Drug abuse in Cuba.

Abstract

Like other Caribbean nations, Cuba faces an increasing drug abuse threat, but the current pattern of trafficking and consumption varies from the norm. Logistically, the island lies only 90 miles south of Key West, Florida, on a direct flight path between the Colombian Caribbean coast and the Southeastern United States. However, drug smugglers probably have been deterred by the tightly controlled Cuban political system and by the absence of normal commercial traffic between the United States and Cuba. Consequently, the island is far less important than Central America and Mexico as a transit point for drugs, as recent seizure statistics suggest (see Table 1). Nonetheless, well-documented evidence confirms the use of Cuban territorial waters and air space to smuggle drugs north to the Florida coast. At times, collusive arrangements among high-ranking Cuban officials and the Medellin and Cali cartels in Colombia have facilitated smuggling. Some observers (especially those in the Cuban American community) believe that the Cuban Communist government abets the drug traffic as a matter of official policy. Setting such international issues aside, drug dealing undeniably is increasingly tearing at the fabric of Cuban society. Similar to other Cuban social pathologies—black markets, street crime, widespread petty corruption, and rampant prostitution—drugs graphically symbolize ongoing and painful transitions, such as the disintegration of the Castroist revolutionary order, widening economic distress and insecurity, and the reappearance of “capitalist” inequalities. Most illicit drugs that transit Cuban territory and air space are en route to the United States and Europe. Cuban officials contend that cocaine and marijuana are leaking from the pipeline and are being sold on the island, but mystery surrounds this diversion process. According to the official Cuban explanation, most drugs arrive by accident. Although tourists smuggle small quantities of drugs (especially cocaine), most of the illicit drugs that enter the Cuban market are fished from the sea or wash up on shore—the detritus of unsuccessful rendezvous to transfer drug cargoes between Colombian planes and U.S.-based speed boats. Cuban entrepreneurs then reputedly channel the drugs into an apparently growing internal market. “Years ago, since this merchandise had no commercial value, everyone who found a packet of this type handed it over to the authorities to be burned,” reported Cuba’s national prosecutor in a November 1995 interview in Bohemia , a Havana magazine. “Now people have discovered how much that’s worth, and they don’t always hand it over” (Tesoro, 1995). Moreover, recent liberalizing economic trends in Cuba could transform the still disorganized and haphazard drug supply line to the Cuban market. For example, the opening of the island to foreign tourism and investment, the growth of a parallel dollar economy, and other reforms could cement the relationship between Cuban drug dealers and South American cocaine cartels. Indeed, some Cuban authorities already suggest that traffickers are deliberately introducing cocaine into Cuba with the objective of selling the drug on the island. The potential market for such drugs comprises foreign tourists (more than one million in 1996) and the estimated 25% of Cubans who regularly receive hard currency, primarily remittances from family members overseas or compensation associated with the tourist trade. Regardless of the sophistication and size of the drug trade, both visitors and Cubans document the widespread availability of drugs on the island. For example, identifiable co-