The Futility of Coca Eradication

Juan Forero has a worthwhile article in today's New York Times that really underscores the futility of coca eradication in Colombia:

Yet, like any big business used to highs and lows, with shifting demand and impediments to supply, the cocaine trade has shown it can adapt. And so it has, again, developing new markets, abandoning the coca plantations that made an easy target for aerial spraying and developing new and more potent strains of coca plants.

Consider recent production figures. American estimates peg potential cocaine production in the Andes at 835 metric tons, down from the 2001 high of 1,155. But that level remains nearly as high as in the 1990's, when the bustling cocaine trade prompted President Bill Clinton to embark on the biggest military buildup in the Andes ever, called Plan Colombia.

The amount of cocaine produced here is, in fact, more than enough to satisfy demand in the United States, estimated at 250 to 300 metric tons annually, and in the rest of the world, for that matter. One result is that on American streets, the price of cocaine remains low - just $20,000 in New York for a kilogram, 2.2 pounds - and the purity level remains high, what drug experts say are indicators of a perfectly healthy business.

I'm hardly an expert on this subject, but it seems to me that unless you're prepared to defoliate the enitre country, this is a problem that needs to be solved on the demand side.