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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon

Time: 9:11 pm

Results for war on drugs

70 results found

Author: Mejia, Daniel

Title: The War on Illegal Drugs in Producer and Consumer Countries: A Simple Analytical Framework

Summary: This paper develops a model of the war against illegal drugs in both producer and consumer countries. The paper studies the trade-off faced by the government of the drug consumer country between prevention policies (aimed at reducing the demand for drugs) and enforcement policies (aimed at reducing the production and trafficking of drugs), and shows how the optimal allocation of resources between these two alternatives depends on the key parameters of the model. We use available data for the war on drugs in Colombia, and against consumption in the U.S., to calibrate the unobservable parameters of the model, such as the price elasticity of demand for cocaine; the effectiveness of prevention and treatment policies; and the relative effectiveness of interdiction efforts.

Details: Munich: CESifo, 2008. 23p.

Source: Internet Resource: CESifo Working Paper, No. 2459: Accessed September 14, 2010 at: http://www.cesifo.de/DocCIDL/cesifo1_wp2459.pdf

Year: 2008

Country: International

URL: http://www.cesifo.de/DocCIDL/cesifo1_wp2459.pdf

Shelf Number: 119800

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
Drug Prevention
Drug Trafficking
Drug Treatment
Plan Colombia
War on Drugs

Author: Transform Drug Policy Foundation

Title: The War on Drugs: Creating Crime, Enriching Criminals

Summary: The global war on drugs has been fought for over 50 years, to achieve its stated goal of a “drug-free world”. Yet despite the ever increasing resources spent on police and military efforts to suppress the illicit drug trade, supply has more than kept pace with rising global demand. Indeed, most indicators suggest drugs are cheaper and more available than ever before. This briefing summarises the crime-related costs stemming from the war on drugs, which include: • Organised crime arising from the illicit drug trade, and its knock-on effects in terms of money laundering, corruption and violence • Street-level crime committed by drug gangs and by dependent drug users attempting to support their habits • The criminalisation of users, excessive levels of incarceration, and crimes committed by governments under the banner of the drug war • The economic costs of drug war-related crime, and the criminal justice response to it There is overlap with other areas of the Count the Costs initiative – human rights (including a detailed discussion of prison issues), security and development, discrimination and stigma, public health, the environment and economics.

Details: London: Transform Drug Policy Founcation, 2011. 14p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 12, 2012 at:

Year: 2011

Country: International

URL:

Shelf Number: 123567

Keywords:
Drug Policy
Drug Trafficking
Illicit Drugs
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Transform Drug Policy Foundation

Title: The War on Drugs: Causing Deforestation and Pollution

Summary: Examining a range of environmental issues surrounding the war on drugs, the briefing includes several case studies as well as sections on: •The futility of drug crop eradications •The aerial fumigation of drug crops, a practice that is still permitted in the world’s second most biodiverse country, Colombia •The deforestation that occurs as law enforcement drives drug crop producers into ever more remote and ecologically valuable regions •The pollution caused by unregulated, illicit drug production methods While some of the consequences of the war on drugs are relatively well known and understood by those aware of the issue, the environmental impacts of current drug policy are seldom given proper consideration. This must change. As this briefing outlines, if these environmental costs are to be minimised or avoided, alternative forms of drug control must be explored.

Details: London: Transform Drug Policy Foundation, 2011. 12p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 12, 2012 at: http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Environment-briefing.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: International

URL: http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Environment-briefing.pdf

Shelf Number: 123591

Keywords:
Crop Eradication
Deforestation
Drug Control
Drug Policy
Environment
Pollution
War on Drugs

Author: Transform Drug Policy Foundation

Title: The War on Drugs: Undermining Human Rights

Summary: The global “war on drugs” has been fought for 50 years, without preventing the long-term trend of increasing drug supply and use. Beyond this failure, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has identified many serious “unintended negative consequences” of the drug war – including widespread human rights abuses.(1) These human rights costs result not from drug use itself, but from choosing a punitive enforcement-led approach that, by its nature, criminalises many users, often the most vulnerable in society, and places organised criminals in control of the trade. This briefing summarises these human rights costs. There is naturally overlap with other areas of the Count the Costs project, including: security and development, discrimination and stigma, public health, crime, the environment, and economics.

Details: London: Transform Drug Policy Foundation, 2011. 18p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 17, 2012 at: http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Human_rights_briefing.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: International

URL: http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Human_rights_briefing.pdf

Shelf Number: 123633

Keywords:
Drug Control
Drug Policy
Human Rights
War on Drugs

Author: Bricker, Kristin

Title: Military Justice and Impunity in Mexico’s Drug War

Summary: Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s military deployment to combat the country’s war on drugs has been strongly criticized by international human rights groups. During Calderón’s administration, over 47,337 people have been killed and thousands of human rights complaints have been filed against the military. The Inter- American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has issued several binding rulings that obligate Mexico to strip the military of its jurisdiction to investigate and try soldiers accused of violating civilians’ human rights. On July 12, 2011, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that Congress must reform the Code of Military Justice so that human rights abuse cases always fall under civilian jurisdiction. The Arce Initiative, brought forward by Senator René Arce from Mexico’s opposition party, is the only proposed reform that complies with the IACtHR rulings and international human rights law. The Merida Initiative, a US aid package designed to assist in the fight against the war on drugs, places too much emphasis on the military and law enforcement, and needs to be revised. Civilian rule of law in Mexico can be strengthened by donor governments who are willing to help implement measures to increase transparency, combat corruption and rampant human rights abuses, and ease the transition to an accusatorial oral justice system.

Details: Waterloo, ONT: Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2011. 15p.

Source: Internet Resource: SSR Issue Papers: No. 3: Accessed January 19, 2012 at: http://mafiaandco.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/military-justice-and-impunity-in-mexico_s-drug-war.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: Mexico

URL: http://mafiaandco.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/military-justice-and-impunity-in-mexico_s-drug-war.pdf

Shelf Number: 123665

Keywords:
Corruption
Drug Trafficking (Mexico)
Human Rights
War on Drugs

Author: Osler, Mark

Title: What Would It Look Like If We Cared About Narcotics Trafficking? An Argument to Attack Narcotics Capital Rather Than Labor

Summary: As the failure of the “War on Drugs” becomes ever more obvious, alternative strategies are coming to the fore. This article adds to that movement with a novel suggestion: That we cause drug networks to fail as a business through the tactic of focusing resources on the seizure of cash flow traveling back to source countries. To date, federal narcotics interdiction has centered on restricting the labor supply to drug traffickers by incarcerating street dealers, mules, and middle managers. It shouldn’t be surprising that this has not worked, because low-wage labor is in ready supply, and those workers are easily replaced. Instead, we should leverage the skills we have gained in interdicting cash flowing to terrorist organizations and apply it to drug networks. The result could be a self-financing law enforcement effort, a federal effort that is more consistent with the core values of federalism and a belief in markets, and an actual chance to succeed at the task of restricting the flow of narcotics.

Details: Minnesota: University of St. Thomas - School of Law, 2011. 17p.

Source: Working Paper: Internet Resource: Accessed June 19, 2012 at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1800370

Year: 2011

Country: United States

URL: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1800370

Shelf Number: 125365

Keywords:
Drug Trafficking
Economics and Crime
Narcotics
War on Drugs

Author: Rios, Viridiana

Title: Unexpected Consequences of Mexico’s Drug War for US National Security: More Mexican Immigrants

Summary: Mexican immigration figures have reached its lowest point since 2000. Yet, even if as a whole the US is receiving less Mexican migrants, the opposite is true for cities at the border. In this paper, I present evidence to show that this sui generis migration pattern cannot be understood using traditional explanations of migration dynamics. Instead, Mexicans are migrating because of security issues, fearing drugrelated violence and extortion, which has spiked since 2008. I estimate that a total of 264,693 have migrated fearing organized crime activities. By doing so, I combine the literature of migration dynamics with the one of violence and crime, pointing towards ways in which non-state actors shape actions of state members.

Details: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2012. 33p.

Source: Internet Resource: Paper presented at Violence, Drugs and Governance: Mexican Security in Comparative Perspective
Conference, Stanford University. October 3-4, 2011 (Palo Alto, CA): Working Paper 2012-002, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, Accessed August 6, 2012 at: http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Rios2012_SecurityIssuesAndImmigration3.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: United States

URL: http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Rios2012_SecurityIssuesAndImmigration3.pdf

Shelf Number: 125871

Keywords:
Drug Violence
Illegal Aliens
Illegal Immigration (Mexico, U.S.)
Immigration
War on Drugs

Author: Bagley, Bruce

Title: Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime in the Americas: Major Trends in the Twenty-First Century

Summary: What are the major trends that have characterized the evolution of illicit drug trafficking and organized crime (organized criminal networks) in the Americas over the last quarter of a century? What have been the principal transformations or adaptations – economic, political, and organizational - that have taken place within the region’s vast illegal drug economy during the first decade of the twenty-first century? This essay identifies eight key trends or patterns that typify the ongoing transformation of the drug trade and the organized criminal groups it has spawned as of mid-2011. They are: 1) The increasing globalization of drug consumption; 2) The limited or “partial victories” and unintended consequences of the U.S.-led ‘war on drugs,’ especially in the Andes; 3) The proliferation of areas of drug cultivation and of drug smuggling routes throughout the hemisphere (so-called “balloon effects”); 4) The dispersion and fragmentation of organized criminal groups or networks within countries and across sub-regions (“cockroach effects”); 5) The failure of political reform and state-building efforts (deinstitutionalization effects); 6) The inadequacies or failures of U.S. domestic drug and crime control policies (demand control failures); 7) The ineffectiveness of regional and international drug control policies (regulatory failures); and 8) The growth in support for harm reduction, decriminalization, and legalization policy alternatives (legalization debate).

Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Latin American Program, 2012. 22p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 7, 2012 at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/drug-trafficking-and-organized-crime-the-americas-major-trends-the-twenty-first-century

Year: 2012

Country: Central America

URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/drug-trafficking-and-organized-crime-the-americas-major-trends-the-twenty-first-century

Shelf Number: 125874

Keywords:
Drug Control Policies
Drug Trafficking
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Rios, Viridiana

Title: Why Are Mexican Traffickers Killing Each Other? Government Coordination and Violence Deterrence in Mexico's Drug War

Summary: Mexico’s Drug War was a drug war between criminal organizations ignited by a state that enforced the law without coordinating with its different levels of government. In this paper, I show why. In doing so, I provide a theory of how political institutions induce competing groups to either peacefully cooperate or go to war. I argue that when formal and informal institutions lead to coordination among different levels of government, such that they act as a single coordinated entity, criminal organizations behave and organize in ways that are less prone to violence, and thus, less damaging to citizens. A time-variant data-set of Mexico’s cocaine markets at the sub-national level and Cox proportional-hazards regressions are used to test my argument. I provide empirical evidence that the propensity of criminal organizations to engage in damaging criminal activities increases when municipal and state governments are not coordinated (i.e. are ruled by different political parties). A detailed description of corruption dynamics within Mexico’s drug trafficking industry is also presented to show how lack of government coordination caused a war of 51,000 casualties on the US-Mexico border.

Details: Cambridge, MA: Department of Government, Harvard University, 2012.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 13, 2013 at http://www.gov.harvard.edu/files/Rios2012_CoordinationCriminality.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: Mexico

URL: http://www.gov.harvard.edu/files/Rios2012_CoordinationCriminality.pdf

Shelf Number: 127267

Keywords:
Deterrence
Drug Trafficking
Drug Violence (Mexico)
Violent Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Walther, Michael F.

Title: Insanity: Four Decades of U.S. Counterdrug Strategy

Summary: In the 4 decades since President Richard Nixon first declared war on drugs, the U.S. counterdrug strategy has remained virtually unchanged—favoring supply-reduction, law enforcement and criminal sanctions over demand-reduction, treatment, and education. While the annual counterdrug budget has ballooned from $100 million to $25 billion, the availability of most illicit drugs remains at an all-time high. The human cost is staggering—nearly 40,000 drug-related deaths in the United States annually. The societal impact, in purely economic terms, is now estimated to be approximately $200 billion per year. The global illicit drug industry now accounts for 1 percent of all commerce on the planet—approximately $320 billion annually. Legalization is almost certainly not the answer; however, an objective analysis of available data confirms that: 1) the United States has pursued essentially the same flawed supply-reduction strategy for 40 years; and, 2) simply increasing the amount of money invested each year in this strategy will not make it successful. Faced with impending budget cuts and a future of budget austerity, policymakers must replace the longstanding U.S. counterdrug strategy with a pragmatic, science-based, demand-reduction strategy that offers some prospect of reducing the economic and societal impacts of illicit drugs on American society.

Details: Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2013. 45p.

Source: Internet Resource: Carlisle Papers: Accessed January 17, 2013 at: www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil

Year: 2013

Country: United States

URL:

Shelf Number: 127280

Keywords:
Drug Control (U.S.)
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
War on Drugs

Author: Grayson, George W.

Title: The Impact of President Felipe Calderón’s War on Drugs on the Armed Forces: The Prospects for Mexico’s “Militarization” and Bilateral Relations

Summary: In the absence of honest, professional civilian law-enforcement agencies, President Felipe Calderón assigned the military the lead role in his nation’s version of the “War on Drugs” that he launched in 2006. While the armed forces have spearheaded the capture and/or death of several dozen cartel capos, the conflict has taken its toll on the organizations in terms of deaths, corruption, desertions, and charges by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) of hundreds of human rights violations. The nation’s Supreme Court has taken the first step in requiring that officers and enlistees accused of crimes against civilians stand trial in civil courts rather than hermetic military tribunals. As if combating vicious narco-syndicates were not a sufficiently formidable challenge, the government has assigned such additional roles to the Army and Navy as overseeing customs agents, serving as state and municipal security chiefs, taking charge of prisons, protecting airports, safeguarding migrants, functioning as firefighters, preventing drug trafficking around schools, establishing recreational programs for children, and standing guard 24-hours a day over boxes of ballots cast in recent elections. Meanwhile, because of their discipline, training, and skill with firearms, security firms are snapping up men and women who have retired from active duty. The sharp expansion of the armed forces’ duties has sparked the accusation that Mexico is being “militarized.” Contributing to this assertion is the Defense Ministry’s robust, expensive public relations campaign both to offset criticism of civilians killed in what the Pentagon would label “collateral damage” and to increase contacts between average citizens and military personnel, who often constituted a separate caste. Dr. George W. Grayson examines the ever wider involvement of the armed forces in Mexican life by addressing the question: “Is Mexican society being ‘militarized’?” If the answer is “yes,” what will be the probable impact on relations between the United States and its southern neighbor?

Details: Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2013. 107p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 30, 2013 at: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubid=1137

Year: 2013

Country: Mexico

URL: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubid=1137

Shelf Number: 127453

Keywords:
Drug Law Enforcement
Drug Trafficking Contol
Drugs and Crime (Mexico)
War on Drugs

Author: Count the Costs

Title: The War on Drugs: Wasting billions and undermining economies

Summary: Whilst accurate figures are hard to come by, global spending on drug law enforcement certainly exceeds $100 billion each year. Given current economic conditions it is more important than ever that spending is effective and not a waste of taxpayer money. However, the huge investments in enforcement have consistently delivered the opposite of their stated goals—to reduce drug production, supply and use. Instead they have created a vast criminal market. This in turn has substantial social and economic costs, through crime and ill health, far exceeding even the billions in enforcement spending. There are huge opportunity costs to wasteful expenditure on this scale. As drug enforcement budgets continue to grow, other areas are being starved of funds, and cuts in government budgets are hitting public services and support for the needy. Despite the appalling track record of failure, the level of value-for-money scrutiny applied to drug enforcement spending has been almost zero, at both national and international levels. At a time of global economic crisis, after literally trillions wasted over the last half-century, it is time to meaningfully count the real economic costs of the war on drugs.

Details: London: Transform Drug Policy Foundation, 2012. 16p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed march 8, 2013 at: http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Economics-briefing.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: International

URL: http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Economics-briefing.pdf

Shelf Number: 127899

Keywords:
Drug Law Enforcement
Drug Markets
Drug Policy
Drug Use and Abuse
Economics of Crime
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Beckett, Katherine

Title: Race and the Enforcement of Drug Delivery Laws in Seattle

Summary: Between 1980 and 2002, the number of people incarcerated in the United States grew from approximately 500,000 to over 2 million. This trend has sharply and disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minorities: over 60% of today’s inmates are black and/or Latino (Sentencing Project, n.d). Many analysts have suggested that the policies and practices associated with the war on drugs are an important cause of the expansion of the prison and jail populations, as well as the increasingly disproportionate representation of minorities in them (Blumstein 1993; Duster 1997; Tonry 1995). Recent data confirms this conjecture: approximately 30% of U.S. inmates are drug offenders, and over 90% of those admitted to prison for drug offenses are black or Latino (Sentencing Project n.d.). Theoretically, the dramatic impact of the war on drugs on the black and Latino communities may be a consequence of higher rates of drug law violations within those groups, selective enforcement of drug laws, and/or post-arrest practices and policies. Some studies have found that black drug defendants are treated more harshly than white drug defendants once in the justice system (Blumstein 1993; Goode 2002; Spohn 2000; Austin & Allen 2000). In Seattle, however, there is evidence that the differential impact of the war on drugs on black and Latino communities is not a consequence of differential treatment after arrest. It appears, therefore, that comparatively high rates of incarceration among blacks resident to the Seattle area stem from higher rates of offense behavior and/or the selective enforcement of drug laws (Minority & Justice Commission Report 1999). This report analyzes a wide range of data sources pertaining to drug delivery in order to identify the extent to which selective/discriminatory law enforcement contributes to high rates of incarceration for drug delivery among blacks. Doing so requires estimating the racial composition of Seattle’s drug-delivering population. This estimate can then be compared with arrest statistics to determine whether or not blacks are over-represented among those arrested for narcotics delivery (or possession with intent to deliver narcotics) given the estimated composition of those who deliver drugs in Seattle. At the same time, this report assesses whether whites are under-represented among drug delivery arrestees in Seattle given the frequency with which they engage in behaviors that meet the legal definition of that crime.

Details: Seattle, WA: Department of Sociology and Law, Societies & Justice Program, 2003. 78p. University of Washington,, 2003.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 5, 2013 at: http://www.kcba.org/druglaw/pdf/beckettstudy.pdf

Year: 2003

Country: United States

URL: http://www.kcba.org/druglaw/pdf/beckettstudy.pdf

Shelf Number: 128288

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement
Drug Offenders (Seattle, Washington)
Minority Groups
Minority Over-representation
Racial Disparities
War on Drugs

Author: Osler, Mark

Title: Amoral Numbers and Narcotics Sentencing

Summary: Americans are fascinated with lists and rankings. Magazines catch the eye with covers promising “92 Cute Summer Looks,” college football fans anxiously await the release of pre-season rankings, and law schools have reshaped themselves in reaction to the rankings released by U.S. News and World Report. With each of these, though, the lists often do more to create a reality than to reflect one, with distinct negative effects. The same problem plagues federal narcotics sentencing, where rankings of the relative seriousness of crimes are embedded in sentencing guidelines and minimum sentences required by statutes, though they are rooted neither in empirical evidence nor a consistent theory of problem-solving.

Details: Minneapolis: University of St. Thomas School of Law, 2013. 22p.

Source: Internet Resource: U of St. Thomas (Minnesota) Legal Studies Research Paper No. 13-21: Accessed June 3, 2013 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2271380

Year: 2013

Country: United States

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2271380

Shelf Number: 128920

Keywords:
Drug Offenders
Punishment
Sentencing Guidelines
War on Drugs

Author: Global Commission on Drug Policy

Title: The Negative Impact Of The War On Drugs On Public Health: The Hidden Hepatitis C Epidemic

Summary: Hepatitis C is a highly prevalent chronic viral infection which poses major public health, economic and social crises, particularly in low and middle income countries. The global hepatitis C epidemic has been described by the World Health Organization as a ‘viral time bomb’, yet continues to receive little attention. Access to preventative services is far too low, while diagnosis and treatment are prohibitively expensive and remain inaccessible for most people in need. Public awareness and political will with regard to hepatitis C are also too low, and national hepatitis surveillance is often non-existent. The hepatitis C virus is highly infectious and is easily transmitted through blood-to-blood contact. It therefore disproportionately impacts upon people who inject drugs: of the 16 million people who inject drugs around the world, an estimated 10 million are living with hepatitis C. In some of the countries with the harshest drug policies, the majority of people who inject drugs are living with hepatitis C – more than 90 percent in places such as Thailand and parts of the Russian Federation. The hepatitis C virus causes debilitating and fatal disease in around a quarter of those who are chronically infected, and is an increasing cause of premature death among people who inject drugs. Globally, most HIV-infected people who inject drugs are also living with a hepatitis C infection. Harm reduction services – such as the provision of sterile needles and syringes and opioid substitution therapy – can effectively prevent hepatitis C transmission among people who inject drugs, provided they are accessible and delivered at the required scale. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Instead of investing in effective prevention and treatment programmes to achieve the required coverage, governments continue to waste billions of dollars each year on arresting and punishing drug users – a gross misallocation of limited resources that could be more efficiently used for public health and preventive approaches. At the same time, repressive drug policies have fuelled the stigmatisation, discrimination and mass incarceration of people who use drugs. As a result, there are very few countries that have reported significant declines in new infections of hepatitis C among this population. This failure of governments to prevent and control hepatitis disease has great significance for future costs to health and welfare budgets in many countries. In 2012 the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a report that outlined how the ‘war on drugs’ is driving the HIV epidemic among people who use drugs. The present report focuses on hepatitis C as it represents another massive and deadly epidemic for this population. It provides a brief overview of the hepatitis C virus, before exploring how the ‘war on drugs’ and repressive drug policies are failing to drive transmission down. The silence about the harms of repressive drug policies has been broken – they are ineffective, violate basic human rights, generate violence, and expose individuals and communities to unnecessary risks. Hepatitis C is one of these harms – yet it is both preventable and curable when public health is the focus of the drug response. Now is the time to reform.

Details: Rio de Janeiro – RJ – Brasil: The Commission, 2013. 24p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 7, 2013 at: http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/hepatitis/gcdp_hepatitis_english.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: International

URL: http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/hepatitis/gcdp_hepatitis_english.pdf

Shelf Number: 129005

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Drug Abuse Policy
Drug Abuse Treatment
Hepatitis C
War on Drugs

Author: Carvalho, Ilona Szabo de

Title: Latin America Awakes: A Review of the New Drug Policy Debate

Summary: Latin America is confronted with astonishing levels of organised and interpersonal violence, much of it connected to illicit narcotics production and trafficking and the so-called "war on drugs". There is evidence, however, of mounting resistance to the global drug control regime and its narrow emphasis on suppressing supply, chiefly through enforcement measures. This report considers how changes under way in Latin America are challenging the foundations of this regime. Over the past decade two independent commissions - the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy and the Global Commission on Drug Policy - have broken the taboo on debating alternative drug policies. Both commissions have emphasised a paradigm shift from repressive approaches to more preventive interventions that focus on harm reduction and citizen security. Emboldened by these commissions' recommendations, Latin American leaders from across the political spectrum are currently discussing a more balanced approach to drug policy. Some governments are experimenting with legislation and regulatory models that are tailored to their countries' local realities and needs. These and other efforts have potentially dramatic implications not just for drug policy in Latin America, but globally.

Details: Oslo, Norway: NOREF (Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center, 2013. 12p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 1, 2013 at: http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/cec0c2d61be4326b2038452c8a98a4f9.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Latin America

URL: http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/cec0c2d61be4326b2038452c8a98a4f9.pdf

Shelf Number: 131577

Keywords:
Drug Policy (Latin America)
Drug Reform
Drug Related Violence
Drug Trafficking
War on Drugs

Author: U.S. Senate. Caucus on International Narcotics Control

Title: Preventing a Security Crisis in the Caribbean

Summary: U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), co-chairs of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, today released a bipartisan report entitled Preventing a Security Crisis in the Caribbean that provides recommendations for Congress and the Obama Administration to enhance current security efforts in the Caribbean. "The Caribbean region has come a long way since it served as the primary transit route for South American drugs entering the United States in the 1980s," said Senator Feinstein. "Despite impressive gains, drug trafficking, local drug consumption and the U.S. demand for illegal drugs remain major causes of crime and violence. As enforcement efforts in Mexico and Central America inevitably move trafficking back to the Caribbean, we must better support our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere to combat the corrosive drug trade and minimize violence." "The Caribbean continues to be a major trans-shipment zone for narcotics." said Senator Grassley. "The recent spike in the use of drug-trafficking submarines there shows the lengths smugglers are taking to get their product to U.S. shores through the area. Drug trafficking and related violence in the Caribbean have a significant impact on our national security and on the lives of the region's people. The United States has to adapt to emerging trends in shipping techniques to help keep illicit drugs out of the United States and continue to help Caribbean nations strengthen their counternarcotics efforts. This report outlines actions the United States can take to help our partners in the Caribbean combat the transshipment of illegal drugs throughout the region." The report recommends: An assessment by the State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of where Sensitive Investigative Units are most needed in the Caribbean. Jamaica, with the fourth highest murder rate in the world, should be considered a top candidate for one of these units. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should send a full criminal history of all deportees to authorities in the Caribbean so they are aware of the return of any criminals or drug traffickers. Caribbean countries' authorities do not currently receive a full criminal rap sheet from ICE on deportees returning home. United States technical assistance to the countries of the Caribbean to support the drafting of asset forfeiture laws and laws controlling precursor chemicals used to make illegal drugs. The integration of Puerto Rico into working level meetings held between the State Department and countries in the Caribbean on security and narcotics issues. Strong support of Haitian counternarcotic efforts. Strengthening of U.S. anti-money laundering laws. Continued extradition of drug kingpins from the Caribbean to the United States. The return of DEA helicopters used in Operation Bahamas, Turks and Caicos to the Exumas Islands in The Bahamas.

Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Senate, 2012. 47p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 15, 2014 at: http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=90bb66bc-3371-4898-8415-fbfc31c0ed24

Year: 2012

Country: Caribbean

URL: http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=90bb66bc-3371-4898-8415-fbfc31c0ed24

Shelf Number: 131926

Keywords:
Drug Control Policy
Drug Enforcement
Drug Trafficking
Drug Trafficking Control
War on Drugs

Author: Coy, Maddy

Title: Violent Disorder in Ciudad Juarez: A Spatial Analysis of Homicide

Summary: This HASOW Discussion Paper considers how demographic and socioeconomic factors correlate with homicidal violence in the context of Mexico's "war on drugs". We draw on Ciudad Juarez as a case study and social disorganization theory as an organizing framework. Social disorganization is expected to produce higher levels of homicidal violence. And while evidence detects several social disorganization factors associated with homicidal violence in Ciudad Juarez not all relationships appear as predicted by the theory. Drawing on public census and crime data, our statistical assessment detects 6 significant variables (or risks) positively associated with homicidal violence in Ciudad Juarez between 2009 and 2010. Likewise, the assessment finds 6 specific variables (or protective factors) that are negatively associated with above average homicide in the city between 2009 and 2010. The data and level of analysis do not conclusively present causation, nor was this the intent. Rather, we propose a baseline model for testing spatial-temporal dynamics of organized violence.

Details: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Humanitarian Action in Situations other than War (HASOW), 2012. 24p.

Source: Internet Resource: HASOW Discussion Paper 1: Accessed March 20, 2014 at: http://www.hasow.org/uploads/trabalhos/68/doc/1934668792.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: Mexico

URL: http://www.hasow.org/uploads/trabalhos/68/doc/1934668792.pdf

Shelf Number: 131979

Keywords:
Drug-Related Violence
Homicide
Murders
Violence
Violent Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Inter-American Commission of Women

Title: Women and Drugs in the Americas: A Policy Working Paper

Summary: During the sixth summit of the Americas (April 2012, Cartagena), leaders of various countries of the Americas issued a mandate to the Organization of American States (OAS) to analyze current drug policies and explore new approaches, with a view to developing viable alternatives that would effectively regulate the production, trade, and consumption of drugs of illicit substances while alleviating the violence and harm associated with current approaches to this issue. Since then, the hemispheric response to the "World Drug Problem" has been a changing landscape, and many more leaders have since called for reform of international and national-level drug policies to include more effective and humane alternatives to dealing with this global crisis. Previous measures to suppress drug production and consumption have been extreme, and have often proved ineffective. Methods such as aerial fumigation to suppress cultivation or mass incarceration as a response to drug consumption and small scale trafficking, have taken governments and societies further away from their original objective of preventing drug misuse and guaranteeing universal access to health and treatment for addiction, as set out in the 1961 convention on narcotic drugs. These first UN conventions of 1961 and 1971, prepared primarily from a punitive and prohibitionist perspective, created and sustained a 'War on Drugs' mentality. The 'War on Drugs' - a rhetorical device coined under former US President Nixon's leadership - has been progressively abandoned by the majority of States in the region (including the United States), who now recognize a need for drug policy reform and a more realistic, evidence-based approach to the changing and growing phenomenon of illicit drugs and their related issues. This paradigm shift has generated a number of alternative proposals and responses to the complex issue of drugs, including the promotion of a public health approach that favours treatment instead of incarceration, the safeguarding of human rights, and the endorsement of human rights-based and harm-reduction strategies to address the violence inherent in the trafficking of illicit substances, as well as the stigma attached to their use. At the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September 2013, Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala, among other States, spoke of the urgent need to explore alternatives to the "War on Drugs." Uruguay presented a proposal to create the world's first national, non-medical, regulated market for cannabis. This bill has since been signed into law, the regulation for which is currently being designed and is expected to take effect later this year. Uruguay's non-punitive response to drug use comes at a time when many transit countries, including Guatemala, have experienced a gradual shift in attitudes and approaches around mitigating the harms of the drugs trade on their local communities. In transit countries, the negative effects of the illicit drugs industry on human and economic development are most keenly felt, and exacerbated by punitive policies that tend to affect vulnerable members of society who might participate in the drug trade due to financial crises and coercion at the lower level of the commercialization ladder. Claims by the media, paired with the scarce data available suggest that in the last two decades, the participation of women in the trade of illicit drugs has increased significantly. Nevertheless, while this participation is visible in the news, it has been largely absent from the research and other activities of most governmental and inter-governmental bodies. In general, we know relatively little about the people that participate in the question of illicit drugs - be they men or women. As usually happens in other areas, we understand even less about women's participation and we tend to interpret it through assumptions and stereotypes that on the one hand, complicate an adequate understanding of the social, economic, and cultural factors that determine this participation and, on the other hand, produce negative effects for women in terms of increased social stigmatization of their participation.

Details: Washington, DC: Inter-American Commission of Women, 2014. 48p.

Source: Internet Resource: Policy Working Paper: Accessed May 3, 2014 at: http://www.oas.org/en/cim/docs/WomenDrugsAmericas-EN.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: South America

URL: http://www.oas.org/en/cim/docs/WomenDrugsAmericas-EN.pdf

Shelf Number: 132203

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Drug Policy Reform
Female Drug Offenders
Substance Abuse Treatment
War on Drugs

Author: LSE Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy

Title: Ending the Drug Wars

Summary: A major rethink of international drug policies is under way. The failure of the UN to achieve its goal of 'a drug free world' and the continuation of enormous collateral damage from excessively militarised and enforcement-led drug policies, has led to growing calls for an end to the 'war on drugs'. For decades the UN-centred drug control system has sought to enforce a uniform set of prohibitionist oriented policies often at the expense of other, arguably more effective policies that incorporate broad frameworks of public health and illicit market management. Now the consensus that underpinned this system is breaking apart and there is a new trajectory towards accepting global policy pluralism and that different policies will work for different countries and regions. The question, however, remains, how do states work together to improve global drug policies? This report highlights two approaches. First, drastically reallocating resources away from counterproductive and damaging policies towards proven public health policies. Second, pursuing rigorously monitored policy and regulatory experimentation.

Details: London: LSE (London School of Economics) Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy, 2014. 84p.

Source: Internet Resource: http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/pdf/EndingDrugWarsFINAL.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: International

URL: http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/pdf/EndingDrugWarsFINAL.pdf

Shelf Number: 132283

Keywords:
Drug Control
Drug Policy
Illicit Drugs
War on Drugs

Author: Subramanian, Ram

Title: Drug War Detente? A Review of State-level Drug Law Reform, 2009-2013

Summary: From 2009 through 2013, more than 30 states passed nearly 50 bills changing how their criminal justice systems define and enforce drug offenses. In reviewing this legislative activity, the Vera Institute of Justice's Center on Sentencing and Corrections found that most efforts have focused on making change in one or a combination of the following five areas: mandatory penalties, drug sentencing schemes, early release mechanisms, community-based sanctions, and collateral consequences. By providing concise summaries of representative legislation in each area, this review aims to be a practical guide for policymakers in other states and the federal government looking to enact similar reforms.

Details: New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2014. 32p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 12, 2014 at: http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/state-drug-law-reform-review-2009-2013.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/state-drug-law-reform-review-2009-2013.pdf

Shelf Number: 132328

Keywords:
Drug Control
Drug Offenders
Drug Policy
Drug Reform
Illicit Drugs
Sentencing
War on Drugs

Author: Freeman, Laurie

Title: Troubling Patterns: The Mexican Military and the War on Drugs

Summary: The Mexican military has a dominant and expanding role in Mexico's war on drugs. As its role grows, so does its relationship with the US military, due to their common counter-drug mission. US organizations working to promote human rights and democracy in Mexico are concerned about human rights violations committed by the Mexican military in the drug war, as well as possible implications for US policy and the military-to-military relationship. By analyzing 27 cases of human rights violations committed by the Mexican military during anti-drug activities from 1996 to the present, this study has identified distinct patterns of military abuse in the context of anti-drug efforts. The cases in this study show that: The Mexican military's involvement in the drug war has led to human rights abuses; There is no adequate system to address these abuses when they occur; and The Leahy Law is not being adequately implemented by the US Embassy to ensure that US training and assistance are not provided to Mexican military units that have been implicated in human rights violations.

Details: Washington, DC: Latin America Working Group, 2002. 12p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 12, 2014 at: http://www.lawg.org/storage/documents/troubling%20patterns%20the%20war%20on%20drugs%202002.pdf

Year: 2002

Country: Mexico

URL: http://www.lawg.org/storage/documents/troubling%20patterns%20the%20war%20on%20drugs%202002.pdf

Shelf Number: 132336

Keywords:
Drug Control
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
Human Rights Abuses
War on Drugs

Author: Feilding, Amanda

Title: Illicit Drugs Markets and Dimensions of Violence in Guatemala

Summary: At this civil society meeting, Amanda Feilding presented the Beckley Foundation's latest report on the impact of the illegal drug trade in Guatemala. Titled 'Illicit Drug Markets and Dimensions of Violence in Guatemala', the report looks at socio-economic indicators while exploring Guatemala's illicit drugs market. It makes evidence-informed policy recommendations based on the Beckley Foundation Latin American Chapter's original research. The Beckley Foundation Latin American Chapter outlined reform and public engagement tactics that we hope will lead to public-health minded alternative approaches to the War on Drugs.

Details: Oxford, UK: Beckley Foundation, 2013. 80p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 14, 2014 at: http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/Illicit-Drug-Markets.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Guatemala

URL: http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/Illicit-Drug-Markets.pdf

Shelf Number: 132343

Keywords:
Drug Markets (Guatemala)
Drug Offenders
Drug Policy
Drug-Related Violence
Illegal Trade
Illicit Drugs
War on Drugs

Author: Green, Alice P.

Title: The Disproportionate Impact of the Criminal Justice System on People of Color in the Capital Region

Summary: This report, the first in a series of three by the Center for Law and Justice examining the impact of federal, state and local criminal justice system practices on minorities in the Capital Region, details the overrepresentation of minorities among Capital Region arrests, convictions, and sentences to state prison. It further chronicles the devastating impact the criminal justice system has on minority individuals and communities, and makes recommendations for change. Section I of the report presents statistical data culled from state and local criminal justice agencies and the United States Census Bureau to demonstrate the disproportionate representation of minorities among arrests, convictions, and sentences to state prison in Albany, Rensselaer, and Schenectady counties. The percentage of Capital Region arrests and convictions that are minorities is twice their representation in the general population, and the percentage of minorities among prison sentences is as high as almost four times greater than their representation in the general population. Contrary to the sometimes asserted contention that this is due to a higher rate of commission of crimes by minorities, the literature indicates that this disproportionality is more likely due to facially neutral policies that have racially disparate effects. Section II explains the concept of the "collateral consequences" of a criminal conviction: conditions that, beyond the actual incarcerative sentence, often attach automatically upon conviction. Conviction and/or incarceration can impose highly restrictive educational, employment, housing, and civic conditions on an individual, including losing the right to vote. In addition to the destructive consequences of a criminal conviction to individuals, mass incarceration of people of color wreaks havoc in the neighborhoods in which they reside, resulting in severely impoverished communities. Section III describes the historic impact of the federal "War on Drugs" and New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws on the mass incarceration of Capital Region people of color. In 2002, Albany County had one of the highest drug crime prison admission rates in the entire country, and one of the most racially disproportionate rates. More recent data from 2011 indicate that Albany County maintains its dubious distinction of having comparatively higher (and more racially disparate) prison admission rates than other jurisdictions in the state. Section IV examines the relationships between the police department and the community in the cities of Albany, Troy and Schenectady. All three departments have expressed a commitment to "community policing," and the extent to which each department has operationalized this commitment is assessed. Section V considers the Capital Region statistics in the context of "The New Jim Crow" movement, which asserts that mass incarceration serves to maintain a racial caste system that denies education, employment, housing, and voting rights to those who carry the label "felon," in much the same way that the post-Civil War Jim Crow laws denied rights to blacks. Lastly, Section VI provides recommendations for change.

Details: Albany, NY: Center for Law and Justice, 2012. 29p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 14, 2014 at: http://www.cflj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/The-Disproportionate-Impact-of-the-Criminal-Justice-System-on-People-of-Color-in-the-Capital-Region.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: United States

URL: http://www.cflj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/The-Disproportionate-Impact-of-the-Criminal-Justice-System-on-People-of-Color-in-the-Capital-Region.pdf

Shelf Number: 132670

Keywords:
African Americans
Minority Groups
Police-Community Relations
Racial Disparities
War on Drugs

Author: Borda, Sandra

Title: The Search for a Negotiated Peace in Colombia and the Fight Against Illegal Drugs

Summary: The issue of illicit drugs has played a radically different role in the ongoing peace talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Havana compared with the peace process in El Caguan ten years ago. There are two differences. Firstly, while in El Caguan President Pastrana aligned himself with the war on drugs as it stood at the time through the design and implementation of Plan Colombia in order to strengthen the state's military apparatus, President Santos has adopted a more revisionist attitude by calling for a global debate intended to produce changes to the current war on drugs. And secondly, in contrast to Pastrana, Santos has chosen not to dwell on claims about the close links between the FARC's insurgent activity and the production and trafficking of illicit drugs. Additionally, the report suggests that these differences are explained by the role the U.S. played in both negotiations: while it was active and crucial in El Caguan, its absence from the Havana talks has been notable, but also rather convenient. This absence, in turn, is explained by the fact that Washington has fewer interests at stake and more limited resources for intervening, at the same time as the Colombian government no longer has an urgent need for aid.

Details: Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF), 2013. 8p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 16, 2014 at: http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/8927ac64693ffbc3b7191d6b5b132d3e.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Colombia

URL: http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/8927ac64693ffbc3b7191d6b5b132d3e.pdf

Shelf Number: 132700

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement
Drug-Related Violence
Homicides
Illegal Drugs (Colombia)
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
War on Drugs

Author: Gomis, Benoit

Title: Illicit Drugs and International Security: Towards UNGASS 2016

Summary: In spite of a decades-long 'war on drugs', the global drug trade persists as a significant problem for international security given its scale, the number of deaths related to trafficking and consumption it creates, and the organized crime and corruption it fuels. The international drug control system has been ineffective in reducing the size of the market and in preventing the emergence of new drugs and drug routes that cause and shift instability around the world. Current drug policies have been counter-productive, often causing more harm than the drugs themselves through capital punishment for offences, widespread incarceration, discrimination in law enforcement, violation of basic human rights in forced 'treatment' centres, and opportunity costs. In the last three years, the drug policy debate has evolved more than in the previous three decades. There remain a number of political obstacles to making recent developments sustainable ahead of the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs in 2016, but these should not be used as excuses for continuing with a failed status quo.

Details: London: Chatham House, 2014. 16p.

Source: Internet Resource: Briefing Paper: Accessed July 31, 2014 at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/home/chatham/public_html/sites/default/files/0214Drugs_BP2.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: International

URL: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/home/chatham/public_html/sites/default/files/0214Drugs_BP2.pdf

Shelf Number: 132853

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Drug Control
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
Drug Trafficking
Illicit Drugs
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Csete, Joanne

Title: Telling the Story of Drugs in West Africa: The newest front in a losing war?

Summary: Key Points - The emergence of significant drug trafficking routes in West Africa, particularly of cocaine from Latin America to European markets, has drawn a great deal of attention from global drug authorities, including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the government of the United States, which sees West Africa as a setting for replicating drug-control interventions used in Latin America. - UNODC and US reports have used limited data on drug seizures, drug consumption and drug-related terrorism in West Africa to weave a narrative of a region 'under attack' by unscrupulous drug dealers and seized by rapidly increasing problematic drug use. - These authorities sometimes admit that these data are sketchy, but they nonetheless use this information to make broad generalisations about the urgent need for more policing and other 'drug war' measures. - Though the link between drug trafficking and terrorism in West Africa is not very well established, the US also energises its arguments for repressive drug interventions in West Africa by highlighting this connection. - West Africa undoubtedly has significant drug-related problems that merit an energetic response. - It is, however, legitimate to question whether the hyped-up narrative that has been constructed of a lethal problem is meant to justify placement of military, surveillance and anti-terrorism hardware and software in the region at a time when the US-led 'war on drugs' is losing support within many Latin American countries. Rather than the simple replication of often harmful and ineffective policy interventions applied in Latin America, the response to illicit drugs in West Africa should benefit from a careful reflection about what has and has not worked in other parts of the world.

Details: Swansea, Wales, UK: Swansea University, Global Drug Policy Observatory, 2013. 18p.

Source: Internet Resource: Policy Brief 1: Accessed July 31, 2014 at: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/media/GDPO%20West%20Africa%20digital.pdf%20FINAL.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Africa

URL: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/media/GDPO%20West%20Africa%20digital.pdf%20FINAL.pdf

Shelf Number: 132855

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction (West Africa)
Drug Control
Drug Enforcement
Drug Trafficking
War on Drugs

Author: Segura, Renata

Title: The Global Drug Policy Debate. Experiences from the Americas and Europe

Summary: The cultivation, trafficking and consumption of illegal drugs have historically posed a multilayered series of challenges to the state: from how to minimize health risks and provide treatment and support to those who use drugs, to the security and governance threats posed by trafficking groups and networks. While global in nature, the challenges presented by the illicit drug trade are also contextual. Lack of progress in addressing the manifold challenges posed by the illicit drug trade has led to a growing acknowledgement of the need for a serious rethink of global drugs policy. The authors underscore the importance of, and encourage the creation of national and regional commissions that are tasked with reviewing current drug policies and recommending changes. It also examines current calls in Latin American for a review of the so-called 'war on drugs', highlighting the role that outspoken leaders are playing in shaping the debate on drug policy, as well as current shifts from a policing-focused approach to one that accounts for the safety and health of drug users. The paper looks in particular detail at the experiences of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, arguing that other transit regions such as West Africa should consider implementing multi-faceted strategies to respond to drug trafficking and the growing incidence of drug consumption. In this regard, it highlights examples of how exclusive reliance on repressive strategies known as mano dura can often backfire, resulting in the displacement of trafficking routes, an increase in violence, prison overcrowding and further marginalization of vulnerable populations. Finally, it highlights some actions the West Africa Commission on Drugs might adopt for its own advocacy strategy including strategic diplomacy, the development and dissemination of empirically-grounded papers on the impact of drug trafficking, drug consumption and treatment in the West Africa sub-region, and discussions and debates with relevant stakeholders on the findings of such reports; engagement of civil society; and raising of public awareness. The West Africa Commission on Drugs is faced with the difficult task of advocating for policies aimed at preventing or mitigating problems of drug use, criminality, violence, and threats to governability that have been experienced by other countries, without having complete certainty on how -or even if- the same challenges will arise in Africa. Carrier and Klantsching, in their book "Africa and the War on Drugs" argue that historical analysis would indicate that Africa might be spared from the destiny of the Andean countries, and that more harm can be done by implementing a prohibitionist regime that assumes an identical path will be followed. This warning should not fall on deaf ears. However, critics of their argument have underscored the dangers of understating the "growing power of drug money in African electoral politics, local and traditional governance, and security" (Gberie, 2012; Cockayne, 2012). They have also pointed out that having a critical perspective on the existing drug control regime must not mean turning a blind eye to the threats that come with drug trafficking and consumption, such as corruption and the emergence of criminalized states (Kavanagh et al, 2013). Similarly, while drug consumption rates currently remain relatively low in Africa, the situation can change rapidly, as happened in some Latin American countries. As noted by UNODC (2013), there are already strong indications that drug use is on the rise in West Africa. It is naturally easier to achieve the political support needed to implement policies that respond to serious problems, such as a health epidemic or extended violence, than to embrace innovative and data-based policies in order to prevent or mitigate these problems. Explaining to both elites and the population why it is indispensable that West Africa act assertively to pre-empt a situation that may emerge will be a central challenge for the WACD. This paper examines such efforts in the Americas and Europe, drawing lessons for West Africa. It argues that the current drug control regime does provide some leeway for implementing policy reforms that move away from the prohibitionist regime, and provides examples of alternative policies that have been introduced by national and local authorities in different countries. The paper provides examples from Europe to underscore the importance of using empirical research and sound data to design drug policies, highlighting successful examples of harm reduction programs, and examining ways in which governments have moved away from legal frameworks that rely on the criminalization of drug use.

Details: Geneva, SWIT: Kofi Annan Foundation and the West Africa Commission on Drugs, 2013. 42p.

Source: Internet Resource: WACD Background Paper No. 7: Accessed August 12, 2014 at: http://www.wacommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Global-Drug-Policy-Debate-Experiences-2013-11-28.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: International

URL: http://www.wacommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Global-Drug-Policy-Debate-Experiences-2013-11-28.pdf

Shelf Number: 133013

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
Drug Reform
Drug Trafficking
Illegal Drugs
Illicit Trade
War on Drugs

Author: Giacomello, Corina

Title: Proposals for alternatives to criminal prosecution and incarceration for drug-related offenses in Latin America

Summary: Latin America is immersed in a prison epidemic. The so-called "war on drugs" and harsher criminal penalties underlie the increase in the prison population. "One-size-fits-all" policies and severe sanctions have left the region's countries in a prison crisis that threatens future generations. Instead of proposing a single model, therefore, multiple pathways should be explored. This briefing by the International Drug Policy Consortium focuses on the judicial and prison systems, seeking to offer a variety of experiences that demonstrate how various situations can be addressed: occasional and recreational use, dependent or problem use of substances, small-scale drug dealing by vulnerable members of the trafficking chain (dependent users who sell for survival), and differences among the different levels of leadership in dealing and international trafficking.

Details: London: International Drug Policy Consortium, 2014. 16p.

Source: Internet Resource: IDPC Briefing Paper: Accessed October 6, 2014 at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64663568/library/IDPC-briefing-paper_Alternatives-to-incarceration-in-LA_ENGLISH.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: Latin America

URL: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64663568/library/IDPC-briefing-paper_Alternatives-to-incarceration-in-LA_ENGLISH.pdf

Shelf Number: 133565

Keywords:
Drug Offenders
Drug Policy (Latin America)
Drug Reform
Drug Trafficking
War on Drugs

Author: Males, Mike

Title: Reforming marijuana laws: Which approach best reduces the harms of criminalization? A Five-State Analysis

Summary: The War on Marijuana is losing steam. Policymakers, researchers, and law enforcement are beginning to recognize that arresting and incarcerating people for marijuana possession wastes billions of dollars, does not reduce the abuse of marijuana or other drugs, and results in grossly disproportionate harms to communities of color (ACLU, 2013; Ingram, 2014). Marijuana reforms are now gaining traction across the nation, generating debates over which strategies best reduce the harms of prohibition. Should marijuana be decriminalized or legalized? Should it be restricted to people 21 and older? Advocates of the latter strategy often argue their efforts are intended to protect youth (Newsom, 2014; Holder, 2013; Californians for Marijuana Legalization and Control, 2014). However, if the consequences of arrest for marijuana possession - including fines, jail time, community service, a criminal record, loss of student loans, and court costs - are more harmful than use of the drug (Marijuana Arrest Research Project, 2012), it is difficult to see how continued criminalization of marijuana use by persons under 21 protects the young. Currently, people under 21 make up less than one-third of marijuana users, yet half of all marijuana possession arrests (ACLU, 2013; Males, 2009). This analysis compares five states that implemented major marijuana reforms over the last five years, evaluating their effectiveness in reducing marijuana arrests and their impact on various health and safety outcomes. Two types of reforms are evaluated: all-ages decriminalization (California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts), and 21-and-older legalization (Colorado and Washington). The chief conclusions are: - All five states experienced substantial declines in marijuana possession arrests. The four states with available data also showed unexpected drops in marijuana felony arrests. - All-ages decriminalization more effectively reduced marijuana arrests and associated harms for people of all ages, particularly for young people. - Marijuana decriminalization in California has not resulted in harmful consequences for teenagers, such as increased crime, drug overdose, driving under the influence, or school dropout. In fact, California teenagers showed improvements in all risk areas after reform. - Staggering racial disparities remain - and in some cases are exacerbated - following marijuana reforms. African Americans are still more likely to be arrested for marijuana offenses after reform than all other races and ethnicities were before reform. - Further reforms are needed in all five states to move toward full legalization and to address racial disparities.

Details: San Francisco: Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 2014. 13p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 15, 2014 at: http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/cjcj_marijuana_reform_comparison.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/cjcj_marijuana_reform_comparison.pdf

Shelf Number: 134092

Keywords:
Drug Abuse Policy
Drug Policy
Drug Reform
Marijuana (U.S.)
War on Drugs

Author: Foley, Conor

Title: Pelo telefone: Rumors, truths and myths in the 'pacification' of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro

Summary: The phenomenon of humanitarian engagement with situations of urban violence has attracted growing interest from academics, and practitioners in recent years. Yet the subject remains shrouded with myths and misconceptions. Much violence in the world today takes place outside formal conflict zones, in what are sometimes referred to as 'fragile settings'. The purpose of the paper is to provide a detailed, factual assessment of one such operation, the so-called 'pacification' of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, written from a humanitarian and human rights perspective. Since the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11th September 2001 and the subsequent US-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, some have argued that fragile states represent a threat to international peace and security. This has triggered a range of responses by both national governments and the UN Security Council, which are increasingly referred to under the common rubric of stabilization. The UN missions to Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo both feature 'stabilization' as a central goal and there is a growing literature describing the interrelationship between 'stabilization', counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, peacebuilding, state-building, early recovery and development. In some cases these operations have been led by international armed forces, often mandated by the Security Council under its Chapter VII powers, while in others they have been carried out by national governments themselves. In both cases there has sometimes been doubt about the legal framework governing such operations, particularly where they have involved soldiers as well as the police. Rhetoric about a global 'war on terror', which was preceded by the so-called 'war on drugs', has been used by some to argue that international human rights law could be suspended, or displaced by the more permissive laws of armed conflict, which, by turning criminals into combatants, gives the security forces a license to kill. At the same time, the supposed benefits of bringing to bear military planning, strategy and coordination has excited policy-makers frustrated by the failures of traditional policing in some settings. Operations such as the one described in this paper have attracted international attention because they appear to offer lessons both to those involved in formal counter-insurgency situations and to those struggling to uphold law and order in the face of extreme crime and violence. For humanitarians, accustomed to working in complex emergencies, this places the old dilemmas of host-state consent and civil-military cooperation in a new, and sometimes unsettling context when delivering social services or stimulating economic activity in territories that have been 'pacified' or otherwise brought under state control. This paper does not seek to deny or diminish the achievements of the 'pacification' process. By driving organized armed gangs out of a significant number of Rio de Janeiro's favelas, the police have brought a relative degree of stability to places for the first time in a generation. At the same time, it will be argued, that the 'pacification' has not been the 'silver bullet' that is sometimes portrayed. The real lesson is that there is no short-cut from long-term reform of policing and the criminal justice system as well as tackling the corruption, poverty, inequality and social exclusion that give rise to states of fragility to begin with. Humanitarian action can also only ever be a palliative and agencies would be advised to continue with a gradual and incremental approach towards such engagement.

Details: Rio de Janeiro: Humanitarian Actions in Situations other than War, 2014. 52p.

Source: Internet Resource: Discussion Paper 8: Accessed February 26, 2015 at: http://www.hasow.org/uploads/trabalhos/117/doc/1760478317.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: Brazil

URL: http://www.hasow.org/uploads/trabalhos/117/doc/1760478317.pdf

Shelf Number: 134709

Keywords:
Criminal Violence
Favelas (Brazil)
Gang-Related Violence
Gangs
Urban Areas
Violent Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Garzon Vergara, Juan Carlos

Title: Fixing a broken system: Modernizing drug law enforcement in Latin America

Summary: Despite efforts by governments in Latin America, illicit drugs continue to provide one of the largest incomes for criminal organizations, enabling them to penetrate and corrupt political and social institutions. Criminal organizations exploit the vulnerabilities of the state and take advantage of governments' inability to provide security to their citizens. With few exceptions, the weak capacity of Latin American governments is reflected in high rates of homicides, notorious levels of impunity, and the feeling of mistrust that citizens harbour regarding justice institutions and the police. Drug law enforcement in Latin America operates in a context of institutional fragility in which the "war on drugs" has mostly failed to reduce supply and demand, while generating new problems and vast collateral damage. The perverse incentives created by the prohibitionist approach in the face of a persistently strong market demand for drugs has been an important cause of violence and crime in many places. At the same time, state responses to repress this illegal market have serious negative side effects, but only a limited capacity to impact upon the drug chain. Given this reality, different voices are demanding changes in the way the state responds not only to the drug problem but also to the threat of multiple criminal economies that affect the everyday lives of the citizens. The assumption is that moving away from the "war on drugs" can contribute to de-escalating violence and crime and can deprive organized crime groups of resources. Key points - Drug law enforcement in Latin America operates in a context of institutional fragility in which the "war on drugs" has mostly failed to reduce supply and demand, while generating new problems and vast collateral damage. - The modernization of drug law enforcement can be a galvanizing force for changing the broader criminal justice system and perhaps show the way toward fixing a broken system. - The 4W-Challenge (Wrong assumptions; Wrong goals and indicators; Weak institutions; and Worse outcomes) outlines the four main challenges to modernize drug law enforcement in the region - In future law enforcement strategies violence reduction must be a priority and law enforcement measures should not cause additional harm. - The criminal justice system should be focused on the most prejudicial and dangerous criminals, those that have more resources and capacities to use violence and corruption. - Alternatives to incarceration should be developed for the weakest links in the drug trade. - "Success" should be measured not via process indicators (arrests, seizures, extraditions) but rather in terms of outcomes and the impact of policy upon societies(levels of corruption, public health and human security). - The United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the drug problem in 2016 provides an opportunity to rethink drug law enforcement and its consequences for security and development.

Details: Amsterdam: Transnational Institute, 2014. 16p.

Source: Internet Resource: Series on Legislative Reform of Drug Policies No. 29: Accessed March 11, 2015 at: http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/dlr29.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: Latin America

URL: http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/dlr29.pdf

Shelf Number: 134888

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement
Drug Reform
Drug Trafficking (Latin America)
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Martin, Catherine

Title: Casualities of War: How the war on drugs is harming the world's poorest

Summary: Since the mid-twentieth century, global drug policy has been dominated by strict prohibition, which tries to force people to stop possessing, using and producing drugs by making them illegal. This approach, which has come to be known as the 'War on Drugs', has not only failed to achieve its goals - it is fuelling poverty, undermining health, and failing some of the poorest and most marginalised communities worldwide. Just like tax dodging, climate change and unfair trade rules, current global drug policies undermine global efforts to tackle poverty and inequality. Yet, unlike with these issues, the development sector has remained largely silent when it comes to drug policy. If, as international NGOs, we are serious about dealing with the root causes of poverty and not just the symptoms, we cannot afford to ignore drug policy. It's time we recognised the threat that unreformed global drug policy poses to our attempts to tackle poverty worldwide. The sector can no longer be absent from debates on drug policy reform. As governments prepare for the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals and the UN General Assembly's Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs in 2016, we have a unique opportunity to ensure the rights of the poorest and most marginalised are at the heart of the negotiations.

Details: London: Health Poverty Action, 2015. 28p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 12, 2015 at: http://www.healthpovertyaction.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2015/02/Casualties-of-war-report-web.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: International

URL: http://www.healthpovertyaction.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2015/02/Casualties-of-war-report-web.pdf

Shelf Number: 134916

Keywords:
Drug Policy (International)
Drug Reform
Poverty
War on Drugs

Author: Transform Drug Policy Foundation

Title: Ending the War on Drugs: How to win the global drug policy debate

Summary: This is a guide to making the case for drug policy and law reform from a position of confidence and authority, with a particular focus on the issue of legal regulation of currently illegal drug markets - an issue that is now core to the drugs debate. It is for every policymaker, media commentator, and campaigner who not only recognises that the 'war on drugs' is a counterproductive failure that is creating catastrophic unintended consequences, but who also wants to convince others to back reform. It will equip you with the constructive arguments, different approaches and nuanced messaging needed to address the concerns and interests of diverse audiences. This will enable you to not just win the argument, but make the new allies needed to turn the current unparalleled momentum for reform into concrete policy change nationally and internationally.

Details: London: Transform Drug Policy Foundation, 2015. 176p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 18, 2015 at: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/resources/publications/ending-war-drugs-how-win-global-drug-policy-debate

Year: 2015

Country: International

URL: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/resources/publications/ending-war-drugs-how-win-global-drug-policy-debate

Shelf Number: 134951

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
Drug Reform
Drug Trafficking
Illegal Drugs
Illicit Trade
War on Drugs

Author: Jenson, Weston Thayne

Title: Breaking bad: U.S.-Mexican counterdrug offensive, the Merida initiative and beyond

Summary: In the study of U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, there exists a fundamental challenge to counterdrug operations; the underlying socioeconomic foundation of narco-trafficking. I argue that the historical and current practice of merely relying on military and law enforcement aid is not sufficient when it comes to addressing this socioeconomic foundation of narco-trafficking and transnational crime organizations (TCOs). Using a rational policy model, the analysis evaluates the Merida Initiative's effectiveness at inhibiting drug trafficking operations and decreasing drug-related violence. After demonstrating the ineffectiveness of current counterdrugs policies, this project evaluates three options for future U.S.-Mexico security cooperation utilizing the same criteria used to evaluate the Merida Initiative. The prerogative of this project is to demonstrate the need for a comprehensive plan that both addresses bilateral security needs as well as the underlying social foundation of narco-trafficking in order to be successful in the ongoing Mexican Narco-War.

Details: Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser University, 2013. 68p.

Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed May 23, 2015 at: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/13521

Year: 2013

Country: Mexico

URL: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/13521

Shelf Number: 135761

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement
Drug Trafficking
Drug-Related Violence
Merida Initiative
War on Drugs

Author: Human Rights Watch

Title: Mexico's Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored

Summary: When Enrique Pena Nieto took office in December 2012, he inherited a country reeling from an epidemic of drug violence. The "war on drugs" launched by his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, had not only failed to reduce violence, but also led to a dramatic increase in human rights violations. Throughout most of his presidency, Calderon denied abuses had occurred and failed to take adequate steps to ensure they were prosecuted. That responsibility now falls to President Enrique Pena Nieto. And nowhere is it more urgent than in the crime of disappearances: where people have been unlawfully taken against their will and their fate is still unknown. Mexico's Disappeared documents nearly 250 "disappearances." In 149 of these cases, evidence suggests that these were enforced disappearances, carried out with the participation of state agents. In virtually all of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, authorities failed to promptly and thoroughly search for the disappeared person, instead blaming the victim and passing the responsibility to investigate onto families. The limited investigative steps prosecutors took were undermined by delays, errors, and omissions. These lapses only exacerbate the suffering of victims' families, for whom not knowing what happened to their loved ones is a source of perpetual anguish. Another path is possible. In the state of Nuevo Leon, responding to pressure from victims' families and human rights defenders, prosecutors have broken with a pattern of inaction and begun to seriously investigate a select group of disappearances. While progress thus far has been limited, it is an encouraging first step. Ultimately, enforced disappearances are a national problem, and the success of state-level efforts will depend in large measure on whether the federal government is willing and able to do its part. If, like its predecessor, the Pena Nieto administration fails to implement a comprehensive strategy to find the missing and bring perpetrators to justice, it will only worsen the most severe crisis of enforced disappearance in Latin America in decades.

Details: New York: HRW, 2013. 176p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 26, 2015 at: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/mexico0213_ForUpload_0_0_0.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Mexico

URL: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/mexico0213_ForUpload_0_0_0.pdf

Shelf Number: 127733

Keywords:
Disappearances
Drug Trafficking
Drug-Related Violence
Homicides
Missing Persons
Murders
War on Drugs

Author: Carvalho, Ilona Szabo de

Title: Citizen security rising: new approaches to addressing drugs, guns and violence in Latin America

Summary: Many Latin American states are facing epidemic levels of organised and interpersonal violence. This violence is attributed to a number of risk factors, even if the illegal drugs trade and punitive responses to trafficking are widely credited with being the principle drivers. Yet while trafficking in narcotics is commonly associated with insecurity, weakening governance and underdevelopment, drugs as such are not the central problem. Rather, it is competition between criminal factions for control over the trade and a protracted "war" declared against drugs that have ratcheted up insecurity from Mexico to Brazil. The outcomes of this four-decade-long war are at best uneven, with gains in one country overshadowed by severe declines in others. More optimistically, a regional debate is under way that is challenging the status quo with a more concerted focus on prevention and demand reduction. Latin American societies are beginning to explore alternative approaches to drug control tailored to regional and national needs and priorities. There is a visible shift toward a discourse that emphasises prevention and treats consumption as a public health issue, focuses repression on the most violent criminal organisations and redirects law enforcement toward harm reduction. The hope is that this may presage a turn toward investment in policies that are animated more by evidence than ideology.

Details: Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF): 2013. 10p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 26, 2015 at: http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/061bc30adffa795e6a5e43bf664c8666.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Latin America

URL: http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/061bc30adffa795e6a5e43bf664c8666.pdf

Shelf Number: 129717

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Drug Trafficking
Drug-Related Violence
Drugs and Crime
Gun Violence
War on Drugs

Author: Malinowska-Sempruch, Kasia

Title: The Impact of Drug Policy on Women

Summary: Across the globe, the failure of the war on drugs has come at an enormous cost to women. Punitive drug laws and policies pose a heavy burden on women and, in turn, on the children for whom women are often the principal caregivers. Prohibitionist policies impede access to and use of HIV and hepatitis C prevention and care services for everyone, but women and girls virtually always face a higher risk of transmission of these infections. Men suffer from unjust incarceration for minor drug offenses, but in some places women are more likely than men to face harsh sentences for minor infractions. Treatment for drug dependence is of poor quality in many places, but women are at especially high risk of undergoing inappropriate treatment or not receiving any treatment at all. All people who use drugs face stigma and discrimination, but women are often more likely than men to be severely vilified as unfit parents and "fallen" members of society. In drug policy reform debates and movements happening around the world, the rights of women should be a central concern. Less punitive laws for minor and nonviolent drug infractions are the best single means of reducing incarceration of women and thus incarceration-related abuse. Such measures will also reduce stigma and enable women to have better access to services in the community. The Impact of Drug Policy on Women elaborates on the gender dimension of drug policy and law, with attention to the burdens that ill-conceived policies and inadequate services place on women and girls.

Details: Washington, DC: Open Society Foundations, 2015. 24p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 2, 2015 at: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/ungass-impact-drug-policy-women-20150507.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: International

URL: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/ungass-impact-drug-policy-women-20150507.pdf

Shelf Number: 135851

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Drug Policy Reform
Gender-Based Programs
War on Drugs

Author: Urgent Action Fund of Latin America

Title: Drug trafficking: Shadow powers and their hidden impact on the women's life in Latin America

Summary: The Urgent Action Fund of Latin America, concerned about the situation of women and the consequences for their lives and communities of the dynamics of drug trafficking, initiated the Collaborative Initiative, Women, Resistance and "Shadow Powers", in 2013. The goal was to promote collective action among activists, members of women's organizations, and academics, who influence public policy in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador and the United States. The objective of this initiative is to identify existing information related to the specific dynamics of this issue in the region and to bring out distinct points of view regarding the problem, the final goal being to identify ways to develop shared advocacy initiatives in the defense of women's rights.

Details: Bogota, Colombia: Urgent Action Fund of Latin America, 2015. 78p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 8, 2015 at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64663568/library/fondoaccionurgente-drug-trafficking-shadow-powers-and-their-hidden-impact-on-the-women%27s-life-in-latin-america.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: Latin America

URL: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64663568/library/fondoaccionurgente-drug-trafficking-shadow-powers-and-their-hidden-impact-on-the-women%27s-life-in-latin-america.pdf

Shelf Number: 135929

Keywords:
Drug Policy
Drug Trafficking
Femicide
War on Drugs

Author: Livingston, Andrew

Title: A Reputation for Violence: Fractionalization's Impact on Criminal Reputation and the Mexican State

Summary: Friday night, July 8th 2011 - gunmen aligned with Los Zetas smash their way into a bar in the Northern Mexican city of Monterrey. They open fire and kill 20 people while wounding even more. The next morning, in an unrelated incident, police find 10 people shot and left to rot in an abandoned SUV. In just 24 short hours, 30 people are added to the ever-expanding casualty count. Horrific days of violence like these have become more frequent over the past few years. The Government of Mexico responds to violent organized criminal groups (OCGs) by increasing enforcement and the OCGs retaliate with brazen acts of aggressive defiance. The 15,000 that died in 2010 alone, elevates the death toll from the Mexican Drug War to around 35,000 since 2007. These huge numbers have a way of desensitizing us to the reality of death. That cannot be allowed to happen. On average, 14 sons, daughters, husbands, wives, friends and neighbors are murdered every day in the violent border city of Juarez. Fourteen died yesterday and more will perish today, tomorrow, and the day after. In an effort to reduce violence and the power of criminal organizations, US and Mexican strategy has focused primarily on removing high valued targets within an OCG's top leadership in order to fracture the organization's power structure. Mexican President Felipe Calderon believes breaking up the gangs will turn a criminal problem that threatens Mexican national security into a regional safety issue. But in the short run fragmentation causes spikes in violence because conflicts arise within and between criminal organizations. After the pre-existing power relationship disintegrates, leaders of criminal groups attempt to increase their market share by muscling out the competition. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration views this escalation in violence as "a sign of success in the fight against drugs" an instance of "caged animals, attacking one another." But this view may be oversimplified. Organized crime groups are horizontally structured for-profit criminal businesses that operate to maximize revenues gained from illegal activities. They typically engage in violence only when it serves a specific business purpose. The strategy of continually breaking apart criminal organizations has kept the balance of power from reaching a stable equilibrium. These uncertain conditions incentivize OCGs to forcefully take advantage of their rivals' unstable control over market share. But physical violence is only one way to increase market share and control competitors. Establishing a threatening reputation from past displays of violence and corrupting government officials are integral components of a combined strategy that allow an OCG to attain a dominant status within the market hierarchy without having to resort to expensive warfare. The following analysis considers criminal violence in Mexico from an economic perspective of illegal firms' incentives to build violent reputation capital. Studying the costs and benefits of utilizing violent intimidation and institutional corruption to gain an economic advantage provides an objective point from which the success or failure of the US-Mexican strategy of fragmentation can be analyzed. Reputation building by criminal organizations will be discussed in the context of their effect on the local population, the government and rival OCGs. This analysis will attempt to answer the central question of whether President Calderon's war against the organized crime groups increases violence and destabilizes the Mexican state. In the end, the continuous periods of intense violence that occur when government enforcement keeps the market destabilized perpetuates an environment where reputation must be constantly rebuilt and reaffirmed with actual displays of violence. This violent environment selects for the most aggressive and brutal leaders all while overburdening criminal justice system and eroding public confidence in the rule of law. Going after the dangerous criminals that control Mexico's illicit underworld sounds like a reasonable and responsible plan to weaken their power over the state but in the end, constantly breaking apart criminal organizations exacerbates many of the problems the government is trying to solve.

Details: Hamilton, NY: Colgate University, 2011. 53p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 13, 2015 at: http://www.colgate.edu/portaldata/imagegallerywww/096e1793-d3a4-43b3-b7fa-bd595c56c799/ImageGallery/LivingstonA(1)FinalCopy.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: Mexico

URL: http://www.colgate.edu/portaldata/imagegallerywww/096e1793-d3a4-43b3-b7fa-bd595c56c799/ImageGallery/LivingstonA(1)FinalCopy.pdf

Shelf Number: 135999

Keywords:
Drug Cartels
Drug Trafficking
Drug-Related Violence
Homicides
Organized Crime
Violent Crime
War on drugs

Author: Lumpe, Lora

Title: US Law Enforcement Involvement in Counternarcotics Operations in Latin America

Summary: US government assistance to foreign law enforcement agencies to curb drug trafficking into the United States began in 1949. At that time, two agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics were sent to Turkey and France to try and interdict the flow of heroin. By the 1960s and 70s, federal drug law enforcement agents were conducting major international operations aimed at cutting marijuana importation across the Mexican border and curbing heroin trafficking into the US by the French mafia (the "French connection"). In 1973 the DEA was created, in what was billed as an effort to consolidate drug control functions of several offices and agencies. However, US Customs overseas enforcement operations and investigations, which date back several decades, continued. Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard became involved in overseas counterdrug enforcement and investigation, State Department-backed counternarcotics assistance to foreign police agencies began in 1978 and FBI involvement in international counternarcotics programs began in earnest the 1980s and escalated in the mid-1990s. (The September 11th attacks and the resultant shift toward a focus on countering terrorist threats to the United States have affected the role and scope of most agencies with foreign counternarcotics responsibilities.) This memo covers each of these agencies' involvement in general terms, including their mission, methods of international operation, budgetary and bureaucratic history, and oversight mechanisms. An appendix relates specific details available about these agencies' activities in WOLA's priority countries. The information is drawn largely from government documentation (wherein the various agencies self describe their operations and motivation), congressional hearings, oversight reports and investigative journalistic accounts. The intent of the document is threefold: - to provide leads or questions that in-country researchers can follow up on to discover as much as possible about the reality and local impact of these agencies' overseas operations; - to identify places where Congress' help is needed in order to force basic information on these agencies' operations into the public domain and where work by WOLA will result in greater oversight of US counternarcotics policy; and - to lay the groundwork for an overview chapter on the non-military (ie, law enforcement) aspects of the US-backed war on drugs in Latin America.

Details: Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2002. 30p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 20, 2015 at: http://www.wola.org/sites/default/files/downloadable/Drug%20Policy/past/ddhr_law_enforcement_overview.pdf

Year: 2002

Country: Latin America

URL: http://www.wola.org/sites/default/files/downloadable/Drug%20Policy/past/ddhr_law_enforcement_overview.pdf

Shelf Number: 136104

Keywords:
Drug Control Policy
Drug Law Enforcement
Drug Trafficking
War on Drugs

Author: Amnesty International

Title: You Killed My Son: Homicides by Military Police in the City of Rio de Janeiro

Summary: Extrajudicial executions at the hands of police officials are frequent in Brazil. In the context of the so-called "war on drugs", military police forces have unnecessarily and excessively used lethal force, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people over the past decade. The authorities often use the legal term of "resistance followed by death" as a smokescreen to cover up killings committed by the police officers. This report is based on a series of cases of police killings that occurred during 2014 and 2015 in the city of Rio de Janeiro, particularly in the favela of Acari.

Details: London; Amnesty International, 2015. 47p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 14, 2015 at: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/youkilled_final_bx.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: Brazil

URL: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/youkilled_final_bx.pdf

Shelf Number: 136430

Keywords:
Deadly Force
Homicides
Police Brutality
Police Use Force
War on Drugs

Author: Schujer, Maria

Title: The impact of drug policy on human rights: The experience in the Americas

Summary: This report highlights the different strategies used in countries across the Americas to tackle the drugs problem in the region. It discusses the prohibitionist approach which has led to militarisation, violence, criminalisation of drug use and users, mass incarceration and forced crop eradication campaigns. The so-called "War on Drugs" deployed in the last 50 years has had an enormous impact on the functioning of security, justice and prison systems in Latin America. Despite the high levels of violence that this battle has caused in some areas and its grave consequences, for many years it was not analyzed from a human rights perspective in local or international arenas. This scenario has begun to change. In March 2014, at the request of 17 organizations from 11 countries in the Americas, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) held a regional thematic hearing on this topic, the first in the history of its 150 sessions. This publication expands on the assessment presented by those organizations. The prohibitionist paradigm has increased exponentially the militarization and violence associated with drug trafficking. By creating an enormous illegal market controlled by complex and increasingly powerful criminal groups, violent conflicts have intensified throughout the region, especially in impoverished areas where there has been a further deterioration of inhabitants' living conditions and increased stigmatization. These repressive policies tend to violate the human rights of thousands of people, above all those who face judicial proceedings and are sent to prison, where overcrowding and inhumane detention conditions are often the norm. Numerous studies have shown that these policies tend to disproportionately affect particularly vulnerable groups, and in that way, they reinforce and replicate discrimination and social exclusion

Details: Buenos Aires, Argentina: Center for Legal and Social studies (CELS), 2015. 69p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 28, 2015 at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64663568/library/the-impact-of-drug-policy-on-human-rights-CELS.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: South America

URL: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64663568/library/the-impact-of-drug-policy-on-human-rights-CELS.pdf

Shelf Number: 136526

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
Drug Trafficking
Human Rights
War on Drugs

Author: Cockayne, James

Title: What Comes After the War on Drugs - Flexibility, Fragmentation or Principled Pluralism?

Summary: In April 2016, diplomats, experts and civil society actors from around the world will gather for three days at a rare Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, called to address the world drug problem (UNGASS 2016). In some quarters, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, UNGASS 2016 is seen as a moment to rethink global drug control strategies. In other regions, UNGASS 2016 is viewed somewhat differently, as a time to build upon and strengthen the current approach to drug policy, as set out in a current Plan of Action adopted in 2009. Throughout 2015, United Nations University (UNU) - a global think tank established by the UN General Assembly, and charged with contributing, through collaborative research, to collective efforts to resolve pressing global challenges - has been gathering stakeholders in a series of meetings at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York, aimed at "Identifying Common Ground" ahead of UNGASS 2016. These meetings have addressed the relationship between contemporary global drug policy and public health, human rights, development and criminal justice. These meetings have been attended by delegates from more than 50 UN Member States, as well as representatives of 16 UN entities and 55 civil society and academic organizations. Drawing on these consultations, this Policy Report outlines how the global drug control system works, including recent trends; describes three major perspectives going into UNGASS 2016: Orthodoxy, Scepticism and Swing Voting; explores the likely outcome of UNGASS 2016; and makes recommendations for strengthening that outcome.

Details: Tokyo: United Nations University, 2015. 59p.

Source: Internet Resource: A Policy Report: Accessed December 1, 2015 at: http://i.unu.edu/media/unu.edu/news/72569/UNU_Drug_Policy_Online_Final.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: International

URL: http://i.unu.edu/media/unu.edu/news/72569/UNU_Drug_Policy_Online_Final.pdf

Shelf Number: 137373

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Drug Control
Drug Policy
Drug Reform
War on Drugs

Author: London School of Economics and Political Science. LSE Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy

Title: After the Drug Wars: report of the LSE Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy

Summary: The post-'war on drug' era has begun. Prohibitionist policies must now take a back seat to the new, comprehensive, people-centred set of universal goals and targets that we know as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Nation states and the global drug regulatory system must shift to principles of sustainable development that include: public health, harm reduction of consumption and supply, access to essential medicines, and scientific experimentation with strict legal regulation. To enable this transformation, nation states should drastically de-prioritise the prohibitionist goals of the past. They must implement new comprehensive development policies dealing with the root causes of problems associated with illicit drugs. The 'war on drugs' caused the international community to prioritise prohibitionist policies over sustainable development at a terrible socioeconomic cost. As the United Nations Development Programme highlights in the discussion paper excerpted in this report, 'evidence indicates that drug control policies often leave an indelible footprint on sustainable human development processes and outcomes... [and] have fuelled the marginalisation of people linked with illicit drug use or markets.' This report recognises that key reforms within the global regulatory system will come from changes at the national and local levels. It highlights that the UN drug control treaties recommend an approach grounded in the 'health and welfare' of mankind. Further, it emphasises that human rights obligations have absolute supremacy over drug control goals and as such there is sufficient interpretive scope within the treaties to experiment with social scientific policies that can further global health and welfare. The world can shift away from counterproductive and ineffective drug policies. The UN General Assembly Special Session in 2016 is a key platform for driving debate. However, the ultimate impetus lies with countries to reform their policies based on evidence and local realities. This report provides a framework for achieving this shift.

Details: London: LSE, 2016. 140p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 26, 2016 at: http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/pdf/LSE-IDEAS-After-the-Drug-Wars.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: International

URL: http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/pdf/LSE-IDEAS-After-the-Drug-Wars.pdf

Shelf Number: 137981

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Drug Control
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
War on Drugs

Author: Kushlick, Danny

Title: The War on Drugs: Undermining Peace and Security

Summary: The global war on drugs has been fought for 50 years, without preventing the long-term trend of increasing drug production, supply and use. But beyond this failure to achieve its own stated aims, the drug war has also produced a range of serious, negative costs. Many of these costs have been identified by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) - the very UN agency that oversees the system responsible for them - and are described as the 'unintended consequences' of the war on drugs. They may have been unintended, but after more than 50 years, they can no longer be seen as unanticipated. These costs are also distinct from those relating to drug use, stemming as they do from the choice of a punitive enforcement-led approach. This briefing explores how the UN seeks to promote the security of its member states through implementing a drug control system that treats the use of certain drugs as an 'existential threat' to society. The briefing will demonstrate, however, that this approach is fatally undermining international peace and security. There is naturally overlap with other areas of the Count the Costs project, including: development, human rights, health, crime and economics.

Details: London: Count the Costs, 2016. 16p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 16, 2016 at: http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Security-briefing.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: International

URL: http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Security-briefing.pdf

Shelf Number: 138249

Keywords:
Drug Control
Drug Policy
Drug Trafficking
War on Drugs

Author: Mejia, Daniel

Title: The Economics of the Drug War: Unaccounted Costs, Lost Lives, Missed Opportunities

Summary: Fiscally minded policymakers should invest in drug policy reform. Many national drug control policies are centered on aggressive policing and military efforts to reduce drug supplies and punish drug consumers. But these policies come with a very high price tag, rarely resulting in sustained control of drug supply or demand. The economic wastefulness of the drug war is one of the most important motivations for reform. A new report from the Open Society Foundations, The Economics of the Drug War: Unaccounted Costs, Lost Lives, Missed Opportunities, documents both the wastefulness of ill-conceived investment in ineffective policies and the missed opportunity of failing to invest in effective policies and programs that embody good public health practice and human rights norms. The case of Colombia, for example, illustrates the futility-and the harms to individuals and society-of extremely expensive coca eradication efforts. For all the money spent, the efforts merely resulted in a geographical shift of coca production to new and sometimes more environmentally fragile locations. The environmental and health damage caused by aerial spraying of coca crops also negatively impacted the productivity of rural families. Many countries fail to invest in and scale up programs that yield significant economic returns in reduced crime, reduced death from overdose, reduced illness and injury from unsafe injection, and improved productivity of patients who are able to get on with their lives. Programs that provide clean injection equipment are among the most cost-effective interventions in all of public health because they prevent HIV, but too many governments still believe erroneously that they encourage drug use. And overincarceration for nonviolent drug offenses is a drain on public resources that fails to make a dent in drug markets. Health-centered drug policy conceived with human rights norms in mind is effective and cost-effective compared to many status quo approaches. This report explains why less punitive drug policy is good fiscal decision making.

Details: New York: Open Society Foundations, 2016. 20p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 31, 2016 at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/economics-drug-war-unaccounted-costs-lost-lives-missed-opportunities-20160229.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/economics-drug-war-unaccounted-costs-lost-lives-missed-opportunities-20160229.pdf

Shelf Number: 138512

Keywords:
Costs of Criminal Justice
Drug Control
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
War on Drugs

Author: McSweeney, Kendra

Title: The Impact of Drug Policy on the Environment

Summary: Across the world, cultivators and traffickers of illicit drugs are wreaking ecological havoc-clearing fields from primary rainforest, piggy-backing drug smuggling with traffic in illegal hardwoods and endangered species, and laundering money in land deals that devastate protected forests. The international drug control system must share the blame for this devastation. Forty years of dogged adherence to drug crop eradication and drug interdiction policies have been instrumental in hounding drug farmers and traffickers into increasingly fragile landscapes. Although these policies have arguably done little to stem the cultivation and traffic of illicit drugs, it has done much to amplify the environmental devastation and degradation that accompanies them. Moreover, prohibitionist drug control policies keep the price of drugs high, ensuring that those involved in their traffic make good profits-profits that are speculatively laundered in the transformation of bio-and agro-diverse landscapes into cattle ranches and oil palm plantations. New research-much of it using newly available real-time satellite imagery of forest loss-is bringing into sharp focus the devastating ecological costs of conventional drug policies, and how these can profoundly undermine international policies designed to protect forests, mitigate climate change, and promote rural development. The Impact of Drug Policy on the Environment explores the environmental costs of conventional drug policies using the latest science, and provides recommendations for governments to recognize this problem, review current strategies, and explore new approaches to lessen this collateral environmental damage.

Details: New York: Open Society Foundations, 2015. 20p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 31, 2016 at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/impact-drug-policy-environment

Year: 2015

Country: International

URL: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/impact-drug-policy-environment

Shelf Number: 20

Keywords:
Drug Control
Drug Enforcement
Drug Policy
Offenses Against the Environment
War on Drugs

Author: Csete, Joanne

Title: Detention and Punishment in the Name of Drug Treatment

Summary: In some countries, people who use, or are alleged to use, illicit drugs may be detained involuntarily after little or no legal process, ostensibly for the purpose of receiving drug "treatment" or "rehabilitation." These detentions are variously described as compulsory treatment centers, drug rehabilitation centers, detoxification centers, or centers for social education and labor. It is far from clear that all persons detained in this manner are drug-dependent or in need of treatment. If they are, there are international standards to guide treatment of drug-dependence, but drug detention centers often subject detainees to treatment methods that are scientifically unsound, punitive, cruel, inhuman, and degrading. In March 2012, 12 UN bodies-including the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), WHO, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Labour Organization, and the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights-jointly issued a call for the closure of compulsory drug detention centers and an expansion of voluntary, scientifically and medically appropriate forms of treating drug dependence in the health system. The 2012 joint UN statement on compulsory drug rehabilitation centers was a very important step, but a declaration from UN member states condemning these institutions and calling for their closure would advance the cause of ending the abuses they represent. Detention and Punishment in the Name of Drug Treatment highlights considerations that should be brought to bear in the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the world drug problem, toward the goal of ending arbitrary detention and grave human rights abuses in the name of drug treatment.

Details: New York: Open Society Foundations, 2016. 24p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 31, 2016 at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/detention-and-punishment-name-drug-treatment-20160315.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: International

URL: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/detention-and-punishment-name-drug-treatment-20160315.pdf

Shelf Number: 138514

Keywords:
Drug Abuse Treatment
Drug Enforcement
Drug Offenders
Drug Policy
War on Drugs

Author: Lieblich, Eliav

Title: The Case Against Police Militarization

Summary: The police and the military are different. That much is common ground. Yet, in recent times the police have become increasingly militarized. Unsurprisingly, many find this process alarming and disconcerting, and call for its reversal. However, while most of the objections to police militarization are framed in instrumental arguments, these are unable to capture the fundamental problem with militarization. This Article remedies this shortcoming, by developing a novel and principled argument against police militarization. Contrary to arguments that are preoccupied with the consequences of militarization, we argue that militarization undermines our basic understanding of the nature of the liberal state. Consequently, the real problem with police militarization is not that it brings about more violence or abuse of authority - though that may very well happen - but that it is based on a presumption of the citizen as a threat, while the liberal order is based on precisely the opposite presumption. A presumption of threat, we argue, assumes that citizens, usually from marginalized communities, pose a threat of such caliber that might require the use of extreme violence. Viewed through the prism of the presumption of threat, the problem of police militarization becomes apparent. Perceived as threatening, the policed community is subjected to militarized forces, and thus effectively marked as an enemy. This mark, in turn, leads to the policed community's exclusion from the body politic. Crucially, the pervasiveness of police militarization has led to its normalization, thus exacerbating its exclusionary effect. Indeed, whereas the domestic deployment of militaries has always been reserved for exceptional times, the process of police militarization has normalized what was once exceptional.

Details: Unpublished paper, 2016. 74p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 28, 2016 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2840715

Year: 2016

Country: International

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2840715

Shelf Number: 146108

Keywords:
Civil Rights
Militarization
Police Militarization
Policing
War on Drugs

Author: Clark, Kyleigh M.

Title: When Prohibition and Violence Collide: The Case of Mexico

Summary: Some theorists have found a positive correlation between increased drug prohibition enforcement and a rise in violence. These studies focus on the United States and Colombia, arguing that prohibition amplifies violence, rather than decreasing it. Much like the United States and Colombia earlier in their histories, Mexico has recently experienced an escalation in violence. Since beginning a democratic transition in 2000, the Mexican government has intensified a war on drugs by strengthening the rule of law, battling corruption, and cooperating with the United States' drug war. This study, using a congruence method with process-tracing, will analyze the Mexican case in depth, with the goal of determining whether increased drug prohibition enforcement has escalated drug-related violence in Mexico, and what effect the violence has on the legitimacy of democracy itself in Mexico

Details: Dayton, OH: Wright State University, 2011. 146p.

Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed October 17, 2016 at: http://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2209&context=etd_all

Year: 2011

Country: Mexico

URL: http://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2209&context=etd_all

Shelf Number: 146034

Keywords:
Drug Control Policy
Drug Enforcement
Drug Prohibition
Drug-Related Violence
War on Drugs

Author: Garat, Guillermo

Title: Paraguay: The cannabis breadbasket of the Southern Cone: A focus on the largest cannabis producer in South America

Summary: Key Points - Paraguay is the principal producer of cannabis in South America. Despite its importance as a supplier of cannabis in South America, there has been a surprising absence of serious studies of its impact on its own society, and on the play of offer and demand in neighbouring countries. - After 40 years of an intense "war on drugs", there are now eight departments involved in the business, with spiralling homicide rates, an absence of state policy intervention, drug traffickers infiltrated into local political structures, and millions of dollars which are shared out by terrorist organizations, a new chain of services connected to the illicit trade, and - to a much lesser extent - small farmers suffocated by repeated crises. - Contradictions in productive structures, the lack of agrarian policies, poverty and the absence of perspectives for the rural population led to a gradual, and progressively more blatant, adoption of cannabis cultivation by young. Over time, growing cannabis became one of the few viable economic prospects for large sectors of the population. - Intermediaries who manage contacts with the buyers on the border with Brazil, employ young people to grow, protect, harvest, dry, press, package and even transport the cannabis - not just within Paraguay, but even into nearby countries, using the limited means at their disposal, such as their shoulders, bicycles and motorbikes. - The use of cannabis is looked down on by the general population, particularly in rural areas, and even in the communities where it is grown, it is commonly referred to as the "demon weed" (hierba maldita). Lifetime use of cannabis in Paraguay is the second lowest in all Latin America, only 0.4% admitting to having tried it. - Some politicians, government officials, civil society organisations and farmers' organisations see the benefit of the regulation of the cannabis market in Paraguay, but the debate is still incipient.

Details: Bonn, Germany: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2016. 29p.

Source: Internet Resource: Drug Policy Briefing, no. 46: Accessed November 2, 2016 at: https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/drug_policy_briefing_46.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: Paraguay

URL: https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/drug_policy_briefing_46.pdf

Shelf Number: 145004

Keywords:
Cannabis
Drug Markets
Drug Policy
Drug Trafficking
Illicit Trade
Marijuana
War on Drugs

Author: Amnesty International

Title: "If You Are Poor, You Are Killed": Extrajudicial executions in the Philippines' "War on Drugs"

Summary: Since President Duterte took office in June 2016, there has been a campaign of violence against alleged drug offenders. More than 7,000 people have been killed, roughly one-third during formal police operations and the rest by unknown shooters. Based on 110 interviews and the documentation of 33 cases, this report shows that many drug-related killings are extrajudicial executions that directly implicate the police. The report also describes how the "war on drugs" has targeted the poor disproportionately. It reveals how at least some unknown shooters are assassins paid by police officers

Details: London: AI, 2017. 68p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 15, 2017 at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa35/5517/2017/en/

Year: 2017

Country: Philippines

URL: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa35/5517/2017/en/

Shelf Number: 145790

Keywords:
Drug Offenders
Extrajudicial Executions
Human Rights Abuses
Police Brutality
War on Drugs

Author: Magaloni, Beatriz

Title: The Mexican War on Drugs: Crime and the Limits of Government Persuasion

Summary: In order to successfully battle organized crime, governments require a certain degree of citizens' support. Governments are sometimes able to influence citizens' opinions, but sometimes they are not. Under what circumstances do pro-government frames influence citizens' opinions? Will individuals who are victims of crime be equally sensitive to frames than those who are not? We argue that crime victimization desensitizes citizens to pro-government frames. This further complicates governments' fights against criminals, creating a vicious circle of insecurity, distrust, and frustrated policy interventions. To test our argument, we conducted a frame experiment embedded in a nationwide survey in Mexico. The empirical evidence supports our argument in most circumstances; yet desensitization is moderated by love media-exposure and identification with the president's party.

Details: Stanford, CA: Center on Democracy, Development, and The Rule of Law, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, 2013. 32p.

Source: Internet Resource: CDDRL Working Paper no. 144: Accessed February 28, 2017 at: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/144.Romero_Magaloni_Diazcayeros_frameeffects_v6.0.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Mexico

URL: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/144.Romero_Magaloni_Diazcayeros_frameeffects_v6.0.pdf

Shelf Number: 141226

Keywords:
Drug Cartels
Drug Trafficking
Drug-Related Violence
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Human Rights Watch

Title: "License to Kill" : Philippine Police Killings in Duterte's "War on Drugs"

Summary: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's "war on drugs" has produced a campaign of unlawful killings by Philippine National Police personnel and unidentified "vigilantes" that has resulted in the deaths of more than 7,000 suspected drug users and dealers since July 1, 2016. Duterte's public endorsement of the campaign implicates him and other senior figures in possible incitement to violence, instigation of murder and in command responsibility for crimes against humanity. "License to Kill": Philippine Police Killings in Duterte’s “War on Drugs,” is based on several dozen interviews with family members of victims of police killings, witnesses, journalists and human rights activists. The report exposes the falsehood of official police reports that invariably assert self-defense to justify unlawful police killings. Instead, police routinely carry out extrajudicial killings of drug suspects and then cover-up those crimes. In several instances Human Rights Watch investigated, suspects in police custody were later found dead and classified by police as "found bodies," casting doubt on government assertions that most killings have been committed by vigilantes or rival drug gangs. The report also documents the lack of a cohesive approach by the Philippines’ allies, including the United States, Japan and the European Union, to pressure the government to stop these killings and to bring the perpetrators to justice. The report calls for Duterte to publicly denounce extrajudicial killings and press for the investigation and prosecution of police and other officials implicated in such abuses. In addition, the United Nations should launch an independent international investigation into the killings. Finally, the report urges foreign donors to immediately suspend any assistance or weapons sales to the police until the "drug war" killings end and meaningful investigations into those killings are underway.

Details: New York: HRW, 2017. 134p.

Source: Internet Resource: accessed march 2, 2017 at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/philippines0317_web_1.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: Philippines

URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/philippines0317_web_1.pdf

Shelf Number: 141291

Keywords:
Deadly Force
Drug Enforcement
Extrajudicial Executions
Police Use of Force
Vigilantes
War on Drugs

Author: Brown, Ryan

Title: Impact of Violent Crime on Risk Aversion: Evidence from the Mexican Drug War

Summary: Whereas attitudes towards risk are thought to play an important role in many decisions over the life-course, factors that affect those attitudes are not fully understood. Using longitudinal survey data collected in Mexico before and during the Mexican war on drugs, we investigate how an individual's risk attitudes change with variation in levels of insecurity and uncertainty brought on by unprecedented changes in local-area violent crime due to the war on drugs. Exploiting the fact that the timing, virulence and spatial distribution of changes in violent crime were unanticipated, we establish the changes can plausibly be treated as exogenous in models that also take into account unobserved characteristics of individuals that are fixed over time. As local-area violent crime increases, there is a rise in risk aversion that is distributed through the entire local population.

Details: Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017. 44p.

Source: Internet Resource: NBER Working Paper No. 23181: Accessed March 4, 2017 at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23181.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: Mexico

URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23181.pdf

Shelf Number: 141337

Keywords:
Drug Enforcement Policy
Drug-Related Violence
Risk-Taking Behavior
Violent Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Cox, Robynn

Title: Financing the War on Drugs: The Impact of law Enforcement Grants on Racial Disparities in Drug Arrests

Summary: We estimate the effectiveness of the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program, a grant program authorized under the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act to combat illicit drug abuse and to improve the criminal justice system, on racial bias in policing. Funds for the Byrne Grant program could be used for a variety of purposes to combat drug crimes, as well as violent and other drug related crimes. The event-study analysis suggests that implementation of this grant resulted in an increase in police hiring and an increase in arrests for drug trafficking. Post-treatment effect implies a 107 percent increase in white arrests for drug sales compared to a 44 percent increase for blacks 6 years after the first grant is received. However, due to historical racial differences in drug arrests, the substantial increase in white drug arrest still results in large racial disparities in drug arrests. This is supported by weighted least squares regression estimates that show, for every $100 increase in Byrne Grant funding, arrests for drug trafficking increased by roughly 22 per 100,000 white residents and by 101 arrests per 100,000 black residents. The results provide strong evidence that federal involvement in narcotic control and trafficking lead to an increase in drug arrests; disproportionally affecting blacks.

Details: Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 2017. 45p.

Source: Internet Resource: CESR-Schaeffer Working Paper No. 2017-005: Accessed November 20, 2017 at:

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL:

Shelf Number: 148280

Keywords:
Arrests
Drug Enforcement
Drug Offenders
Racial Bias
Racial Disparities
War on Drugs

Author: Ghandnoosh, Nazgol

Title: Opioids: Treating and Illness, Ending a War

Summary: More people died from opioid-related deaths in 2015 than in any previous year. This record number quadrupled the level of such deaths in 1999. Unlike the heroin and crack crises of the past, the current opioid emergency has disproportionately affected white Americans-poor and rural, but also middle class or affluent and suburban. This association has boosted support for preventative and treatment-based policy solutions. But the pace of the response has been slow, critical components of the solution-such as health insurance coverage expansion and improved access to medication-assisted treatment- face resistance, and there are growing efforts to revamp the failed and costly War on Drugs. This report examines the sources of the opioid crisis, surveys health and justice policy responses at the federal and state levels, and draws on lessons from past drug crises to provide guidance on how to proceed. The War on Drugs did not play a major role in ebbing past cycles of drug use, as revealed by extensive research and the reflections of police chiefs. In 2014, the National Research Council concluded: The best empirical evidence suggests that the successive iterations of the war on drugs- through a substantial public policy effort-are unlikely to have markedly or clearly reduced drug crime over the past three decades. Growing public awareness of the limited impact and devastating toll of the War on Drugs has encouraged many policymakers and criminal justice practitioners to begin its winding down. The number of people imprisoned nationwide for a drug offense skyrocketed from 24,000 in 1980 to a peak of 369,000 in 2007. It has since declined by nearly one-quarter, reaching approximately 287,000 people in the most recent count. The lessons from past drug crises and the evidence base supporting a public health approach can guide policymakers as they seek an end to the current opioid crisis.

Details: Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2017. 35p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 31, 2018 at: https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Opioids-Treating-an-Illness-Ending-a-War.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL: https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Opioids-Treating-an-Illness-Ending-a-War.pdf

Shelf Number: 148950

Keywords:
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Drug Abuse Treatment
Drug Treatment
Opioids
War on Drugs

Author: Guerrero Castro, Javier Enrique

Title: Maritime Interdiction in the War on Drugs in Colombia: Practices, Technologies and Technological Innovation

Summary: Since the early 1990s, maritime routes have been considered to be the main method used by Colombian smugglers to transport illicit drugs to consumer or transhipment countries. Smugglers purchase off the shelf solutions to transport illicit drugs, such as go-fast boats and communication equipment, but also invest in developing their own artefacts, such as makeshift submersible and semisubmersible artefacts, narcosubmarines. The Colombian Navy has adopted several strategies and adapted several technologies in their attempt to control the flows of illicit drugs. In this research I present an overview of the 'co-evolution' of drug trafficking technologies and the techniques and technologies used by the Colombian Navy to counter the activities of drug smugglers, emphasizing the process of self-building artefacts by smugglers and local responses by the Navy personnel. The diversity of smugglers artefacts are analysed as a result of local knowledge and dispersed peerinnovation. Novel uses of old technologies and practices of interdiction arise as the result of different forms of learning, among them a local form of knowledge 'malicia indigena' (local cunning). The procurement and use of interdiction boats and operational strategies by the Navy are shaped by interaction of two arenas: the arena of practice - the knowledge and experience of local commanders and their perceptions of interdiction events; and, the arena of command, which focuses on producing tangible results in order to reassert the Navy as a capable counterdrug agency. This thesis offers insights from Science and Technology Studies to the understanding of the 'War on Drugs, and in particular the Biography of Artifacts and Practices, perspective that combines historical and to ethnographic methods to engage different moments and locales. Special attention was given to the uneven access to information between different settings and the consequences of this asymmetry both for the research and also for the actors involved in the process. The empirical findings and theoretical insights contribute to understanding drug smuggling and military organisations and Enforcement Agencies in ways that can inform public policies regarding illicit drug control.

Details: Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 2017. 345p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed May 23, 2018 at: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/22950/Guerrero2017.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y

Year: 2017

Country: Colombia

URL: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/22950/Guerrero2017.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y

Shelf Number: 150324

Keywords:
Drug Control
Drug Enforcement
Drug Interdiction
Drug Trafficking
Smuggling
War on Drugs

Author: Comision Mexicana de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos

Title: Violaciones graves a derechos humanos en la guerra contra las drogas en Mexico (Human rights violations in the context of the war on drugs in Mexico)

Summary: Prohibition policies regarding drugs have failed in their goal of achieving a "drug-free world" and have forced the drug market to remain illegal. This has triggered an illicit market, exclusively controlled by organized crime cartels, who have created links to other criminal markets and use violence as a primary form of regulation. In December 2006, former President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa (2006-2012) launched an open confrontation strategy against organized crime locally known as guerra contra el narcotrafico and known internationally as the war on drugs. This policy set de facto military control over the country's public security through the deployment of thousands of troops throughout the national territory and the replacement of multiple civil government leaders of public security institutions at all levels by active and retired military elements. An example of this is the fact that elements of the military and federal, state and municipal police forces systematically transfer arrested civilians to military or exclusive control facilities, where without any monitoring of civil authorities, detainees suffer ill treatment, torture and even enforced disappearance. It has also been documented how in joint operations with civilian authorities, military elements dress in civilian clothing. The press and mass media have systematically spread the federal government's vision, where people who are killed as a result of the strategy against organized crime are not civilians but "fallen criminals", without any prior investigation and despite the fact that in many cases it was subsequently proven that they did not belong to any group or organized crime and posed no "threat" to society. Additionally, the violent confrontation of civil public security and armed forces against organized crime groups has increased. The cartels' territorial division was disbanded, the fight for drug distribution routes intensified and large cartels were fragmented into smaller groups that fought for territorial control, diversifying their criminal activity. Likewise, there has been indiscriminate use of lethal force and an unjustifiable extension of State powers, through the adoption of laws and figures, such as arraigo (pre-charge judicial detention) and protected witnesses, which operate to the detriment of judicial rights and guarantees. In 2012 the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto began. The discourse of war promoted by the Calderon administration was replaced by one of institutional strengthening and building a full rule of law. However, the security strategy has not changed significantly. As a result of the inertia of these strategies, Mexico has accumulated alarming numbers of dead, enforced disappeared and displaced persons, and as a result of the widespread violence there has been an increase in corruption and impunity.

Details: Del. Cuauhtemoc, Mexico: PDH, 2016?. 28p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 18, 2018 at: https://www.pdh.org/publicaciones-pdf/pdh-violaciones-graves-a-ddhh-en-la-guerra-contra-las-drogas-en-mexico.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: Mexico

URL: https://www.pdh.org/publicaciones-pdf/pdh-violaciones-graves-a-ddhh-en-la-guerra-contra-las-drogas-en-mexico.pdf

Shelf Number: 151591

Keywords:
Drug Trafficking
Drug-Related Violence
Human Rights Abuses
Illicit Markets
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Munoz-Mora, J.C

Title: Does Land Titling Matter? The Role of Land Property Rights in Colombia's War on Drugs

Summary: The 'war on drugs' has failed. Despite an increase in law enforcement, production levels of coca - the crop used to make cocaine - have hardly altered in the last decade. A 2017 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca cultivation in Colombia had increased by 52 per cent; thus, there is an urgent need to find alternative policies to counter illicit behaviour. Research by the Institute of Development Studies found that regions in Colombia with a higher level of land titling, where people who have worked land for many years are given formal ownership of it, witnessed a greater reduction in the area of land used to grow coca

Details: London: Institute of Development Studies, 2018. 2p.

Source: Internet Resource: IDS Policy Briefing Issue 156: Accessed September 20, 2018 at: https://www.ids.ac.uk/publications/does-land-titling-matter-the-role-of-land-property-rights-in-colombias-war-on-drugs/

Year: 2018

Country: Colombia

URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2539032

Shelf Number: 151594

Keywords:
Cocaine
Drug Policy
War on Drugs

Author: Ashby, Paul

Title: NAFTA-land Security: The Merida Initiative, Transnational Threats, and U.S. Security Projection in Mexico

Summary: This thesis explores recent U.S. bilateral aid to Mexico through the Merida Initiative (MI), a $2.3 billion assistance commitment on the part of the United States (U.S.) officially justified as helping Mexico build its capacity to take on violent drug cartels and thereby improve security in both countries. There has been a good amount of engaging work on the MI. However this extant literature has not undertaken detailed policy analysis of the aid programme, leading to conclusions that it is a fresh approach to the Mexican counternarcotics (CN) challenge, or that CN is a 'fig leaf' for the U.S. to pursue other 'real' goals. This is a core gap in the literature this project seeks to fill. Through policy analysis, I make an empirically supported argument that Merida is a component of a far more ambitious policy agenda to regionalise security with Mexico more generally. This involves stabilising Mexico itself, not least in response to serious drug-related violence. However the U.S. also aims to improve its own security by giving greater 'depth' to its borders, and seeks protect the political economy of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from variegated security threats. In this way, recent U.S. policy in Mexico is both derivative of its wider grand strategic traditions in stabilising key political economies in line with its interests, and representative of some distinct developments stemming from the deeply integrated U.S.-Mexican economy as part of NAFTA. To assure U.S. interests accrued to it through the increasingly holistic North American economy, the U.S. has used the MI as the main vehicle in the construction of a nascent 'NAFTA-land Security' framework.

Details: Canterbury, UK: University of Kent, 2015. 322p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed October 24, 2018 at: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/48367/

Year: 2014

Country: Mexico

URL: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/48367/

Shelf Number: 153069

Keywords:
Drug Cartels
Drug Trafficking
Drug-Related Violence
Homeland Security
Merida Initiative
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Lozano-Vazquez,Alberto

Title: The Merida Initiative: Perceptions, Interests and Security Cooperation in the Mexico-U.S. Relationship (2006-2012)

Summary: This dissertation asserts that bilateral cooperation can be possible when specific perceptions and identities -socially constructed- converge between two states, creating subsequently rational incentives to cooperate strategically. Both states can derive domestic and international benefits from mutual cooperation materialized through a specific bilateral policy. However, the evaluation of such cooperative program requires, as another stage of analysis, different analytical tools based on materialist and constructivist criteria opening then the possibility to find successes and failures simultaneously in the same bilateral policy. Taking the Merida Initiative as a case study of security cooperation, this research engages in the analysis of the Mexico-U.S. relationship from 2006 to 2012, finding some theoretical and political lessons about bilateral cooperation and regional security affairs.

Details: Miami: University of Miami, 2016. 625p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed October 26, 2018 at: https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2782&context=oa_dissertations

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2782&context=oa_dissertations

Shelf Number: 153100

Keywords:
Drug Cartels
Drug Trafficking
Drug-Related Violence
Homeland Security
Merida Initiative
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Levy-Pounds, Nekima

Title: Par for the Course?: Exploring the Impacts of Incarceration and Marginalization on Poor Black Men in the U.S.

Summary: For the last three decades, an incarceration crisis has been brewing in America. Alarmingly, the United States holds just five percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the world's prisoners. According to recent estimates, more than 2.3 million adults are currently incarcerated in U.S. prisons, jails, or detention centers. Additionally, roughly 7.3 million adults are under some form of correctional supervision or control. The U.S. prison population began ballooning to unsustainable levels in the mid-1980s, largely as a result of Congress' decision to wage the "war on drugs." Media reports, detailing increased rates of violence, drug-related crime, purported gang turf wars over crack-cocaine distribution channels, and growing public concern about the "surging" use of illicit drugs in the U.S., particularly in poor, inner-city communities, prompted this "war". Despite evidence that African-American and white individuals use drugs at roughly even rates, the media overwhelmingly [mis]portrayed young black males as most heavily involved in the drug-related crimes. The stereotyping of African American men as violent drug dealers persisted and without a doubt had an impact on Congress' decision to wage the war on drugs, resulting in harsh punishments for the violation of federal drug laws. Draconian sentencing laws that comprised the war on drugs, mandated lengthy prison terms for those involved in or connected to drug trafficking rings. Additionally, numerous states followed the lead of the federal government by enacting punitive drug laws that mirrored federal statutes. This resulted in the implementation of harsh mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing guidelines that led to the incarceration of scores of low-level, nonviolent persons for extended periods of time. Notably, these lengthy prison terms were coupled with a decreased level of discretion by federal sentencing judges to reduce excessively long sentences in cases that warranted such a reduced recourse. Instead, federal prosecutors were given the unfettered power to base charging decisions upon the level of "substantial assistance" that a defendant could supply.

Details: Minnesota: University of St. Thomas School of Law, 2018. 37p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 1, 2018 at: file:///C:/Users/AuthUser/Downloads/NekimaLevyPoundsParforthe.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: file:///C:/Users/AuthUser/Downloads/NekimaLevyPoundsParforthe.pdf

Shelf Number: 153143

Keywords:
Drug Dealers
Drugs
Incarceration Rates
Prison Population
Punishment
Racism
War on Drugs

Author: Payan, Tony

Title: The Coproduction of Public Safety and Organized Crime in Mexico

Summary: During some of the most violent years of the so-called �War on Drugs� in Mexico between 2008 and 2012, a major public debate surrounded the role of the government and civil society in the coproduction of public safety. Although President Felipe Calder�n defined the problem of public safety primarily as a problem of institutions, he called on citizens to get involved in the creation and implementation of strategies for the production of safety (Calder�n 2009, 18). This approach to the issue of public safety not only became a programmatic aspect of the Calder�n administration, but also shaped public discourse and eventually policy through a series of government actions. In 2008, Calder�n summoned the National Public Safety Council, which included a number of prominent citizen advisors, to analyze public safety issues and create strategies to tackle surging violence. In 2009, Calder�n called for unprecedented public dialogues with citizens, including academics, community leaders, and residents from all over the country. Starting with the Salv�rcar massacre, a January 2010 shootout at a party in Ciudad Ju�rez in which 15 people were killed, the Mexican government sought to finance various programs for the recovery of public spaces and social development through citizen-led initiatives such as Todos Somos Ju�rez, or �We are all Ju�rez� (Presidency of the Republic 2012). By then, the government already had promoted programs like hotlines for citizens to anonymously communicate useful information and intelligence to law enforcement. In short, in the face of soaring crime rates the government asked citizens to help ensure public safety. In spite of such efforts, most public policy analyses of recent crime trends in Mexico have so far failed to frame government-citizen cooperation in the production of public safety as an issue of the coproduction of public goods. This is puzzling, given that many of Calder�n�s efforts went to the heart of the issue of the coproduction of a public good�public safety - based on a partnership between government and citizens. This failure is largely due to a gap in the Mexican literature on the coproduction of public goods. This paper examines Mexico�s efforts to engage citizens in the coproduction of public safety. Moreover, it analyzes the obstacles that citizens encounter in Mexico in trying to collaborate on the production of public safety in the context of organized crime.

Details: Houston, TX: Rice University, 2015. 24p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 18, 2018 at: https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/92478

Year: 2015

Country: Mexico

URL: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/46a49978/MC-CoproductionSecurity-090315.pdf

Shelf Number: 154030

Keywords:
Coproduction of Public Safety
Juarez
Mexico
Organized Crime
Public Policy
War on Drugs

Author: Alabama Appleseed

Title: Alabama's War on Marijuana: Assessing the Fiscal and Human Toll of Criminalization

Summary: Kiasha Hughes dreamed of becoming a medical assistant. Now, she works an overnight shift at a chicken plant to support her children. Nick Gibson was on track to graduate from the University of Alabama. Now, he works at a fast-food restaurant. Wesley Shelton spent 15 months in jail and ended up with a felony conviction - for having $10 worth of marijuana. Like thousands of others, they're casualties of Alabama's war on marijuana - a war the state ferociously wages with draconian laws that criminalize otherwise law-abiding people for possessing a substance that's legal for recreational or medicinal use in states where more than half of all Americans live. In Alabama, a person caught with only a few grams of marijuana can face incarceration and thousands of dollars in fines and court costs. They can lose their driver's license and have difficulty finding a job or getting financial aid for college. This war on marijuana is one whose often life-altering consequences fall most heavily on black people - a population still living in the shadow of Jim Crow. Alabama's laws are not only overly harsh, they also place enormous discretion in the hands of law enforcement, creating an uneven system of justice and leaving plenty of room for abuse. This year in Etowah County, for example, law enforcement officials charged a man with drug trafficking after adding the total weight of marijuana-infused butter to the few grams of marijuana he possessed, so they could reach the 2.2-pound threshold for a trafficking charge. Marijuana prohibition also has tremendous economic and public safety costs. The state is simply shooting itself in the pocketbook, wasting valuable taxpayer dollars and adding a tremendous burden to the courts and public safety resources. This report is the first to analyze data on marijuana-related arrests in Alabama, broken down by race, age, gender and location. It includes a thorough fiscal analysis of the state's enforcement costs. It also exposes how the administrative burden of enforcing marijuana laws leaves vital state agencies without the resources necessary to quickly test evidence related to violent crimes with serious public safety implications, such as sexual assault. The study finds that in Alabama: - The overwhelming majority of people arrested for marijuana offenses from 2012 to 2016 - 89 percent - were arrested for possession. In 2016, 92 percent of all people arrested for marijuana offenses were arrested for possession. - Alabama spent an estimated $22 million enforcing the prohibition against marijuana possession in 2016 - enough to fund 191 additional preschool classrooms, 571 more K-12 teachers or 628 more Alabama Department of Corrections officers. - Black people were approximately four times as likely as white people to be arrested for marijuana possession (both misdemeanors and felonies) in 2016 - and five times as likely to be arrested for felony possession. These racial disparities exist despite robust evidence that white and black people use marijuana at roughly the same rate. - In at least seven law enforcement jurisdictions, black people were 10 or more times as likely as white people to be arrested for marijuana possession. - In 2016, police made more arrests for marijuana possession (2,351) than for robbery, for which they made 1,314 arrests - despite the fact that there were 4,557 reported robberies that year. - The enforcement of marijuana possession laws creates a crippling backlog at the state agency tasked with analyzing forensic evidence in all criminal cases, including violent crimes. As of March 31, 2018, the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences had about 10,000 pending marijuana cases, creating a nine-month waiting period for analyses of drug samples. At the same time, the department had a backlog of 1,121 biology/DNA cases, including about 550 "crimes against persons" cases such as homicide, sexual assault and robbery. While Alabama continues to criminalize people who use marijuana either recreationally or medicinally, an increasing number of states have come to treat marijuana like alcohol and tobacco. Nine states and the District of Columbia now allow recreational use. The early evidence strongly suggests that this approach benefits public safety and the criminal justice system. In those states, arrests for marijuana possession have been virtually eliminated, freeing up officers to focus on crimes of violence. Drunken-driving arrests are down as well. And, there's no evidence of a spike in crime or increased marijuana use among youth. These states have also enjoyed a corresponding fiscal and economic windfall. Across the country, thousands of jobs are being created where marijuana has been legalized. Three of the states where it has been legal the longest - Colorado, Washington and Oregon - have thus far collected a total of $1.3 billion in new revenue. And, as the human toll discussed throughout this report falls disproportionately on black people, legalization offers an opportunity to begin to address the disproportionate harms that Alabama's criminal justice system causes to its African-American population. It's time for Alabama to join an increasing number of states in taking a commonsense, fiscally responsible approach to marijuana policy.

Details: Montgomery, Alabama: Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, 2018. 56p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 30, 2019 at: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/marijuana_law/2018/10/alabamas-war-on-marijuana-assessing-the-fiscal-and-human-toll-of-criminalization.html

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/com_decriminalization_of_marijuana_web_final.pdf

Shelf Number: 154308

Keywords:
African Americans
Drug Enforcement
Drug Legalization
Marijuana
Marijuana Prohibition
Racial Disparities
Substance Abuse
War on Drugs

Author: Health Poverty Action

Title: Punishing poverty - How the failed 'war on drugs' harms vulnerable communities: Case studies of Brazil and India

Summary: Around the world the so called 'war on drugs' is collapsing. Many countries are replacing the prohibition of illicit drugs, with new approaches which prioritise and protect people's health and wellbeing. Whilst reform is underway, it is not happening nearly fast enough or reaching far enough. The prohibitionist criminal justice approach that has dominated drug policy for the past 50 years continues to destroy livelihoods and claim lives. The people most affected aren't those in charge of the drugs trade. Instead, it's those caught up at the lowest levels in a trade that is destroying their lives and communities, particularly in the global south. Prohibition has failed to reduce the world's supply of illicit drugs. Meanwhile the heavy handed and often militarised law enforcement approach that often goes with it - directed primarily at those involved at the lowest level in the production and supply of illicit drugs - has fueled poverty, inequality, corruption and violence. This is felt most sharply by marginalised communities and women who engage in the small-scale trade out of necessity or lack of alternatives. In these contexts of significant vulnerability, powerlessness and poverty, the drugs trade can offer a decent income or means of survival, where no other exists.

Details: London: HPC, 2019. 40p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 5, 2019 at: http://fileserver.idpc.net/library/Punishing-poverty-research-report-WEB.pdf

Year: 2019

Country: International

URL: http://fileserver.idpc.net/library/Punishing-poverty-research-report-WEB.pdf

Shelf Number: 154489

Keywords:
Brazil
Drug Enforcement
Drug Offenders
Drug Policy Reform
Illicit Drugs
India
Poverty
War on Drugs

Author: Singer, Jeffrey A.

Title: Harm Reduction: Shifting from a War on Drugs to a War on Drug-Related Deaths

Summary: he U.S. government's current strategy of trying to restrict the supply of opioids for nonmedical uses is not working. While government efforts to reduce the supply of opioids for nonmedical use have reduced the volume of both legally manufactured prescription opioids and opioid prescriptions, deaths from opioid overdoses are nevertheless accelerating. Research shows the increase is due in part to substitution of illegal heroin for now harder-to-get prescription opioids. Attempting to reduce overdose deaths by doubling down on this approach will not produce better results. Policymakers can reduce overdose deaths and other harms stemming from nonmedical use of opioids and other dangerous drugs by switching to a policy of "harm reduction" strategies. Harm reduction has a success record that prohibition cannot match. It involves a range of public health options. These strategies would include medication-assisted treatment, needle-exchange programs, safe injection sites, heroin-assisted treatment, deregulation of naloxone, and the decriminalization of marijuana. Though critics have dismissed these strategies as surrendering to addiction, jurisdictions that have attempted them have found they significantly reduce overdose deaths, the spread of infectious diseases, and even the nonmedical use of dangerous drugs.

Details: Washington, DC: CATO Institute, 2018. 20p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 23, 2019 at: https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/harm-reduction-shifting-war-drugs-war-drug-related-deaths

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-858.pdf

Shelf Number: 154348

Keywords:
Drug Abuse
Harm Reduction
Heroin
Marijuana
Naloxone
Needle-Exchange Programs
Opioids
Overdose Deaths
Prescription Drugs
War on Drugs

Author: InSight Crime

Title: Criminal Game Changers 2018

Summary: Welcome to InSight Crime's Criminal GameChangers 2018, where we highlight the most important trends in organized crime in the Americas over the course of the year. From a rise in illicit drug availability and resurgence of monolithic criminal groups to the weakening of anti-corruption efforts and a swell in militarized responses to crime, 2018 was a year in which political issues were still often framed as left or right, but the only ideology that mattered was organized crime. Some of the worst news came from Colombia, where coca and cocaine production reached record highs amidst another year of bad news regarding the historic peace agreement with the region's oldest political insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC). The demobilization of ex-FARC members has been plagued by government ineptitude, corruption, human rights violations, and accusations of top guerrilla leaders' involvement in the drug trade. And it may have contributed directly and indirectly to the surge in coca and cocaine production. It was during this tumult that Colombia elected right wing politician Ivan Duque in May. Duque is the protege of former president and current Senator Alvaro Uribe. Their alliance could impact not just what's left of the peace agreement but the entire structure of the underworld where, during 2018, ex-FARC dissidents reestablished criminal fiefdoms or allied themselves with other criminal factions; and the last remaining rebel group, the National Liberation Army (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional - ELN), filled power vacuums in Colombia and neighboring Venezuela, making it one of our three criminal winners this year. Meanwhile, a new generation of traffickers emerged, one that prefers anonymity to the large, highly visible armies of yesteryear. Also of note in 2018 was a surge in synthetic drugs, most notably fentanyl. The synthetic opioid powered a scourge that led to more overdose deaths in the United States than any other drug. Fentanyl is no longer consumed as a replacement for heroin. It is now hidden in counterfeit prescription pills and mixed into cocaine and other legacy drugs. It is produced in Communist-ruled China and while much of it moves through the US postal system, some of it travels through Mexico on its way to the United States. During 2018, the criminal groups in Mexico seemed to be shifting their operations increasingly around it, especially given its increasing popularity, availability, and profitability. The result is some new possibly game changing alliances, most notably between Mexican and Dominican criminal organizations. Among these Mexican criminal groups is the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion - CJNG), another of our three criminal winners for 2018. The CJNG has avoided efforts to weaken it with a mix of sophisticated public relations, military tactics and the luck of circumstance - the government has simply been distracted. That is not the say it is invulnerable. The group took some big hits in its epicenter in 2018, and the US authorities put it on its radar, unleashing a series of sealed indictments against the group. Mexico's cartels battled each other even as they took advantage of booming criminal economies. The result was manifest in the record high in homicides this year. The deterioration in security opened the door to the July election of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. AMLO, as he is affectionately known, did not necessary run on security issues, but he may have won on them, and in the process, inherited a poisoned security chalice from his predecessor. While Pena Nieto can claim to have arrested or killed 110 of 122 criminal heads, AMLO faces closer to a thousand would-be leaders and hundreds of criminal groups....

Details: s.l.: Insight Crime, 2019.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 25, 2019 at: https://www.insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CRIMINAL-GAMECHANGERS-2018-InSight-Crime.pdf

Year: 2019

Country: Latin America

URL: https://www.insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CRIMINAL-GAMECHANGERS-2018-InSight-Crime.pdf

Shelf Number: 155157

Keywords:
Cocaine
Criminal Networks
Drug Cartels
Drug Trafficking
Fentanyl
Illicit Drugs
Opioids
Organized Crime
War on Drugs

Author: Magliocca, Nicholas R.

Title: Modeling Cocaine Traffickers and Counterdrug Interdiction Forces as a Complex Adaptive System

Summary: Abstract: Counterdrug interdiction efforts designed to seize or disrupt cocaine shipments between South American source zones and US markets remain a core US "supply side" drug policy and national security strategy. However, despite a long history of US-led interdiction efforts in the Western Hemisphere, cocaine movements to the United States through Central America, or "narco-trafficking," continue to rise. Here, we developed a spatially explicit agent-based model (ABM), called "NarcoLogic," of narco-trafficker operational decision making in response to interdiction forces to investigate the root causes of interdiction ineffectiveness across space and time. The central premise tested was that spatial proliferation and resiliency of narco-trafficking are not a consequence of ineffective interdiction, but rather part and natural consequence of interdiction itself. Model development relied on multiple theoretical perspectives, empirical studies, media reports, and the authors' own years of field research in the region. Parameterization and validation used the best available, authoritative data source for illicit cocaine flows. Despite inherently biased, unreliable, and/or incomplete data of a clandestine phenomenon, the model compellingly reproduced the "cat-and-mouse" dynamic between narco-traffickers and interdiction forces others have qualitatively described. The model produced qualitatively accurate and quantitatively realistic spatial and temporal patterns of cocaine trafficking in response to interdiction events. The NarcoLogic model offers a much-needed, evidence-based tool for the robust assessment of different drug policy scenarios, and their likely impact on trafficker behavior and the many collateral damages associated with the militarized war on drugs.

Details: S.L.: Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. 9p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 27, 2019 at: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/16/7784.full.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: International

URL: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/16/7784

Shelf Number: 157047

Keywords:
Cocaine
Drug Trade
Drug Traffickers
Drug Trafficking
Illegal Trade
Illicit Trade
Narcotics
War on Drugs

Rutgers - School of Law, Newark

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