Are Obama and Congress ignoring drug cartel threat?

It’s the time of year when the National Drug Threat Assessment comes out from the US Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center, and no one, not even the president is talking about it. But we need to talk about it because of the toll drug use takes on the individuals and the toll drug exchanges take on the economy. The two most worrisome substances in the drug wars are cocaine and methamphetamine. Mexican and Asian drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are among the most challenging, but prescription drug abuse is a serious problem as well.

In President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday to a joint session of Congress, there were a number of omissions: national security, the drug wars, and the situation in Mexico. One visitor to our Cover it Live session noted that we have an Afghanistan south of our border. I think he’s right.

The assessment disclosed some troubling statistics. For one thing, more than 1,100 children were injured at, killed at, or removed from methamphetamine laboratory sites from 2007 through September 2008. I’d add that the owners of property where meth labs are located don’t have to divulge to a potential buyer the fact there’s been a lab on the premises. If someone’s operated such a lab, the whole place has to be decontaminated.

An eye-popper relates to prescription drugs. The assessment said, “Diversion of controlled prescription drugs costs insurance companies up to $72.5 billion annually, nearly two-thirds of which is paid by public insurers.” So your tax money and mine help feed some very unhealthy habits. The federal government is famous by now for complete lack of oversight.

With an unintentional nod to anti-illegal immigration groups, the assessment turned up the following: “Mexican DTOs represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States. The influence of Mexican DTOs over domestic drug trafficking is unrivaled. In fact, intelligence estimates indicate a vast majority of the cocaine available in U.S. drug markets is smuggled by Mexican DTOs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexican DTOs control drug distribution in most U.S. cities, and they are gaining strength in markets that they do not yet control. Recently we wrote about the vice-president of Colombia’s remarks to the Associated Press—V.P. Francisco Santos said people should realize if they use cocaine, they’re destroying the rain forests.

Mexican and Colombian DTOs generate, remove, and launder between $18 billion and $39 billion in wholesale drug proceeds annually.

Cultivation of marijuana on outdoor plots increased, but there’s a trend for Asian gangs to move their DTOs, linked by nationwide networks, to indoor operations. Asian DTOs expanded their indoor cannabis cultivation operations in 2007 to new areas, including Cleveland, Denver, Houston, and Los Angeles. Expansion of indoor cannabis cultivation operations will most likely continue in 2009.

Cocaine availability decreased, but cocaine is still the leading drug threat. Methamphetamine is the second leading drug threat, followed by marijuana, heroin, pharmaceutical drugs, and MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy) respectively. The relative threat posed by a specific drug requires a subjective analytic assessment based on many considerations, such as the cost of interdiction, seizure, and eradication; the number of individuals using or addicted to the drug; the level of availability in U.S. drug markets; the extent and organization of distribution groups; the level of violence associated with distribution and use of the drug; the level of property crime associated with use of the drug; and the level of involvement by international drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) and gangs.

Some question spending millions to eradicate marijuana when so many other substances are far more dangerous to the user and to society. On Tuesday, The L.A. Times reported a California assemblyman said, “[ i]t's time to tax and regulate the state's biggest cash crop in the same manner as alcohol.”

With the U.S. in a bind for money, it’s obvious something needs to be done about the more than $100 billion going down the tubes from various drug activities. How much of that money is sitting in offshore bank accounts?

The drug assessment raises serious questions about a problem no one in Washington is talking about at the moment. But officials who live in border towns have plenty to say. Texas governor Rick Perry reiterated his request that the Texas Legislature appropriate $135 million for continued border security funding to combat transnational gangs. The governor met with Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, local leaders and law enforcement to discuss border security issues and the escalating, drug-related violence in Mexico.

Unfortunately, some politicians turn a blind eye to the problem, afraid to do anything because they’re unwilling to alienate potential votes from immigrants.