US Drug Policy and Perpetual War against the Drug Trade in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 237-255
Author(s):  
Alberto Omar Luna-Monsivais ◽  
Marcelo del Castillo-Mussot ◽  
Alfredo de la Lama García ◽  
Jorge Antonio Montemayor Aldrete
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Drug Trade ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The Us ◽  
Perpetual War

Abstract Globalization of drug consumption has generated a highly lucrative market for illegal traffickers. The US launched a worldwide campaign against illicit drug use, forcing many countries to comply with the ‘War on Drugs.’ We describe this historical process as a perpetual war resulting in violence, criminality, forced displacement, and disappearances in Mexico and other countries. For instance, despite economic, political, and military coercion in Mexico, the “drug problem” shows little sign of going away, unless a new approach regarding drug production and trade is adopted.

The Afghan Connection

2019 ◽  
pp. 145-179
Author(s):  
James Tharin Bradford
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Drug Trade ◽  
Drug Laws ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Political Realities

This chapter explores how Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs transformed efforts by the Afghan government to stop the illicit drug trade. Greater pressure from the US government to enforce local drug laws in drug producing countries led to disruptions in the global supply of heroin, but not in Afghanistan. Opium and heroin continued to be smuggled into Iran, and Afghanistan seemed incapable of stopping the flow. With the assistance of anti-drug operatives from the DEA and the United Nations, the Afghan government established anti-smuggling units to combat the growing drug trade. This chapter demonstrates that the increased enforcement efforts did little to curb the flow of drugs, primarily because counter-narcotics operations were continually hampered by corrupt police, local political realities, and ethnic infighting.

Overcoming and Penalizing Precarity: Narratives of Drug Personalities Arrested in the Philippine War on Drugs

2022 ◽  
pp. 089692052110702
Author(s):  
Filomin C. Gutierrez
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
Productive Work ◽  
Authoritarian Populism ◽  
Metro Manila

The article problematizes state penality as a mechanism of repression of precarious workers through a war on drugs in the Philippines. The narratives of 27 arrested ‘drug personalities’ in Metro Manila tell of how methamphetamine energizes bodies and motivates minds for productive work. Bidding to be classified as willing and able workers and family men, the study’s participants orient to a moral stratification that pits the ‘moral versus immoral’ and the ‘hardworking versus lazy’. Qualifying their drug use as strategic and calculated, they uphold the neoliberal values of individual choice and accountability. Their support for the anti-drug campaign stems from their recognition of a drug problem and the socioemotional toll of the dysfunctions of living in the slums. While trade liberalization facilitates methamphetamine inflow, a war on drugs fuels an authoritarian populism. As the state reaffirms symbolic mission to protect its citizens, it blames precarity to a problem population.

Economic decline and incarceration

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirley A. Hill
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Drug Use ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Illicit Drug Use ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Gang Violence ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Post Industrial

The post-industrial turn in the economy during the 1970s has had a lasting impact on black communities, leading to high rates of crime, unemployment, gang violence, and illicit drug use. The ‘war on drugs’ disproportionately affected African-American communities, leading to spiralling rates of incarceration. Incarceration takes a toll on the health of inmates, but also on their entire families. This chapter looks at the health and family consequences of illicit drug use and especially mass incarceration.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
James Tharin Bradford
Keyword(s):  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Drug Trade ◽  
Failed State ◽  
Opium Trade ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Us ◽  
Over Time

This chapter introduces the core arguments and narrative of the book, and how drugs produced in Afghanistan were initially embraced by a series of Afghan rulers, legally or not, as a vehicle to grow the Afghan economy. Over time, particularly because of American influence, Afghan rulers adopted more stringent forms of drug control. This books reveals that Afghan rulers adopted the prohibition of drugs to foster better diplomatic relations with the US to help build the Afghan state, but at the expense of Afghans who were increasingly dependent on the drug trade. The illicit drug trade emerged, not simply because of a failed state, but rather, in reaction to the abandonment of the legal opium trade and the gradual adoption of more coercive forms of drug control.

scholarly journals Illicit drug use, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease in the US adult population

2012 ◽  
Vol 160 (6) ◽  
pp. 391-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjeev K. Akkina ◽  
Ana C. Ricardo ◽  
Amishi Patel ◽  
Arjun Das ◽  
Lydia A. Bazzano ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Kidney Disease ◽  
Kidney Disease ◽  
Drug Use ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Illicit Drug Use ◽  
The Us

scholarly journals An ethical analysis of UK drug policy as an example of a criminal justice approach to drugs: a commentary on the short film Putting UK Drug Policy into Focus

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Holland
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Current Approach ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Short Film ◽  
People Who Use Drugs ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Related Harm

Abstract Background Drug-related deaths in the UK are at the highest level on record—the war on drugs has failed. A short film has been produced intended for public and professional audiences featuring academics, representatives of advocacy organisations, police and policymakers outlining the problems with, and highlighting alternative approaches to, UK drug policy. A range of ethical arguments are alluded to, which are distilled here in greater depth for interested viewers and a wider professional and academic readership. Main body The war on drugs is seemingly driven by the idea that the consumption of illegal drugs is immoral. However, the meaning ascribed to ‘drug’ in the illicit sense encompasses a vast range of substances with different properties that have as much in common with legal drugs as they do with each other. The only property that distinguishes illegal from legal drugs is their legal status, which rather than being based on an assessment of how dangerous they are has been defined by centuries of socio-political idiosyncrasies. The consequences of criminalising people who use drugs often outweigh the risks they face from drug use, and there is not convincing evidence that this prevents wider drug use or drug-related harm. Additionally, punishing someone as a means, to the end of deterring others from drug use, is ethically problematic. Although criminalising the production of harmful drugs may seem more ethically tenable, it has not reduced the supply of drugs and it precludes effective regulation of the market. Other potential policy approaches are highlighted, which would be ethically preferable to existing punitive policy. Conclusion It is not possible to eliminate all drug use and associated harms. The current approach is not only ineffective in preventing drug-related harm but itself directly and indirectly causes incalculable harm to those who use drugs and to wider society. For policymakers to gain the mandate to rationalise drug policy, or to be held accountable if they do not, wider engagement with the electorate is required. It is hoped that this film will encourage at least a few to give pause and reflect on how drug policy might be improved.

scholarly journals Contesting the ‘War on Drugs’ in the Andes: US–Bolivian Relations of Power and Control (1989–93)

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-106
Author(s):  
Allan Gillies
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Drug War ◽  
Country Level ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
The Us ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
And Control

AbstractThe implementation of President George H. W. Bush's 1989 Andean Initiative brought to the fore competing US and Bolivian agendas. While US embassy officials sought to exert control in pursuit of militarised policies, the Bolivian government's ambivalence towards the coca-cocaine economy underpinned opposition to the ‘Colombianisation’ of the country. This article deconstructs prevailing top-down, US-centric analyses of the drug war in Latin America to examine how US power was exercised and resisted in the Bolivian case. Advancing a more historically grounded understanding of the development of the US drug war in Latin America, it reveals the fluidity of US–Bolivian power relations, the contested nature of counter-drug policy at the country level, and the instrumentalisation of the ‘war on drugs’ in distinct US and Bolivian agendas.

Identifying a Drug Use Typology of Philadelphia Arrestees: A Cluster Analysis

1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 559-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
George S. Yacoubian ◽  
Robert J. Kane
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Illicit Drug Use ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
Statistical Tool ◽  
Illegal Drug Use ◽  
Drug Crime ◽  
National Institute Of Justice

The Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program is a measurement system established by the National Institute of Justice to test booked arrestees for illegal drug use. DUF has consistently shown high levels of illicit drug use among arrestees, including those charged with crimes unrelated to drug use. Measuring the extent and nature of this illicit drug use is essential to, first, determining how severe the drug problem is, and second, developing ideal methods for combating it. Part I of this analysis presents an overview of the drug/crime connection. Part II describes the methodology of the DUF project. Part III, first, describes the utility of clustering as a statistical tool, and second, identifies homogeneous clusters of drug users from a Philadelphia population of 1,329 arrestees. Part IV assesses the policy implications of these classifications.

Trends and Influences in the History of Australian Drug Legislation

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Manderson
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Illicit Drug Use ◽  
International Community ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
Drug Legislation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Independent Assessment

In this article the author briefly traces some features in the emergence in Australia of legislation controlling “dangerous drugs” such as opium, morphine, cocaine and heroin from 1900 to 1950. It is argued that, in common with other similar countries, the first laws prohibiting the non-medical use of drugs were enacted as a symptom of anti-Chinese racism and not out of any concern for the health of users. It is further argued that later laws, which built upon that precedent, developed not through any independent assessment of the drug problem in Australia but rather in response to pressure from the international community. Australia's unthinking acceptance of the growing U.S.-led international consensus relating to “dangerous drugs” influenced legislation, policy and attitudes to illicit drug use. The structure of drug control which emerged incorporated and promoted the fears, values and solutions of other societies without any assessment of their validity or appropriateness.

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