Number: RL33582
Title: International Drug Trade and U.S. Foreign Policy
Authors: Raphael F. Perl, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division 
Abstract: Recently, U.S. policy toward Colombia has focused increasingly on containing the terrorist threat to that country's security posed by groups engaged in drug trafficking. The high national priority given to terrorism has resulted in enhanced focus on links between drug and terror groups. A challenge facing policymakers is not to divert counter-drug resources for anti-terror ends in areas of potentially low payoff. An issue likely to receive continued attention in the 109th Congress is that of skyrocketing opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and whether to press for aerial crop eradication against the wishes of the local Afghan leadership.
Pages: 17
Date: November 6, 2006