William R. Brownfield

Implementation of an effective counternarcotics plan for Colombia is more important now than ever.

We must not forget that one of the parties to the accord has been designated for years as a foreign terrorist organization.

If we do not have an adequate and functioning road system, counter-narcotic strategy will not succeed.

To solve the problem, we must cut off international supply.

This opioid crisis is perhaps our worst drug crisis in 30 years.

I do believe that the federal Government of Mexico today has far better, more professional, better trained and equipped institutions than they did at the start of the Merida Initiative 7 or 8 years ago.

He is trying to bring to conclusion a 50-year armed conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Colombian citizens.

If you take ivory completely out of any commercial value whatsoever, you have the impact of discouraging the criminal networks from continuing to poach.

The overwhelming majority of the heroin that is now entering the United States is coming from Mexico.

If we are not working with those partners, we are at a minimum--at a minimum--failing to make use of a very effective means to multiply the impact of whatever we are doing.

I, in fact, do believe the United States of America is confronting a nationwide heroin crisis.