University:
University of Wyoming
Course:
POLS4445 | Drug War Geopolitics in the Americas
Academic year:

2023
Views:

380

Pages:

1
Author:

Allison B.

The readings and lectures this week discussed prohibition in the Americas, drug trade/control trends regionally, and theories behind counter narcotic policies and the “Drug War”. These types of policy are in no way a new development, Dangerous Harvest notes that for over fifty years the United Nations, United States, and other governments have been trying to achieve a supply-side control solution to the “drug problem” against the basic dynamics of the global drug trade. As the past fifty years of drug policy have shown, addressing the problem from a supply-side does not work, the Cockroach and Balloon effect that can occur from policies only scatter and change producers, and supply-side control tries to eradicate the cultural uses of substances that are not inherently drugs, such as the Coca leaf in Peru, Bolivia, and other nations. Bagley addressed issues of drug trafficking and organized crime in the Americas. A section that stood out to me personally was the discussion of “Regulatory Failures”. The author notes how the UN and OAS have worked together multilaterally, however, this approach has made it difficult for independent states to regulate their own policy, such as attempts at legalization or decriminalization. This relates back to the course content from last week, an assumption that all substances are inherently bad can be a nonstarter for a different, legalizing, effort to control drugs. Bagley states that this “unwavering prohibitionist strategy has dominated” (16) nation’s drug policies, especially in Latin America. Also recurring in our lecture and the Thoumi reading is the United Nations policies on global drug regulation. Two of the most influential being the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The 1961 Single Convention with 185 signatories globally and other UN conventions received similar numbers of support. Thoumi suggests (with the example of Columbia) that drugs themselves do not cause violence in a society, but the policy and prohibition of them does. I agree with this statement. Although the argument can be made that the legalization of some substances would be a “slippery slope” towards further drug abuse and danger, there are intrinsic benefits that could come with legalization/decriminalization such as taxing the substances, better regulation, and health measures to assure no additives.