The growth and toxic influence of transnational organised crime groups is intimately linked to the prohibition of narcotics. Combined with militarised ‘wars on drugs’ , it is another manifestation of harm and violence perpetrated by the Global North on the Global South. Natalie Sharples argues for legalisation with a focus on producer communities, restorative justice and sustainable peace.
The devastation caused by organised crime is uncontested. Its role in driving conflict, undermining governance and the effective functioning of states and the consequent near certain failure to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is clear. Yet despite lamenting the impacts of organised crime, those responsible for addressing it often refuse to acknowledge a primary cause: the prohibition of drugs.
Decades of drug prohibition – consolidated by the UN’s 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs – has not only failed to stop people using drugs – more people use drugs and suffer drug harms now than at any other time – it has also prompted a startling array of unintended consequences. These include poor health, the perpetuation of poverty, spiralling inequality and diversion of vital resources. Most vitally it has enabled the creation of organised drug crime.
The act of making drugs illegal immediately escalated their price. Estimates of annual proceeds from the global illicit drugs trade are between US$426 and US$652 billion, and drug crime makes up a growing share of economies in Latin America and West Africa. Between 2015 and 2018, Mexican drug cartels generated inward illicit financial flows of an estimated $12.1 billion similar in value to the country’s agricultural exports.
Prohibition has enabled the creation and empowerment of a multi-billion dollar unregulated trade. At the top are violent, transnationally organised criminal networks that wield the power to control or undermine entire states.
These networks influence– through bribes or threats of violence – officials at all levels, until the links between organised crime and states become entwined. This has led to some countries- Colombia, Guinea-Bissau, Mexico and Suriname to name just a few – being labelled ‘Narco States.’
In March former President of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado was convicted by a US court of trafficking cocaine into the US. The US government’s press release claims he “abused his position as President of Honduras to operate the country as a narco-state where violent drug traffickers were allowed to operate with virtual impunity.”
Instability, impunity and profit
The UN’s definition of organised crime is “a continuing criminal enterprise that rationally works to profit from illicit activities that are often in great public demand.” What it fails to acknowledge is the prohibition it requires as a primary cause of that enterprise. Instead, the UN, led particularly by countries of the Global North or Minority world, continues to pursue an ideological ‘war on drugs’, using that as a cover for foreign political and military interventions.
Whilst prohibition created organised drug crime, drug crime itself is a catalyst for other forms of crime. Cartels diversify into other businesses using their existing clandestine routes, transport and infrastructure to traffic people, wildlife, timber and weapons and to reinvest their profits into other activities such as illegal mining and land-grabbing.
Drug crime is not only a cause of instability: from the vast increase in manufacture in synthetic drugs in Ukraine – the largest increase of any drug market in the world – following the Russian invasion, to the funding of armed insurgent groups in Haiti and the Sahel, organised criminal networks actively seek out areas of instability to operate in order to disguise their actions and trade with impunity. Whilst Guinea-Bissau is perhaps the most famous West African example of the enmeshing of organised crime and the state, various UN reports evidence the trend – beginning in the early 2000s – of foreign drug cartels actively targeting West African nations that are vulnerable to instability.
Between 2012 and 2021 the UK spent US$22 million of its so-called ‘aid’ budget to enforce prohibition. Money purportedly to end poverty was spent on surveillance in Colombia, Mozambique and the Dominican Republic, and undercover policing in Peru. Collectively the US and EU spent US$832 million of official development assistance (ODA) on narcotics control in the same period. Anti-Sandinista insurgency in the 1980s, the 1989 invasion of Panama, ‘Plan Colombia’ (2000-2015), and financial sanctions are among the US interventions undertaken in the name of the ‘war on drugs’. Latterly, the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan (2001-2021) devoted billions of dollars to counter-productive efforts to eradicate opium production.
Where next?
Across the world, recent years have seen a groundswell of moves to end prohibition. High profile figures from Presidents to UN High Commissioners have called for its end. Over 100 countries now have harm reduction policies and 51 jurisdictions across 30 countries have some form of drug decriminalisation. Reforms and regulation, not only of cannabis but even cocaine, psychedelic plants and MDMA/ecstasy are being discussed right now in various countries.
There is urgency for all those who care about peace and human security to seize this opportunity. It is a chance to shape emerging legislation to prioritise peace, good governance and human rights, to right the wrongs of prohibition and improve people’s lives.
From decent livelihoods to generating vital tax revenue for public services, if the sustainable development, environmental and conflict prevention communities all get involved and work with impacted communities to shape emergent legislation, the impacts for the health of people and planet could be monumental.
Thanks to advocacy from impacted communities in New York State, their cannabis regulation invests 40 percent of the tax revenue from cannabis into communities that were most harmed by prohibition, 40 percent into education, and 20 percent into substance abuse and mental health services.
A legally regulated cannabis market in the UK alone could generate at least £1 billion annually in taxes, as well as a range of potential cost savings for the NHS, police, prison and judicial systems. In some of the poorer and more unstable parts of the world in which the drugs trade represents a much greater share of the economy, the tax revenue could be far greater.
Action is needed, and soon, because without engagement from the people and organisations who care about global peace, security and development reforms it will be left to big businesses, who will take over where the cartels leave off, and shape legislation in their own interests. We must put stability and development at the heart of reforms. This means demanding a focus on restorative justice and ensuring the priorities of small and traditional growers and those harmed by prohibition are at the forefront. It means using trade and tax policy to prioritise small and traditional growers, restrict foreign companies, balance public health priorities with reducing the illicit markets and generate vital revenue to invest in more stable societies.
It is time for all those who care about peace and security to start talking about drugs.
Natalie Sharples is Head of Policy and Campaigns at Health Poverty Action. The organisation is a founding member of the International Coalition for Drug Policy and Environmental Justice.
The views and opinions expressed in posts on the Rethinking Security blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the network and its broader membership.
Image Credit: Policía Nacional de los colombianos, via Flickr. Policía Antinarcóticos stand on guard after burning a coca laboratory near Tumaco, Colombia, Narino state, June 2008.
