International Narcotics Control Strategy Report

Cover of Volume I of the 2019 edition

Cover of Volume I of the 2019 edition

International Narcotics Control Strategy Report

Publication

Author	United States Department of State: Bureau of International Narcotics Matters; from 1995 the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Language	English
Published	Annual, from the 1980s; each edition covers the previous calendar year
Publisher	United States Department of State
Place	Washington
Volumes	One a year; in two volumes by 2019 (vol. II on money laundering and financial crimes)

Cannabis Content

Volume	Vol. I, Drug and Chemical Control: country chapters, methodology, production and cultivation tables
Regions documented	Belize; Brazil; Cambodia; Colombia; Costa Rica; Egypt; Eswatini; Fiji; Guatemala; Jamaica; Lebanon; Mexico; Panama; Philippines; Sri Lanka; Sudan; Thailand; Trinidad and Tobago; Turkmenistan
Preparations	Marijuana; hashish
Uses documented	Growing for the illicit trade; seizures and eradication

Access

Digital facsimile	Early editions at HathiTrust
Original held at	National Criminal Justice Reference Service (scans of the 1986, 1988 and 1991 editions); HathiTrust (1992–1995 editions)

The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) is the annual report of the United States Department of State to Congress on drug control in other countries. It is prepared under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and since the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 it has supplied the facts for the President's decisions on the major drug-producing and drug-transit countries.^: 1: 2 Its country chapters report on cannabis growing, eradication, seizures and trafficking, and its tables give the United States government's estimates of drug crops and production, which have included cannabis and marijuana.^{: 7–11: 25}

The report is written by the government that funds and urges eradication abroad, and it grades other countries' efforts for a decision on aid. It is evidence of that policy as much as it documents cannabis, and its own methodology sections call its crop figures estimates of potential, not of actual, production.^{: 7–8: 20–21}

Origins and legal basis

The 1988 edition says that it was prepared under section 481 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and that it was the second annual report under section 2005 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. That law held back certain aid from major drug-producing and drug-transit countries at the start of each fiscal year until the President certified them on the following 1 March. The President could certify a country that had "cooperated fully" with the United States, certify it on grounds of the national interest, or deny certification, which brought statutory sanctions. The 1988 report gave, in its words, "the factual basis for the President's 1988 certifications".^: 1 An earlier edition is dated 1 February 1986.

By 2019 the report was prepared under section 489 of the Foreign Assistance Act. That edition, published in March 2019, covers the calendar year 2018 and has two volumes, the second on money laundering and financial crimes. It also supplies the facts for the President's annual list of major drug-transit and major illicit drug-producing countries, the "majors list", made under section 706 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003.^: 2

Publishers

The report is the work of the State Department's narcotics bureau. From 1971 the Secretary of State had a Senior Adviser on Narcotics. On 1 October 1978 Congress authorised an Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters, who headed the Bureau for International Narcotics Matters (INM). The Assistant Secretary's title was changed to International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs on 10 February 1995. The editions of 1986, 1988 and 1991 name the Bureau of International Narcotics Matters as their author; the 2019 volume names the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

The bureau did not write alone. The 1991 edition says it was prepared in consultation with other State Department bureaus, United States embassies, the DEA, the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, among others.^{: title verso}

Cannabis in the report

The cannabis threshold

The law that defines a major illicit drug-producing country, as the 2019 edition prints it, counts 1,000 hectares or more of opium poppy or of coca grown in a year, but 5,000 hectares or more of cannabis, "unless the President determines that such illicit cannabis production does not significantly affect the United States".^: 5

Estimates and their limits

The executive summary of 1991 sets out what the government knew and did not know. The most reliable figure, it says, was the area under cultivation, which the government had estimated "in a dozen nations" for more than a decade. Yields were less certain, because most growing areas were closed to American observers. The figures were estimates of the potential crop, with no allowance for losses that could reach "a tenth to a third (or more)" of a harvest, and the government could not yet estimate the amount actually harvested "for any illicit crop in any nation". That year, for the first time, it separated the usable, smokable yield of Mexican marijuana from the yield of the whole dry plant.^: 7–8

The same summary reports that cannabis growing had fallen in most of the major producing countries. In Colombia's traditional growing zones "virtually no measurable growth was detected in 1990". Mexico's estimated area fell from about 54,000 hectares in 1989 to about 35,000 in 1990. Jamaica's eradication, carried out with American help, destroyed over 1,000 hectares, yet the estimated potential yield rose to about 825 tonnes from 190 the year before.^: 11

The Colombian chapters of the following years show where the figures came from. The 1994 edition put Colombian cannabis at 5,000 hectares, "based on visual reconnaissance of traditional growing areas".^: 105 A footnote to the 1995 edition's statistics table reads: "Reported cannabis cultivation has not been confirmed by USG survey."^: 88

By 2019 the methodology section described estimates based on agricultural surveys with satellite imagery and studies of crop yields, and warned that the numbers "should not be seen as precise figures". All estimates of production, marijuana included, assumed that every plant grown was harvested and processed. Figures from host governments and other organisations were printed under their names, "especially when we cannot independently verify it".^: 20–22 The 2019 table of world drug-crop cultivation lists cannabis for one country only, Mexico, at between 11,000 and 13,000 hectares in each year from 2011 to 2016 for which it gives a figure.^: 25

Country chapters

Each edition has chapters on single countries or regions, with their growing, eradication, seizures and trafficking. The bureau drew on American embassies and other agencies, and printed host governments' figures under their names.^{: title verso: 22} The government revises its methods, and at times its estimates, as field research and technology change, so that direct comparison with earlier years is sometimes not possible.^: 20–21

See also

• Bulletin on Narcotics
• Herbicide spraying in Colombia
• Herbicide spraying of cannabis
• Latin American Study Missions Concerning International Narcotics Problems (1986)
• Lebanese hashish trade
• Palk Strait ganja trade
• United States and cannabis eradication abroad
• Countries: Belize, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Eswatini, Fiji, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Philippines, Sudan, Turkmenistan

References

Belize Brazil Cambodia Colombia Costa Rica Egypt Eswatini Fiji Guatemala Jamaica Lebanon Mexico Panama Philippines Sri Lanka Sudan Thailand Trinidad and Tobago Turkmenistan Hashish Recreational Periodical Annual government report