Can Latin America Win the War on Drugs?

It's not every day that we get the chance to start by paraphrasing legendary rock band the clash but we fought the drugs and the drugs won this isn't our assessment but that of the global commission on drug policy which back in 2011 released a report saying that the global war on drugs had failed with devastating consequences for individuals and societies

Around the world and it has been repeated multiple times since then including in 2024 by volka turk uni commissioner for human rights who said and we'll quote him here criminalization and prohibition have failed to reduce drug use and failed to deter drug-related crime these policies are simply not working however despite these repeated assertions that the

War on drugs has failed it has continued to be a major issue especially in the western hemisphere in latin america where the majority of the drugs are produced and most of the violence is carried out the war on drugs has had the greatest impact on national politics contributing to the elections of tough on crime leaders including naib bukele in el salvador

And daniel naboa in ecuador even more recently preliminary results indicated the costa ricans have voted for populist laura fernandez as their next president fernandez has cast herself in the same mold as bukele and naboa promising tough measures against organized crime and it's not only south of the border that the impacts are felt in the united states the

Trump administration has made latin america a central front in its war on drugs designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations conducting airstrikes on alleged drug smuggling vessels and even using the war on drugs as part of its broader justification for the capture reform of venousuelan president nicolas maduro yet despite the rise of mano

Dura policies and renewed attention from the white house there's a feeling that the war on drugs remains as unwinnable as ever that cartels keep growing in power while ordinary people suffer so what would it take to actually win how did we lose the war on drugs now before we answer that question we need to examine why the world lost the war on drugs because

When richard nixon called for an all-out offensive against drugs in 1971 the belief was that it would lead to the dismantling of trafficking networks and deliver a safer environment not just for americans but for the rest of the world instead the consequences have been catastrophic in latin america the violence associated with the rapid growth of cartels has

Led to major economic losses in mexico alone research has estimated that in 2021 the economic cost of drug war violence was around 192 billion dollars or around 14.6 percent of the nation's gdp and it stops mexico the institute for economics and peace estimated that ecuador had lost about 12 billion dollars or six percent of its gdp due to violence colombia

On the other hand lost 29 percent of its gdp and brazil lost 11 so what happens well first it's a simple question of economics 101 high demand leads to high prices and the suppliers will do anything to meet that demand regardless of the risk and there is a lot of demand for drugs in the us alone more than 48 million people have used drugs in the past month

According to a 2023 report by the national center for drug abuse statistics in europe the european union drug agency estimated that about 22 million people had used cannabis in 2024 and that is just cannabis alone cocaine was the second most popular drug with about two and a half million users such demand comes with staggering profits about 320 billion

Dollars annually according to some estimates for drug cartels these margins are attractive enough that they're worth killing for worth corrupting governments for and worth risking everything for which is why governments often go after the suppliers because they control production and distribution networks and by limiting their capacity to move drugs across

Borders you can theoretically choke off supply and drive up prices to levels that discourage use however drug demands tend to be relatively inelastic particularly among heavy users what this means is that when prices go up consumption doesn't drop proportionally users don't just stop using because the drugs cost more instead total spending on drugs just

Increases that means more money flowing to cartels creating an even greater incentive to traffic and often more crime as drug users scramble to fund their habits this was best demonstrated by plan columbia in the 2000s when bogotá and washington spent billions trying to slash coca cultivation in half professor daniel magia estimates that while the two

Governments managed to reduce the number of hectares under cultivation by exactly that amount cocaine production barely budged dropping by only 24 farmers simply became more efficient squeezing more cocaine out of less land yields jumped from 4.3 kilograms per hectare to 6.6 more importantly prices in the u.s remain relatively stable which means that the

Supply chain absorbed the hit without breaking stride we have to mention here that the farmers who grow these crops not just in columbia but elsewhere in latin america aren't usually bad people they grow it because it's often the only viable economic option in regions where the state provides neither infrastructure nor legitimate economic alternatives legal

Crops often can't compete with the amount of money that farmers can earn from growing drugs the second reason the war failed is something critics have dubbed the balloon effect when you squeeze a balloon the air doesn't disappear instead it just goes into another part of the balloon forcing it to bulge out similarly squeezing drug production in one place

Makes it bulge out somewhere else in the 1980s and early 1990s intensive eradication efforts in peru and bolivia pushed coca cultivation north into columbia where it exploded under the infamous medellin and cali cartels then came plant columbia and as we've just seen it wasn't particularly successful apart from farmers becoming a lot more efficient a lot of

Production shifted back to peru and bolivia exactly where it had been squeezed out a decade earlier just keep on squeezing that balloon trafficking routes often follow the same pattern when u.s enforcement focused on caribbean routes in the 1980s traffickers rerouted through mexico when mexico cracked down routes shifted through central america and into west

Africa the u.s government's own research acknowledges the displacement effect noting how reinforcement in the andean region inadvertently pushed the drug trade toward brazil and the southern cone countries this displacement isn't just limited to geography when authorities crack down on one drug traffickers adapt by switching to alternatives and research has

Shown that drug users are extremely willing to switch to other products when their preferred substance becomes unavailable and then there's the fact that militarized enforcement can often make the problem worse through violence and corruption when governments launch militarized crackdowns they often fragment cartels rather than destroy them the 1989 arrest

Of miguel angel felix gallardo one of the founders of the guadalajara cartel didn't reduce drug trafficking in mexico it splintered the guadalajara cartel into multiple competing organizations that fought each other for territory in 2006 when president felipe calderon initiated operation mijojan deploying thousands of troops to the streets it led to an

Explosion of violence thousands have died in the years since the operation began the obvious exception is el salvador's crackdown instituted by president naib bukele which has crushed gang activity across the nation since bukele came into office the nation's homicide rate has reached a low of 1.9 per 100 000 people in 2024 from 53.1 in 2018 that's the year

Before bukele took office those figures represent thousands of lives saved businesses no longer forced to pay extortion fees and families that can finally walk on the streets without fear the success has been so great that it has inspired copycats in other nations however even this dramatic success comes with caveats there are signs that gang members have

Fled to guatemala and honduras to avoid detection with entire groups seeking refuge across the border this is the balloon effect in action again while manodura policies have improved life for ordinary salvadorans they haven't completely eradicated the gang's illegal activities they've simply pushed them into another country and finally there's the corruption

The billions flowing through the drug trade can easily corrode institutions colombia's parapolitic scandal revealed extensive links between politicians and paramilitary groups controlling cocaine in mexico the sinaloa cartel allegedly bribed federal officials to feed them sensitive intelligence and focus enforcement on its competitors in ecuador a sprawling

Investigation led to the arrest of over two dozen judges and top security personnel because of their links with the gangs according to mexican investigative reporter anabel hernandez corruption is so pervasive that the war on drugs can't be so it's really tough that the war solved man is struggling if you guys already have to have more Thank you. one quoting

Her here corruption is so deep and systemic within the government institutions charged with fighting narco trafficking that it's become a war for drugs not against drug trafficking so can latin america turn this unwinnable situation around how to win according to most experts one of the most important steps to winning the war on drugs might be reframing what

Victory looks like after five decades the idea that drugs can be completely eradicated is at best the delusional fantasy and at worst a deliberate failure to realize the completely obvious given the headwinds that we just listed winning most likely means reducing violence weakening cartels and building institutions strong enough to resist corruption and some

Latin american countries are already trying to show what that might look like let's start with uruguay in 2013 it became the first country to fully legalize and regulate marijuana production distribution and consumption the government controls the entire supply chain citizens can purchase up to 40 grams of cannabis per month from pharmacies or grow their own

Plants at home the goal wasn't to promote drug use rather as julio calzada secretary general of uruguay's national committee on drugs explained time magazine it's to guarantee users marijuana access without being in contact with the criminal world so how successful has this been well according to the research it's been mixed while it did have some wins such

As keeping cannabis away from young people it did have some major downsides including an apparent increase in crime the homicide rate in 2017 hit 8.1 per 100 000 inhabitants the second highest in 30 years and by 2018 drug-related violence accounted for 59 of homicides about twice the proportion of 2012. researchers also found evidence of increased fatal

Motor vehicle crashes which were associated with the 2013 legislation the united states has faced similar challenges while cannabis legalization has proven extremely popular in states that have adopted it the policy has come with several challenges in new york the state has struggled to deal with an influx of illegal shops and the number of air quality

Complaints more than doubled from 2020 to 2022 in colorado which pioneered marijuana legislation in 2012 a 2021 state report found that traffic fatalities involving drivers under the influence of marijuana had increased 140 in six years perhaps most concerning are the mental health concerns a meta-analysis examining 591 studies concluded that early marijuana

Use among adolescents was associated with a significant increase in the risk of developing schizophrenia while researchers are yet to prove a causal relationship the weight of the evidence is quite hard to dismiss ecuador's experience with decriminalization also highlights the complexities of drug policy reform when the country decriminalized personal drug

Possession it inadvertently created new challenges with microtrafficking the government now and subsequently had to revise its approach with You president naboa repealing the policy in 2023 these outcomes are part of a broader troubling trend showing crime related to drug cartels going up and getting worse countries like chile costa rica uruguay ecuador and

Peru have all seen a sharp deterioration in their security situations this despite some of them pursuing what we'd regard as soft touch policies towards drugs now these failures don't mean reform is impossible they mean it has to be done right with sustained investment in treatment prevention and alternative livelihoods for those caught in the drug trade the

International crisis group also recommends prison reform to avoid radicalizing non-violent offenders who make up a significant majority of the prison population and if that sounds a bit wishy washy liberal just know that prisons in latin america are often little more than glorified recruitment centers for drug cartels however policy reform alone is not a

Silver bullet especially because the worst of the violence often stems from the trafficking not the consumption and that brings us to our second point transnational cooperation criminal networks do not respect borders they operate across countries and continents and fighting them requires the same level of coordination however historically latin american

Countries have struggled to work together effectively political tensions competing interests and different enforcement priorities have led to fragmented responses however that could now be changing in december 2024 18 countries from latin america and the caribbean launched the alliance for security justice and development the alliance focuses on sharing

Criminal records combating money laundering and strengthening justice systems across borders in september 2025 these same countries announced plans to create a rapid response force specifically targeting drug trafficking gangs with coordinated police information to optimize the fight against organized crime this initiative received support from the

Inter-american development bank idb which committed to invest 2.5 billion dollars in loans over the next three years to strengthen these types of initiatives the european union has stepped up its role too through programs like el pacto the eu provides technical support to latin american law enforcement to vastly improve the capabilities the program has led

To the arrest of 85 individuals wanted under interpol red notices with additional arrests expected as investigations continue the eu also cooperated with latin governments and operation caribe a large-scale joint maritime operation that led to the seizure of over 1.5 tons of cocaine whether these efforts will translate into tangible results remains to be

Seen the alliance is barely a year old and many of its promised initiatives are still in development additionally criminal organizations are often a lot more nimble and capable of adapting faster than governments especially when they're trying to coordinate across multiple jurisdictions still there is reason to be hopeful according to spanish language outlet

El pace international corporation led to the seizure of 11 and a half tons of cocaine worth 980 million dollars in one region of spain alone with increased international corporation latin american governments could fully disrupt these networks works western demand now in a previous chapter we mentioned that the us and europe and millions of drug users and as

Long as that demand isn't addressed the majority of these drugs remain illegal there will always be an incentive to traffic drugs well the good news is that both washington and brussels are aware of this and have taken steps to address it bad news is that some of those steps are already being reversed let's start with america drug overdose deaths in the

United states fell by 27 in 2024 dropping to approximately 80 000 deaths from 110 000 in 2023 deaths involving synthetic opioids primarily fentanyl decreased from over 76 000 in 2023 to just over 48 000 in 2024 accounting for a significant portion of the total decline while it's not immediately clear what caused this drop experts have suggested several

Possible reasons including the increased availability of the overdose reversing drug naloxone expanding addiction treatment and a shift in how people use drugs what's certain is that these games require sustained investment in prevention harm reduction treatment and recovery support efforts unfortunately the trump administration has moved sharply away from

These approaches in march 2025 the administration revoked roughly 11.4 billion dollars in covert era funding for grants linked to addiction mental health and other programs the federal grant funding has been scheduled to run through september 2025 but organizations receive termination letters giving them little to no time to wind on operations or secure

Alternative funding congress also cut nearly a trillion dollars from medicaid the largest payer of substance use disorder treatment in the country medicaid helps pay for essential treatments including medications for opioid use disorder counseling and inpatient treatment perhaps most controversially in july 2025 president trump signed an executive order

Targeting harm reduction programs the order pledged to end funding for programs that only facilitated illegal drug use and its attendant harm specifically calling out harm reduction and safe consumption efforts the timing is particularly troubling because more than 50 million americans needed substance use disorder treatment in 2023 but fewer than 13 million

People received treatment the gap between need and access was already massive before these cuts and it's bound to grow exponentially europe faces similar challenges according to anna balkanyeva from the european aids treatment group she writes that the financial sustainability of many harm reduction initiatives on the continent has been under serious threat

Because of shifting political priorities and a fragmented approach to drug use policy within the eu she believes that if left unchecked it could dismantle decades of progress all of this taken together paints a picture of nations that know what they need to do to reduce the demand for drugs but are either unwilling to do it because of political reasons or

Financial ones what makes these cuts particularly counterproductive is their impact on the drug war in latin america fentanyl which is a main priority of the trump administration is trafficked into the country primarily from mexico as long as americans continue using drugs in massive numbers mexican latin american cartels will have every incentive to keep

Producing and trafficking them because as long as the demand exists and there's money to be made someone will try and fill it so to answer our main question can latin american nations win the war on drugs yeah they can but they can't do it alone they will need greater cooperation from brussels and washington policies that actually address the root cause of

The issue and a willingness to accept that winning may look less like a glamorous victory and more like the boring humdrum work of ensuring access to treatment reforming sentencing and ensuring young people in deprived areas have alternatives beyond life in the gangs nonetheless we should all pray this works because if it doesn't we are doomed to witness

Another five decades of growing cartel power mass displacements and death that would be the greatest tragedy of all thank you for watching