Organization of American States: abandoning war on drugs would be worst scenario for region.
| Autor | Reynolds, Louisa |
The wave of violence that has swept over the countries in Latin America that have been the worst affected by drug trafficking could lead them to unilaterally abandon the war on drugs (NotiCen, March 1, 2012). In the short term, this could reduce the number of drug-related killings in these countries; in the long term, becoming a "narcostate" would allow the drug trade to flourish and expand.
This is one of the four scenarios explored by the Organization of American States (OAS) in two reports published during its latest meeting, held in June in Antigua, Guatemala.
The reports, compiled by a team of experts from each of the member states, analyze the state of drug trafficking in the region and put forward various scenarios that illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of following different paths, including decriminalization and legalization.
In the report "Scenarios for the Drug Problem in the Americas," the OAS analyzes four possible scenarios for the region, the last of which is "disruption" and would have the worst impact. Under this scenario, one of the countries with the highest levels of drug-related crime, for instance, one of the Central American countries, could reorient the resources currently spent on fighting drug trafficking to domestic priorities, allowing drug cartels to operate freely in their territory. Thus, the violent clashes between the police and the drug cartels would significantly diminish.
The problem, say the report's authors, is that taking such a step unilaterally could turn that country into a narcostate, where the amount of drugs transported through its territory would significantly increase and organized crime would become even more entrenched in the state apparatus, thus increasing its corrupting influence.
Another scenario, referred to by the OAS as "together," regards drugs as a wider security issue and invests in strengthening judicial and public security institutions, an approach that could cause the "cockroach effect," meaning that fighting the problem in one country could simply displace it to another country with weaker institutions.
This cockroach effect is precisely what Central America has suffered in the past few years, says a report published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in September 2012.
The UNODC report says the fight against drugs in Mexico waged by the administration of former President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) strengthened Central American drug cartels. The number of...
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