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The Relationship between Illegal Drugs and Violence: Is There a Cause and Effect?
Latin American Studie
The causes of illegal drug industry growth in the Andes, Anti-Drug Policies and their effectiveness
Illegal drugs have become a key and conflictive policy issue in the Andean countries. Anti-drug polices are today part of government policy agendas and the object of frequent debate. In 1961 the United Nations signed the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. This was followed by the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Drugs and the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. In1972 President Nixon declared a “war on drugs” raising drug issues in the policy agenda of the United States and other countries. It is clear that governments’ have been attempting to control and regulate mind-altering drugs use for a long time. Their results, however, have been at best highly questionable. Today cocaine and heroin are widely available, new drugs have appeared in the market, new markets have developed and new criminal and subversive organizations entered the illegal drug business. Advocates of current policies would argue that without them things would be worse. Those who oppose them content that policies themselves are at fault and have contributed to increase the social costs of drug production, trafficking and consumption. The debate about anti-drug policy effectiveness most of the time is emotionally charged and does not advance the understanding of drug phenomena. This essay analyses the nature of the drug policy formulation problem, describes a theory of competitive advantage in illicit drugs, draws some policy implications from this theory, analyses the characteristics of the main drug producing countries that make them prone to develop the illicit drugs industry, surveys the evolution of anti-drug policies in the Andean countries, discuses some of the main challenges confronted by the policies currently used, summarizes the main effects that the illegal drug industry development have had on those countries, assesses the viability of drug policy reform and makes a few suggestions to marginally modify some policies and to improve policy dialogue as a pre-requisite to improve drug policy effectiveness
Ventajas competitivas ilegales, el desarrollo de la industria de drogas ilegales y el fracaso de las políticas contra las drogas en Afganistán y Colombia
En 1970 Colombia no era conocida por su producción de coca o drogas ilegales, y Afganistán era y había sido por mucho tiempo un productor menor de opio. De hecho, “en Afganistán el opio no había sido una cosecha
‘tradicional’ y antes de los años noventa solamente se había cultivado en pocos lugares de ese país. A diferencia de la mayoría de los países de la región, Afganistán tenía una ‘cultura de opio’ débil. Por consiguiente, el
consumo de opio hasta hace poco ha sido relativamente bajo” (UNODC, 2002: 87-88). En esa época, ninguno de estos dos países era un productor importante de coca u opio, o un actor importante en los mercados internacionales
de drogas ilícitas. Hoy, sin embargo, son los países dominantes en las dos ramas de origen vegetal más importantes de la industria ilegal: cocacocaína y amapola-opio-heroína. Así, Afganistán y Colombia producen respectivamente más del 70% de la heroína y la cocaína ilícitas en el mundo
Una Teoría de la Edad Óptima para Importar un Bien Durable con una Referencia al Caso Colombiano
Antidrug policies and the need to confront the colombian vulnerabilities
None of the prevalent paradigms helps explain why the great majority of countries that can cultivate coca and corn poppy and produce cocaine and heroin do not make it, that is, why the illegal production of those drugs is so concentrated being so profitable; or why in the countries where traditional cultivations of coca were common, big dealing organizations did not occur. It is not either explained why illegal drug abuse has tended to be concentrated in few countries, or why in some countries stimulants are primarily abused while in others narcotics are mainly consumed; why antidrug policies show unsatisfactory results and which would be the effects of applying other policies; why, in spite of the fact that Bolivia and Peru previously had extensive and rooted cultivations of coca, the powerful traffickers did not appear there but in Colombia. This article proposes a new paradigm. In order to advance in that direction, the literature of criminology on the reasons for somebody to commit crimes is researched. Then some basic questions are sought to be answered: Which factors contribute to criminality? Are there enough causes or factors for the development of illegal industries or only some necessary factors and other simply contributive ones? Once the answers to these questions are obtained it would be possible to proceed to evaluate the effectiveness of antidrug policies. Some conclusions are summarized at the end.Ninguno de los paradigmas prevalentes permite explicar por qué la gran mayoría de países que pueden cultivar coca y amapola y producir cocaína y heroína no lo hacen, es decir, por qué la producción ilegal de esas drogas está tan concentrada si es tan rentable; o por qué en los países en donde los cultivos tradicionales de coca eran comunes, no surgieron grandes organizaciones traficantes. Tampoco explican por qué el consumo de drogas ilegales ha tendido a estar concentrado en pocos países, o por qué en algunos países se consumen primordialmente estimulantes mientras que en otros se consumen más que todo narcóticos; por qué las políticas contra las drogas tienen resultados poco satisfactorios y cuáles serían los efectos de otras políticas; por qué a pesar de que Bolivia y Perú tenían cultivos de coca extensos y arraigados, los grandes traficantes no surgieron en ellos sino en Colombia. En este artículo se propone un nuevo paradigma. Para avanzar en esa dirección, se investiga la literatura de la criminología sobre las razones por las que alguien comete crímenes. A continuación se busca responder preguntas básicas: ¿Qué factores contribuyen a la criminalidad? ¿Hay causas o factores suficientes para el desarrollo de las industrias ilegales o solamente algunos factores necesarios y otros que contribuyen a su desarrollo? Una vez obtenidas las respuestas a estas preguntas es posible proceder a evaluar la efectividad de las políticas contra las drogas. Al final se resumen algunas conclusiones
A Modest Proposal to Clarify the Status of Coca in the United Nations Conventions
The implementation of anti-drug policies that focus on illicit crops in the
Andean countries faces many significant obstacles, one of which is the cultural
clash it generates between the main stakeholders. On the one hand
one finds the governments and agencies that attempt to implement crop
substitution and eradication policies and on the other the peasant and natives
communities that have traditionally grown and used coca or those peasants
who have found in coca an instrument of power and political leverage that
they never had before. The confrontation about coca eradication, alternative
development and other anti-drug policies in coca growing areas transcends
drug related issues and is part of a wider and deeper confrontation that
reflects the long-term unsolved conflicts of the Andean societies.
All Andean countries have stratified and fragmented societies in which peasants
and Indians have been excluded from power. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru most
peasants belong to native communities many of which have remained segregated
from “white” society. The mixing of the races (mestizaje) in Colombia occurred
early during the Conquest and Colony. Those of Indian descent became subservient
to the Spanish and Creoles. The society that evolved was (and still is) highly
hierarchical, authoritarian, and has subjacent racist values. The resulting political
system has been exclusionary of large portions of the population.
Among Indian communities coca has been used for millennia and its use
has become an identity symbol of their resistance against what may be
looked at as foreign invasion. “The Andean Indian chews coca because that
way he affirms his identity as son and owner of the land that yesterday the
Spaniard took away and today the landowner keeps away from him. To
chew coca is to be Indian...and to quietly and obstinately challenge the
contemporary lords that descend from the old encomenderos and the older
conquistadors” (Vidart, 1991: 61, author’s translation). In Andean literature on illegal drugs as well as in seminars, colloquia and
other meetings where drug policies are debated, complaints are frequently
expressed about the treatment of coca in the same category as cocaine,
heroin, morphine amphetamines and other “hard” drugs.
The complainants assert that “coca is not cocaine” and that it is unfair to
classify coca, a nature given plant which has been used for millennia in the
Andes without significant negative effects on users, in the same category as
man made psychotropic drugs. They also argue that coca has manifold social
and religious meanings in indigenous cultures, that coca is sacred and
that the requirement of the1961 Single Convention demanding that Bolivia
and Peru completely eradicate coca within 25 years is limiting Indigenous
communities in their freedom to practice their religions.
In most debates about drug interdiction, the views of those who oppose
that approach are not accepted as legitimate. Indeed, “prohibitionists”
demonize drugs and those who oppose drug policies in Latin America
frequently demonize the United States as the imperialist power that imposes
them. This dual polarization is a main obstacle to establish a meaningful
policy debate aimed at broadening the policy consensus necessary for
successful policy implementation. This essay surveys the status of coca in
the United Nations Conventions, explains why it is confusing, and how a
few changes would eliminate some of the sources of conflict and help
organize and control licit coca markets in the Andes. The current disorganized
and weakly controlled legal coca market in Peru has been analyzed to
demonstrate its deficiencies and to illustrate possible improvements in
international drug control policies
Crecimiento y políticas económicas en colombia: 1970-1984
EI periodo 1970-1984 trajo grandes transformaciones para la economía colombiana. A nivel agregado, la economía creció a un ritmo más bien rápido basta 1980, cuando el país comenzó a sentir la recesión mundial. EI proceso de urbanización continuo a paso firme aunque moderado, y se consolidó el cambio de una economía predominante rural a otra urbana, al punto que dos tercios de la población residían en áreas urbanas en 1980. Simultáneamente se incremento la participación del sector moderno de servicios en el Producto Interno Bruto, a expensas de la agricultura, en particular. La economía subterránea se consolidó muy rápidamente, mientras que la producción de drogas ilegales se convirtió en una actividad muy importante en el país
Economía criminal y poder político
Desde hace aproximadamente cinco años, el Centro de Análisis político de la Universidad EAFIT, en alianza con diversas entidades públicas y privadas, viene desarrollando una línea de investigación en torno a las economías criminales y las formas de captación de rentas desde la ilegalidad. Este trabajo tiene como centro la política. La mala ventura del término “economías criminales”, es que oculta el papel crucial que el poder político juega en su configuración y permanencia. Los vasos comunicantes entre poder político y crimen son variados e intrincados, y que tienes mayor profundidad que la que se les atribuye.Estado y mercados ilegales en Latinoamérica: reflexiones a partir del concepto de mercancía política. Michel Misse -- El gobierno del oro en el Bajo Cauca. Una lectura weberiana sobre la explotación aurífera aluvial no legal. Jorge Giraldo Ramírez -- Problemas de la mafiya, crisis de los señores de la guerra. William Reno -- La división del trabajo en el narcotráfico: mercancía, capital y geografía del Estado. Gustavo Duncan -- Instituciones y cultivos ilícitos. Santiago Tobón Zapata -- Políticas de drogas ilegales: ¿dónde, cómo y qué debatir?. Francisco E. Thoumi -- Comercio delictivo, lavado de activos y captura del estado. Julián Arévalo, Juan Ricardo Orteg
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