Counternarcotics
Wednesday, April 27, 2016 - 07:58
A Latin American multidimensional approach must counteract the spillover effects of the militarised drug policies and work simultaneously not only on security, but also on social, economic, environmental, and cultural factors.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016 - 06:33
At the urging of Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia, world leaders met at the United Nations in a special session last week to discuss saner ways to fight the drug trade. They did not get very far toward a shift in approach. Nonetheless, there was a consensus that investing in health care, addiction treatment and alternatives to incarceration would do more to end the drug trade than relying primarily on prohibition and criminalization.
Monday, April 25, 2016 - 05:46
The United Nations' special assembly on drug policy ended without significant changes to existing drug conventions despite a push for reform from Latin American countries seeking a less prohibitionist regime. With the huge obstacles to a new international consensus made apparent, reformist countries around the region instead look set to continue national level experiments with drug policy.
Thursday, April 21, 2016 - 06:01
One of the longest cross-border drugs-smuggling tunnels between Mexico and the US has been found by authorities in San Diego, American officials say. They say the 800m (874 yards) tunnel was used to transport an "unprecedented cache" of cocaine and marijuana.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - 06:52
Barack Obama ended opium eradication efforts in Afghanistan in 2009, effectively green lighting Afghan opium and the heroin trade. U.S. policy has allowed Afghan opium and heroin since. And heroin deaths here tripled from 3,036 in 2010 to 10,574 in 2014; so has heroin use, from 1,500,000 in 2010 to 4,500,000 heroin users in 2014.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - 06:04
There is an alarming number of women imprisoned for drug crimes in Mexico, where they account for 53% of incarcerated women at the federal level. Of these women, 43% are indigenous: a disproportionate number given they make up only 5% of Mexico’s overall female prison population.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - 06:01
A UN meeting on worldwide drugs policy has opened in New York in what has been billed as the most significant such conference in years. The summit will try to rethink global strategy but divisions among members have immediately been laid bare. The three-day special session was requested by Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala who have seen spiralling drugs violence.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 05:51
Rear Admiral Cedric Pringle, the Deputy Director of the U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-S), recently visited the Dominican Republic to strengthen ties between the two countries in their shared efforts to combat international drug trafficking.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 05:48
Colombia will resume using weed killer to destroy illegal coca crops less than a year after suspending its use due to cancer concerns, the government said Monday. The defense minister, Luis Carlos Villegas, said instead of dumping glyphosate from American-piloted crop dusters, as Colombia did for two decades, the herbicide will now be applied manually by eradication crews on the ground.
Thursday, April 14, 2016 - 05:53
Central American governments have long responded to the region’s political instabilities and high crime rates with military action and harsh penal regimes, an approach dubbed mano dura, or heavy fist. They applied similar methods to the drug crisis, and Washington has gone along.