In recent weeks the US has struck alleged narcotics smuggling boats and kidnapped a foreign head of state. One excuse given for these attacks was that Venezuela was responsible for some of the flow of narcotics into the USA. Here we dismantle this facile argument because, for all this force projection, Washington still refuses to confront the real source of its drugs problem: American demand.
For decades now the US has aggressively pursued a strategy of attacking the supply of narcotics, never demand. That strategy has seen the US attack cartel figures and operations across Latin America. Here are the words of Acting Administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Agency, Robert Murphy, in the 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA):
“DEA’s goal in publishing the NDTA is to put a spotlight on the immense harm being perpetrated against our country by Mexican cartels and their networks … DEA, alongside our federal, state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement partners is relentless in combatting drug trafficking and defeating the ruthless organizations responsible for poisoning Americans.”
And yet, this strategy has not made a dent in the supply of narcotics to the USA, nor meaningfully reduced the number of US drug-related deaths. According to the NDTA “in the 12-month period ending October 2024, 84,076 Americans died from drug overdose” per CDC figures, and 112,910 Americans died from overdoses across the same period in the prior year. Even if the recent decline reflects wider access to overdose-reversal drugs rather than a genuine disruption in supply, 84,000 deaths in a single year is not evidence of success. It is evidence of systemic failure.
The entire NDTA document surrounds this narrative that Mexican cartels, in particular the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nuevo Generacion (CJNG), are perniciously inflicting harm on Americans, and are solely responsible for the flow of narcotics into the USA that poisons American citizens. This completely fails to acknowledge that, in truth, it is American demand for narcotics that explains why the cartels exist, why they supply drugs into the USA, and why their violence devastates both US communities and those of long-suffering transit states.
Across Mexico and Colombia there is a deep and justified resentment toward the drug trade, and drug abuse among their populations remains far lower than in the United States. Make light of the subject and you will quickly provoke anger – most Mexicans and Colombians hate the drug trade more than you realise. They have watched their nations torn apart by the criminal groups that control the trade and are deeply resentful of any insinuation that they could condone or be a part of it. And they know full well that the ultimate reason that their countries have been ravaged by cartels, that their murder rates are so high, is utterly because of the demand that Americans (and Europeans) express for narcotics. In 2020 there were 28,328 organized-crime related deaths in Mexico alone, and in a typical year that figure never falls beneath 25,000. It is Mexicans and Colombians that suffer because of American narcotics abuse – not the other way around.
As you’d imagine, hard data on narcotics consumption is challenging to collate – not least because the US Federal Government ceased the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring programme in 2003. However, according to a 2019 RAND Corporation report in 2016 Americans spent nearly US$150Bn on cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. It goes on to say that between 2006 and 2016 Americans spent between $120Bn and $145Bn per annum on those four narcotics, whereas Americans spent $158Bn on alcohol in 2017. More, the report says, in 2015 and 2016 there were 2.4 million Americans that routinely used cocaine four or more days per month.
With this kind of vast US demand for narcotics, with those stratospheric sums of money on the table, is it really any wonder that the cartels are so ruthless and determined in maintaining the flow of narcotics into the US? And do we think that that supply will ever dwindle, regardless how many cartel leaders are killed or captured, if such demand continues? Of course not. And yet, the DEA continues and continues to pursue a strategy of attacking narcotics supply, never the mountain of US demand.
The US’ drugs problem is a domestic issue first and foremost. Until Washington confronts American demand rather than externalising blame, the violence will continue – and the citizens of Colombia, Mexico, and other Latin nations will continue to suffer the scourge of cartels.