Cocaine remains the major narcotic brought illegally into the United States.
In the late 1970s, the majority of all cocaine entering this country was smuggled through south Florida. Drug smuggling later expanded into the Caribbean. The federal government responded with successful law enforcement forces that substantially restricted the drug trafficking routes. By the mid-1980s, Colombian drug traffickers had teamed up with their counterparts in Mexico. The flow of cocaine and other illegal narcotics into the United States shifted from Florida to Mexico and across the southwest border.