Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States: The Problems of Prohibition

Citation

(2012), "Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States: The Problems of Prohibition", Drugs and Alcohol Today, Vol. 12 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dat.2012.54412baa.007

Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States: The Problems of Prohibition

Article Type: Book review From: Drugs and Alcohol Today, Volume 12, Issue 2

Nigel Inkster and Virginia ComolliInstitute of International Security Studies and RoutledgeLondon

At the London launch one of the authors admitted surprise at becoming involved in a project on drugs, not a traditional area of concern for the IISS. But as they looked into the issue, they soon began to realise that current drug polices and particularly the war on drugs was having profound implications on state security particularly in developing countries. In the short space of just over 140 pages this book gallops across key battlegrounds like Colombia, Central America, Mexico, West Africa and Afghanistan, offering comprehensive accounts of the origin, trajectory and the current state of play in each. The unifying theme is how the determination by governments around the world to combat drugs with supply side interventions has led to a heavy toll in violence and bloodshed. And it is developing countries that have been paying the price in terms of instability and insecurity. Homing in on particular conflicts, the authors pick up themes developed by Alfred McCoy, Pierre Arnaud Chouvy (DAAT, 2010, pp. 2, 44-;45) and David McDonald (DAAT, 2008, pp. 4, 35-;36) on the link between drug crop cultivation and insecurity. It is not drug cultivation that leads to instability, but the other way round. And once the two intermesh, countries can tip into a vicious cycle of increasing violence and disintegration, with the funds realised from the drugs trade funding insurgencies.

International actors end up raising the levels of violence further by supplying hardware, logistics and training. But counter insurgency and counter narcotics are often at odds with one another. And whether it is in the support of the Contras in Nicaragua or Air America in Southeast Asia "US strategic interests were to predominate over what has become known as the war on drugs." Equally in Afghanistan, NATO commanders have found themselves in a bind, as the destruction of opium crops runs the risk of pushing farmers into the arms of the Taliban. The objectives of the war on drugs are directly opposed to the wining of "hearts and minds" that seems a prerequisite for a successful withdrawal. Particularly irksome in terms of drug control is the fact that while in government the Taliban had reduced poppy cultivation to a minimum.

Things seem a little rosier in Colombia where the government has succeeded in moving "narcotics related violence from a national security to a law enforcement issue." A relief for war weary Colombians facilitated in part by the provision of US military assistance and the merging of counter insurgency and counter narcotics assistance. But the consequence is that the underlying social and economic tensions – massive inequality, widespread poverty – that gave rise to the insurgency in the first place remain unresolved. Moreover, drug exports continue to flourish, because both the armed forces and the para military groups operating in the country are deeply involved.

Corruption, collusion and cooption are a constant thread running through each case study. In each theatre politicians, government officials, police officers and the military become involved in the drugs trade, often after having received cash, guns and training from US counter narcotics agencies. Endemic corruption in the Mexican police prompted President Calderon to deploy the army to break the power of the cartels. By 2010, when a total of 50,000 troops had been mobilised against the cartels the country recorded its highest level of cartel-;related killings wit 15,273. Human rights violations perpetrated by the military were a predictable consequence, as was the growing corruption among the army and the defection of trained military personnel to the criminal gangs. Most notoriously perhaps of La Zetas, highly trained soldiers from a Mexican army elite unit that have been recruited by the Gulf cartel. The story is repeated in Guatemala where crime families have recruited special operation commandos.

Countries like Guatemala with no history of drug production become involved as transit areas with deleterious consequences for their governance and security as traffickers look for easier and cheaper supply routes. The authors attribute this to the "balloon effect", the unintended consequence of law enforcement activity closing down one route. The net effect of supply side interventions, therefore, is to spread drug trafficking and consequentially drug consumption (a side effect as traffickers pay local partners with a combination of cash and drugs). Against this dismal picture of policy failure, negative consequences, what are the options for change. The authors discuss the timid steps made by some Western European countries to decriminalise drug possession and support problematic users with treatment but note rightly that these domestic measures are of no consequence to Colombians or Afghans. Indeed, the suggestion to reform drug control treaties is vehemently rejected by a combination of vested interests ranging from the international control bureaucracy, to national governments. In Russia, the authors argue, high level of drug use and an associated HIV epidemic is a smokescreen for the failure of domestic economic and social policy. In China the experience of national humiliation, bai nian guo chi, is attributed to the opium wars, and the US State Department is in drug warrior mode by default.

The authors concede the incalculable risks of opening drug markets, and policy makers are understandably reluctant. Yet, at a global level, the costs of a failing system are outweighing the benefits, hence the need for clear presentations and detailed argument to help overcome these entrenched positions. Hopefully, this publications plays a part in paving the way for reform.

Axel Klein