Every March for the past 28 years, the Department of State has submitted to the U.S. Congress the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, or INCSR. The Report, which does not exempt the United States from consideration in some of its sections, assesses countries' efforts to fight drug trafficking and money laundering during the previous 12 months.
According to this year's report, the governments of Bolivia, Burma and Venezuela “failed demonstratively” in their counternarcotics efforts to fight drugs.
Bolivia has failed to implement adequate controls on coca leaf growing, which lead to an increase in coca and potential cocaine production.
Burma is a top heroin producer, second only to Afghanistan, states the report. Burma's ruling military government allows armed groups to traffic in drugs with minimal risk of interference in their traditional geographic enclaves.
And due to Venezuela's "permissive and corrupt environment," it has become a major drug transit country. According to the report, in 2010, Venezuela was "one of the preferred trafficking routes out of South America to the Eastern Caribbean, Central America, the United States, Europe and western Africa."
The report also found that while the United States was the main destination for illicit drug shipments, Western Europe was the world's largest market for cocaine. Russia was also found to be suffering from the highest level of opiate abuse in Europe.
The manufacture, trafficking and use of synthetic drugs have significantly increased in east and Southeast Asia in the past 2 years. Some 25 percent of all injecting drug abusers in the world live in East and Southeast Asia.
Cannabis is still the drug most widely produced, trafficked and abused in Africa, with some 5 to 10 percent of 16 to 64 year olds partaking of the drug. East Africa is an important transit route for smuggling heroin from Asia to Africa, and cocaine smuggling through Africa to Europe is on the rise.
The illicit drug trade is a deadly game for any country. Like a disease attacking a weakened immune system, the drug trade exploits conditions of economic, social or institutional underdevelopment and flourishes in an atmosphere of governmental corruption.
The United States encourages regional cooperation against narcotics trafficking, and partners with countries around the world determined to combat the international drug trade.
The Report assesses countries' efforts to fight drug trafficking and money laundering during the previous twelve months.
