Cocaine is making a comeback in South Florida.
Colombian cocaine production is at a record high, and traffickers are bringing the drug into the southern half of the Sunshine State more now than in the last decade, Drug Enforcement Administration officials say.
While Americans turned their attention to confront an opioid epidemic, Colombia has been producing more cocaine than at the height of the Miami drug wars in the 1980s, they say.
“There is a mountain of cocaine, much of it is likely headed our way,” said Justin Miller, intelligence chief for the DEA’s Miami field division. “But we are already seeing these drug combinations, and cocaine deaths are already going up significantly.”
Generally, 90 percent of the cocaine seized in the U.S. is traced back to Colombia, which already has tripled production over the past few years, Miller said.
Florida’s Customs and Border Protection says it had slightly fewer seizures but still confiscated 61 percent more cocaine — nearly 9,500 pounds — last year over the prior year.
Because of the time lag between drug production and distribution, the full impact has just begun to hit the U.S., say DEA officials.
Overdose deaths related to the white powder are at their highest since 2007 in Florida, according to the state Medical Examiner Commission. Cocaine overdose deaths climbed year over year from 2012 to 2015, the latest figures available, rising from 1,318 to 1,834 deaths.
And South Florida saw 614 overdose fatalities in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties in 2015 — a 29 percent increase over the prior year.
Cocaine was second only to fentanyl — a cheap, synthetic painkiller — in contributing to Florida overdose deaths in the first half of the last year, medical examiner records show.
Authorities predict the boom in the production and availability of cocaine will lead to even more overdose deaths, especially when the drug is combined with other narcotics like heroin.
Producing more cocaine
Cocaine production has surged since October 2015 when the Colombian government stopped aerial spraying of herbicides over coca fields used to make cocaine, Miller said. The Colombian government ended the decadeslong program over health concerns.
“The aerial spraying worked quite well,” said Richard Mangan, a former DEA agent and Florida Atlantic University criminal justice professor. “But there was a lot of pushback after a while to the damage it was doing to legitimate crops, the damage it was doing to people.”
But even before the program ended, DEA reports indicated the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, more commonly known as FARC, encouraged farmers to plant more coca ahead of the government’s peace agreement with the rebel group, signed last November, according to a report this year from the U.S. Department of State.
At the same time, the Colombian government cut back operations to uproot coca fields in FARC-controlled territory while farmers used blockades and improvised explosive devices to limit access to fields, according to the report.
The DEA estimates Colombia produced 710 tons of pure cocaine last year, or enough to fill about 18 semitrucks.
“We’ve never seen cocaine production at these numbers, which tells you there is more cocaine being produced now than at the height of the Medellin and Cali cartels,” Miller said. “That’s significant.”
Not all of that cocaine heads to the U.S., but the bulk of it does, he added.
The increase is already driving down prices in Miami, and more generally, in South Florida, Miller said.
One kilo — about 2.2 pounds — of pure cocaine was worth between $28,000 and $35,000 two to three years ago, he said. Today, the same amount is worth $26,000 to $28,000.
On the streets of Miami, a gram sells for between $50 and $80 these days, Miller said.
Drug wars of the past
South Florida long ago drew national attention over cocaine problems.
On July 11, 1979, two men stepped out of a white Ford van in broad daylight and gunned down a pair of men at the Dadeland Mall in Miami-Dade. The bloody execution was tied to Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, his Medellin cartel and the drug trade in South Florida.
The incident marked the beginning of the era of the “cocaine cowboys.”
Over the next decade, South Florida became the main artery for cocaine shipments heading for U.S. markets. Cocaine and cash flooded the streets. Drug dealers walked into banks with bags full of cash, and Colombian drug violence spilled over into American cities as criminal organizations fought for control.
But unlike the days of Escobar, today’s cocaine producers are more decentralized, in large part due to government efforts to take down large-scale criminal organizations.
“Now you have these smaller cartels, they don’t want to run for Congress like Escobar or run TV stations like the Cali cartel, they want to remain low profile,” Mangan said.
Colombian criminal organizations still have ties to South Florida to help launder cash, but remain smaller and less violent than during the heyday of the Miami drug wars.
Often Colombian producers sell their product wholesale to drug traffickers in the Caribbean, who skip from island to island by air and sea, evading patrols in the Gulf of Mexico and offloading their products in South Florida and other destinations, Miller said.
Miami and Orlando remain a point of arrival for cocaine shipped from Colombia, though more cocaine is trafficked over the U.S. border with Mexico than anywhere else, according to DEA reports.
Traffickers today are sneaking cocaine into South Florida on cheap speedboats, shipping containers and commercial flights, DEA reports show.
In the last decade, traffickers also have begun using semi-submersible ships designed to be barely visible on the ocean’s surface. Underneath the water hide hollow containers filled with drugs and manned by crews of three to four people, Mangan said.
“Unless you are right on top of it, it is almost impossible to detect,” he said.
A deadly drug cocktail
Cocaine overdose deaths peaked in the state in 2007, declined with the Great Recession and are again on the rise, said Jim Hall, epidemiologist for Nova Southeastern University.
“I think all the attention we have given to opioids might give the impression that cocaine is a safer drug,” Hall said.
Last August a 28-year-old Lake Worth resident died from a fatal combination of cocaine and fentanyl, according to a medical examiner report.
Sterling Redwine was a heroin addict in recovery, but died with a crack pipe in his hand. His mother, Wendy Fields, thinks he used cocaine to avoid relapsing on heroin, she said.
“He did not want to turn back to heroin, however for whatever reason, he felt he had to have something that day. Unfortunately, what he had was also cut with fentanyl,” Fields said.
Across the state, more and more users are “speed balling” cocaine and opioids like fentanyl, metastasizing the number of deaths amid the opioid epidemic.
Of the 1,144 cocaine-related overdose deaths statewide in the first half of last year, 88 percent involved at least one other drug, Hall said.
Often drug users don’t know what they are taking. Heroin can be cut with drugs such as fentanyl, xanax and cocaine. The DEA has also analyzed samples of cocaine-fentanyl combinations in the last few years, according to a report.
And Florida likely will see more overdose deaths as potency and availability increases, Hall said.
“Substance abuse in this stage of the 21st century is more hazardous, more dangerous, more addictive and more deadly than at any other point in our lifetimes,” Hall said.
I bet that SOUTH FLORIDA is glad that AG Pam Bondi “ran all the oxy docs” out of Florida a couple of years back. I wonder what she is going to do about all the illegal Cocaine traffickers coming to South Florida… I doubt if they will set up store fronts like the “oxy docs” and doubtful they will create a “paper trail” like a medical office.. and one other important factor… odds are they will be ARMED TO THE TEETH and not concerned about shooting those in law enforcement that are interfering with their business plan and profits..
Hello Steve
Personally, I REFUSE to patronize any business that wants me to jump thru hoops and hurdles or BEG THEM… in order to give them my money… 
