Higher cocaine prices show US Colombia drug strategy working: official

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2005

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Drug czar John Walters defended US drug strategy in Colombia, saying cocaine prices in the United States rose 19 percent and purity fell 15 percent as a result of the strategy.

"We have seen for the first time a decline in the purity of cocaine in the United States and an increase in price at the retail level," said Walters, who runs the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"There has been some concern about when would we see this (happen) as a measure of whether or not (cutting) supply is actually working, and we're pleased to announce that roughly, beginning in February, based on our data of sampling inside the United States, there was a change in the availability of cocaine," he said during a presentation in Washington.

Walters said...