on Colombian coca cultivation do not show conclusively that production is down. Others, such as Bill Piper, director of national affairs for Drug Policy Alliance, a New York-based organization advocating alternatives to the war on drugs, said higher prices inevitably would cause dealers to react with more supply.

“Assuming that high cocaine prices are hurting cartels is like assuming high gasoline prices are hurting oil companies,” Piper said.

Others say the scarcities might only reflect the fact that more Colombian cocaine is being shipped to Europe, where traffickers can fetch higher prices.

The announcement comes as the House and Senate are hammering out a fiscal 2008 version of Plan Colombia, the U.S. aid program that so far has totaled $5 billion to fight drugs and terrorism here. The aid has brought improved security to Colombia but mixed results in the drug war.