| American policy has for too long operated on the assumption that the drug business is solely a brutal, profit-driven enterprise. That idea doesn't explain the skyrocketing death toll in the United States linked to lethal drugs. Instead, we must recognize that America faces a much larger menace. US foreign adversaries are in an asymmetric war against the United States, and dangerous drugs are their weapon. |
1 As of 2022, Venezuela is responsible for distributing close to 400-450 metric tons of cocaine out of the global cocaine market of ~1800 metric tons. Therefore, the Cartel of the Suns went from a ~1% portion of the global market in 2010 to close to ~25% of the global market today.
2 Drug trafficking can exist for purposes other than profit. That is especially true when we consider Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution that from the outset was dedicated to the development and deployment of illicit drugs for purposes of asymmetric warfare against the United States.
3 Years of training in counterintelligence by Cuba, Russia, Iran, and China, gives members of the Maduro regime advanced ability to connect illicit drug networks to regime defectors and use deception in many of their operations to penetrate adversarial governments, namely in Colombia and the United States.
4 Today, the Maduro regime's dependence on cocaine has forged deeper bonds with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) from Mexico. This relationship has seen CJNG increase its working relationships with the Venezuelan regime and its affiliates, like Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) and Grupo Armado Organizado Residual (GAOR) E-30.
5 Potential policies to legalize or decriminalize Schedule II drugs need to consider the blowback in terms of threat networks from Venezuela and beyond that have already been operationalized to harm rural, urban, and suburban communities in the United States through massive drug overdose deaths.
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[Full Text] https://www.securefreesociety.org/research/weaponized-drug-trafficking/