Drugs Are Key Florida Industry

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Illegal drugs have become a mainstay of Florida’s economy, pumping more than $6 billion a year into the Sunshine State’s financial heart.

If the drug problem were to somehow be eliminated overnight, the St. Petersburg Times reported Sunday, Florida’s economy likely would go into a dramatic tailspin.

“This place would be a wasteland,” said Steve Schlessinger, a federal prosecutor with the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. “It’s the biggest industry in South Florida by far.”

One expert estimates that drug lords and all the industries they support bring at least $6 billion to the South Florida economy alone. That is almost $1 billion more than all the revenues produced by Florida’s agriculture industry, including citrus.

Drug money has bankrolled all kinds of businesses, the paper said. Drug money has built and bought housing, and in some places has driven real estate costs sky-high. It has supported numerous banking institutions and created jobs for the police, prosecutors, judges and jailers hired to fight it.

Drugs have also provided windfalls for law enforcement agencies that confiscate property and money belonging to convicted dealers. Gov. Bob Martinez, for example, frequently travels in a $600,000 twin-engine plane confiscated from Pinellas County smuggler Joseph Valverde.