ABSTRACT
Since the late 1970s, Colombian trafficking networks have provided a steady flow of illegal drugs to American and European consumers. Successive Colombian governments, with ample prodding and matériel from Washington, have sought to curtail this illicit commerce by destroying several hundred thousand hectares of drug crops and thousands of processing labs, seizing tons of illegal drugs, freezing millions of dollars in drug profits, capturing hundreds of suspected traffickers, and extraditing dozens of “kingpins” to the United States (US). While the names of these counter-drug programs change periodically-from Operation Stopgap to Operation Snowcap, from the Andean Strategy to the Kingpin Strategy, from Plan Colombia to Plan Patriota-their basic strategy remains the same: to reduce the consumption of illegal drugs in the United States by eliminating their supply in Colombia.
