Latin American Drugs II: Improving Policy and Reducing Harm

To access the full report in Spanish, please click here.
To access the executive summary and recommendations in French, please click here.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The policies of a decade or more to stop the flow of cocaine from the Andean source countries, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, to the two largest consumer markets, the U.S. and Europe, have proved insufficient and ineffective. Cocaine availability and demand have essentially remained stable in the U.S. and have been increasing in Europe. Use in Latin American transit countries, in particular Argentina, Brazil and Chile, is on the rise. Flawed counter-drug polices also are causing considerable collateral damage in Latin America, undermining support for democratic governments in some countries, distorting governance and social priorities in others, causing all too frequent human rights violations and fuelling armed and/or social conflicts in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. A comprehensive shared policy reassessment and a new consensus on the balance between approaches emphasising law enforcement and approaches emphasising alternative development and harm reduction are urgently required.

Counter-drug policies such as the U.S.-Colombian Plan Colombia and the European Union (EU) Drugs Strategy have not found an effective mix of supply and demand reduction measures. While on both sides of the Atlantic the lion’s share of counter-narcotics funds are invested in controlling the drug problem at home, neither the Washington law-enforcement orientation nor the Brussels public health orientation (which is not homogeneously shared across the EU) has significantly reduced cocaine use. Policy coordination between the U.S., Europe and Latin America is severly hampered by the marked differences on both how best to address the world’s overall drug problem and how to reduce cocaine supply, as well as by unrelated political disputes.

While the U.S. runs large supply reduction programs in the Andean source countries, in particular seeking to eradicate coca crops through aerial spraying in Colombia but also investing considerable money in alternative development, the Europeans contribute on a smaller scale to the establishment of alternative livelihoods and strengthening of institutions. Drug-shipment interdiction and law enforcement in many of the transit countries are relatively major elements of U.S. policy, while Europe attempts to guard its borders closer to home and suffers from inadequate law enforcement cooperation within the EU.

In the absence of better coordination between counter-drug authorities on the three continents, highly efficient and sophisticated transnational trafficking organisations adapt rapidly and continue to find ways to cater to the world’s most lucrative markets. The harm they do is multiplied by their symbiotic relationships with illegal armed groups, most spectacularly the insurgents and the new groups that have sprung up following disarmament of the paramilitaries in Colombia.

Crisis Group’s detailed study is divided into two complementary reports published simultaneously. The first, Latin American Drugs I: Losing the Fight, principally examines the scope of the problem, including a detailed examination of cultivation and trafficking. This report analyses policies and their political and social ramifications and presents policy recommendations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the U.S. Government:

1.  Increase demand reduction efforts by:

(a)  expanding public drug education and prevention programs at high schools and developing high-impact programs targeting other cocaine and crack cocaine users;

(b)  increasing drug courts and improving treatment referral and treatment programs for chronic users;

(c)  offering more and more effective in-prison, transition and treatment follow-up programs;

(d)  increasing systematic information exchange on drug prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and law enforcement with European and other drug authorities; and

(e)  developing modern communication approaches to stigmatise recreational users of cocaine.

2.  Refocus supply reduction efforts by:

(a)  increasing massively the alternative and rural development, institution-strengthening and local governance components of Plan Colombia and the Andean Counter-Drug Initiative (ACI);

(b)  changing the Colombia coca crop eradication program from all too often indiscriminate aerial spraying to manual eradication, linked to immediately available economic incentives for farmers, and limiting forced eradication to a last resort there and in Bolivia and Peru;

(c)  increasing information exchange with the EU and Latin American source countries on supply reduction;

(d)  reinstating Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) helicopter interdiction operations in Haiti based on the successful 2007 pilot operation;

(e)  focusing more interdiction efforts closer to, and on, U.S. borders, particularly the Mexican, where the loss of cocaine is costlier and not as easily replaced by traffickers as in the source countries;

(f)  establishing stronger cooperation with EU and Latin American law enforcement/counter-drug agencies to improve interdiction closer to U.S. and European borders and be more effective at dismantling trafficking organisations;

(g)  targeting more effectively cocaine brokers and wholesalers in the U.S. and increasing efforts to control and dissolve street gangs and reintegrate their members into civil life; and

(h)  increasing the focus of the Mérida Initiative on strengthening institutional and law enforcement capabilities in Mexico and Central America, with a priority on addressing corruption.

To the European Union and its Member States:

3.  Increase demand reduction efforts by:

(a)  expanding public education and prevention programs in the member states, especially in Italy, Spain and the UK, aiming specific programs in particular at high school students and middle-high and high income groups;

(b)  expanding treatment programs specifically tailored to cocaine and crack cocaine users, particularly in Italy, Spain and the UK;

(c)  evaluating rigorously the impact of harm reduction and law enforcement measures on reducing cocaine demand and taking appropriate action to improve performance; and

(d)  increasing systematic information exchange on drug prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and law enforcement with the U.S. and other drug authorities.

4.  Increase supply reduction efforts through:

(a)  expanding significantly support for alternative and rural development, institution-strengthening and local governance programs in source and transit countries and improving coordination and harmonisation of programs between the EU and the member states;

(b)  establishing systematic information exchange with the U.S. on supply reduction measures in the Latin American source and transit countries;

(c)  improving European law enforcement coordination for better interdiction of cocaine shipments closer to European borders and within the EU and to be more effective at dismantling trafficking organisations;

(d)  establishing stronger cooperation with U.S., Latin American and West African law enforcement and counter-drug agencies to increase the effectiveness of interdiction and chemical precursor control; and

(e)  targeting more effectively cocaine brokers and wholesalers in the EU.

To the Governments of the Andean Region:

5.  Increase supply reduction efforts by:

(a)  expanding massively alternative and rural development, institution-strengthening and local governance programs aimed at addressing historical absence of state presence, indigenous exclusion and rural poverty and including these issues prominently in international cooperation agendas;

(b)  shifting the focus of coca crop eradication to manual and, where security conditions permit, voluntary eradication, while progressively phasing out aerial spraying and forced manual eradication;

(c)  establishing stronger cooperation with law enforcement agencies in Latin America, Europe and the U.S.;

(d)  strengthening control of chemical precursors; and

(e)  closing the loopholes in the system of legal coca leaf control in Bolivia and Peru.

6.  Increase demand reduction efforts by:

(a)  designing and implementing public education and prevention programs and offering drug users treatment; and

(b)  establishing systematic information exchange on demand reduction with other Latin American countries, Europe and the U.S.

To the Governments of Brazil and the Southern Cone:

7.  Increase demand reduction efforts by:

(a)  acting promptly against increased cocaine and “paco”/“merla” use in Argentina, Brazil and Chile;

(b)  significantly improving and expanding public education, prevention and treatment programs tailored to cocaine and “paco”/“merla” users and targeting high school students and lower, middle and middle-high income groups; and

(c)  establishing systematic information exchange on demand reduction with other Latin American countries, Europe and the U.S.

8.  Increase supply reduction efforts by:

(a)  improving control at international airports and borders with Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru and between Brazil, Argentina and Chile;

(b)  increasing law enforcement intelligence capabilities on organised and transnational crime and expanding cooperation with law enforcement agencies in Latin America, the U.S. and Europe;

(c)  stepping up law enforcement against domestic and transnational trafficking organisations, targeting their organisational structures, financial and other assets and drug-producing facilities;

(d)  increasing the fight against corruption in law enforcement agencies and significantly improving conditions in and performance of the prison systems;

(e)  improving control of chemical precursors; and

(f)  increasing efforts to control and dissolve criminal gangs in poor neighbourhoods of the large cities and reintegrate their members into civil life.

To the Governments of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean:

9.  Increase supply reduction efforts by:

(a)  strengthening the fight against corruption within law enforcement agencies and the military, including by proceeding swiftly to create new police forces or reform existing ones;

(b)  replacing the military progressively by police and civilian law enforcement agencies in the fight against drug trafficking and taking prompt action to improve the human rights records of the military and law enforcement agencies;

(c)  targeting more effectively senior and mid-level structures of Mexican trafficking organisations and increasing efforts to control and dissolve criminal gangs in poor neighbourhoods of the large cities and reintegrate their members into civil life; and

(d)  increasing the focus of the Mérida Initiative on strengthening institutional and law enforcement capabilities in Mexico and Central America.

10.  Increase demand reduction efforts by:

(a)  improving and expanding public education, prevention and treatment programs tailored to cocaine and crack users and targeting high school students and lower, middle and middle-high income groups; and

(b)  establishing systematic information exchange on demand reduction with other Latin American countries, Europe and the U.S.

To the United Nations:

11.  Conduct a rigorous and transparent evaluation, with civil society participation, of the progress worldwide in reducing supply and demand for drugs since the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the world drugs problem.

12.  Promote establishment of a new policy consensus, capable of overcoming current political divisions, and strengthening cooperation and policy coordination between the U.S., Europe and Latin American source, transit and consumer countries and achieving an effective balance between demand and supply reduction measures.

To the Organization of American States:

13.  Continue to evaluate progress in reducing drug supply and demand in the OAS member states and promote strong cooperation between Latin America, the U.S. and Europe.

Bogotá/Brussels, 14 March 2008