How the drug wars impact Latin America and the Caribbean development?

Since the early 1980s, Latin America and the Caribbean governments have constantly escalated the so-called drug wars to stop drug trafficking towards the United States. With minor successes and no end in sight, not only have these conflicts failed to reduce the supply of illicit drugs in the region, but they have also had numerous unintended consequences such as an increase in homicides (see Figure 1), increasing incarceration rates, and the wide criminalisation of communities on the American continent. Drug trafficking has been a perennial problem since the late 1960s, mostly to feed the demand for illicit drugs from United States consumers. Although in those years the trafficking was concentrated in poppy and marijuana crops, nowadays there is a rise in the smuggling of chemical precursors of synthetic drugs and strong analgesics such as fentanyl. The abuse of this substance is now the most important cause of death by overdose in the US.  

In an attempt to reduce drug trafficking in the region, Military and police forces have deployed widespread operations on several localities imposing curfews and conducting massive detentions (some forced), particularly of drug gang leaders. Military and police operations have also increased their lethality when confronting drug trafficiking operations. Historically, these operations have also been combined with the destruction of ilicit crops with toxic pesticides. However, drug use disorder deaths keep increasing in all proportions and from most substances (see Figure 2).

In 2011, a newly formed Global Commission on Drug Policy by former heads of state, diplomats and intellectuals called to end the war on drugs, not only on violence grounds but also on developmental downturns. The Commission document outlines that millions are incarcerated for minor drug offences globally; there are widespread human rights violations all over the regions; farming communities have been affected by drug eradication use of pesticides; and there is a link between drug prohibition and the increase of HIV and Hepatitis infections and deaths. These are unintended consequences of the global war on drugs on health, the environment, human rights, and democratic governance.

More research on the unintended consequences of drug prohibition and militarisation on the region's development is still needed, as well as the expectations on how alternative policies could reduce these damages and bring communities into legal pathways to prosperity. In response to this, the Cooperation Programme between Latin America, the Caribbean, and the European Union on Drug Policy (COPOLAD) has launched a new wave of consultations to develop a new methodology to assess the effects of drug policy on development in the region, in line with the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

I was invited as an expert for COPOLAD to design the new methodology that the European Union will develop with the National Drug Policy Observatories in Latin America and the Caribbean. As a PhD Researcher in the Defence Studies Department, my current specialisation regards the links between socioeconomic development and youth recruitment by criminal organisations in Mexico. Drawing from my experience, I am working with an interdisciplinary team of experts selected by COPOLAD to craft methods, data collection, and other instruments to measure or assess how drug policy fosters inequalities regarding employment, education, and income. Furthermore, I will also help to draft a proposal to evaluate the current drug regulation policies in the regions, for example, the regularisation of cannabis in Jamaica and Uruguay.

There are multiple challenges behind the new methodology: how can we find causal relations — if there are — between some drug policies and the multiple dimensions of development comprised in the SDGs? How can we measure these relations? What data is absent and how can it be collected? What are the policy lessons to be learned about the impact of these policies in the day-to-day life of the citizens living in one of the world's most unequal regions? My role in this group of experts is to understand the interdisciplinary relations between violent conflict, crime, and development: an elusive but necessary field of inquiry.

COPOLAD will issue a methodology based on the experts' recommendations and collaborate with National Drug Policy Observatories in the region to issue reports, visits, and recommendations, not only to highlight the unintended consequences of drug policy in the region, but also to provide further evidence for either the adjustment of current policies or the adoption of a new drug policy paradigm that considers sustainable development and human rights at its centre.