Consequences of the War on Drugs™ in Other Countries
In 1996, Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control Chuck Grassley testified that recent research had shown that Eighty percent of Americans view it as their primary foreign policy stop illegal drugs sold in the United States. The senator was responding to his complaints by saying to promote the importance of treatment, the Clinton Administration was not committed to a long-term policy of aggressive deterrence as a guarantee of national security. The United States was then, and still is, the world’s largest market for illegal drugs, many of which are found in foreign countries such as Mexico, Afghanistan, Columbia, Peru, and China. Therefore, efforts to reduce the supply of illegal goods have not been limited to domestic restrictions but have reached to efforts to disrupt the production of other nations.
Although such a foreign policy often enjoys broad domestic support, it has had a very negative impact on the nations involved on the other side. Indeed, as Foldvary (2013) notes, US drug policy often has the negative effect of creating violent groups, strengthening existing insurgent groups, fueling drug imperialism, and leading to underground conditions. The tools often used in these failed efforts should look familiar even to an observer of American foreign policy of the time, including foreign aid, military aid and police training, intelligence operations and counter-insurgency, development programs, and nation-building efforts (Pembleton & Weimer, 2019). In many cases, the goals of nations receiving this assistance are not entirely aligned with domestic drug policy, creating further instability.
Plan Colombia provides an excellent summary of such troubling policy issues. This cooperation between Colombia and the United States had its roots in the struggle between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC), an armed guerrilla group that was one of the main factions in the back-to-back conflicts. 1964. In 1998, President Andrés Pastrana, hoping to gain their trust and help in promoting peace, gave the FARC an area roughly the size of Switzerland as a demilitarized zone where the military and law enforcement could not enter (Rosen, 2021). The FARC rewarded Pastrana’s act of loyalty by eliminating their criminal activities – including kidnapping, extortion, illegal mining, and drug production and trafficking – in their newly independent territory.
Pastrana turned to the US for help to end its internal conflict and the power organized crime has over Colombian citizens. Unwilling to involve the United States in Colombia’s internal armed conflict, the Clinton Administration restructured Pastrana’s Plan Colombia to suit its interests in eliminating the ability of Colombian rebels and drug cartels in the US Although Pastrana recognized the role of drug production in his country. instability, his first concern was to contain the FARC, which included the destruction of their crops by hand. In exchange for American financial aid, he eventually agreed to divert eighty percent of aid resources to strengthen police and military operations, which would then play a key role in protecting the aerial spraying of herbicides on coca plants.
There are conflicting opinions on that these measures were effective in reducing supply. U.S. officials say Colombia’s coca production fell by seventy-five percent between 2001 and 2011, while United Nations monitors reported a negligible decline. What is unquestionable is that Colombia had to act in accordance with the interests of the United States because it needed help, and in 2007, the President of Colombia at the time Uribe ensured the continued cooperation of the Bush Administration by renaming the armed groups as narco-terrorists, in line with the American wishes to fight. both global drug supply chains and terrorism. Although Uribe had some success in disrupting large rebel and criminal organizations, they were replaced by smaller ones that were more difficult to identify. In addition, drug trafficking continued unabated, and the increase in anti-narcotics units had a ballooning effect, pushing part of the production to neighboring countries such as Peru and Panama, while increasing the importance of Mexico as a place of distribution and human trafficking, making that nation even worse. frustrating issues related to America’s drug policy.
In a previous post, I noted that because most of the drug production takes place outside of America’s borders, much of the violence seen takes place elsewhere, far from the ocean and hides this real human cost. Aligning with American interests did not work for Colombia in the 1980s, when efforts to kidnap and extradite prominent drug lords were met with national resistance that emboldened powerful traffickers to assassinate unscrupulous government officials (Bagley, 1988). It still doesn’t work today, as coca production has reached an all-time high in 2020, too the main producers and smugglers were military groups who had trained and funded by the United States as part of the military’s anti-narcotics operations. This violence and destruction of society, and the growing power of corporations and organized crime, is being replicated throughout Central America, Mexico, Afghanistan, and other nations where the US is using its powerful influence to prosecute its War on Drugs™.
The conclusion
I gave this thread a title A Brief Look at the Social Costs of Drug Prohibition, and in spite of being somewhat long, in comparison with the length of the further discussions required on this subject, it is short. This set of excused policies, aimed at disrupting supply, will not succeed as long as necessary. Absent commitment to harm reduction measures, demand has been, and will remain, stubbornly inelastic. Meanwhile, our prison system continues to grow, a center of perverse incentives revolving around cheap labor and political power. To fill those prisons, the police have become like a military force, often focusing their efforts on disadvantaged groups, helping to create the conditions of poverty, crime, and retribution they are meant to end. This criminalization of a public and mental health issue has led to preventable deaths, as treatment is stigmatized and often not an option, while drug power increases to maintain profit margins. Not only is there violence in our communities, but it pales in comparison to the violence and instability created by domestic drug policy in countries where illegal businessmen rise to meet our needs. However, with all these costs imposed on society, supply and demand remain constant and undiminished.
Tarnell Brown is an Atlanta-based economist and public policy analyst.
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