DRUG_WAR_RETHINK EFFECTS_OF_DRUGS MEXICO_BROOKINGS_VIOLENCE_MARCH2009 INTERPERSONAL_VIOLENCE_AND_DRUGS edubidieassignemnt2 edubirdie7
 

• Type of paperAssignment
• SubjectEconomics
• Number of pages4
• Format of citationMLA
• Number of cited resources2
• Type of serviceWriting

-Please complete 4 out of 6 of the following essay question. Each question is worth 25 points each. You are to use all class materials as appropriate including any videos and data. All answers are to be type-written and approximately one type-written page in length for each question. 1.Drug policy has been created and transformed a number of times, particularly over the last five decades especially as it pertains to opioids and cocaine. Explain the political, economic, and social implications of these policies. Be sure to make comparisons with other countries’ drug policies. 2.Recently, there have been many discussions by President Trump and his administration to close the southeastern border between the US and Mexico. Choose a newspaper article of your choice and explain the positives and negatives of closing the border. 3.Using all of the readings, videos, and data that have been available to you in this course thus, explain whether or not drugs could ever cease to be problematic in the US. Please explain your answer thoroughly. 4.As you are all aware, there is a socioeconomic status order in America and any industrialized country in the world (low, middle, and upper class status). Explain how this applies in the underground economy of drugs (who are low, middle, and upper classes of the drug world). 5.Explain how the inflow of drug profits into low income countries in South and Central America could affect adversely affect legitimate businesses and diminish economic growth in those countries. 6.How can we decrease and prevent drug addiction amongst youth? please use one of the files attached as a source, one or more outside source that is relatable. please choose only 4 questions, write 1 page only for 1 question, so in total there should be 4 pages using 4 questions. Please write original work.

Rethinking the ‘war on drugs’: Insights from the US and
Mexico

Ernesto Zedillo, 22 May 2012

Illegal drugs are one of the planet’s most pressing problems. They shatter hundreds of millions
of lives and wreak untold social, economic and political damage in both consuming and
producing nations. In this column, ex-President of Mexico Ernesto Zedillo introduces an eBook
he edited on the issue that points very strongly in the direction of a serious reconsideration of
drug policy.

America’s most loved economics textbook (Mankiw 2012) uses the ‘war on drugs’ to

illustrate how restricting supply when demand is inelastic increases the total cash spent

on illegal drugs. Every anti-smuggling tactic makes each consignment more profitable.

No wonder the US war on drugs is not going so well. Yet despite 40 years of violence,

corruption and continuing addiction, the US is in no mood to alter course.

At the Summit of the Americas last month, the Colombian and Guatemalan Presidents

called for a new approach. The US flatly rules out any change. Dan Restrepo, the

National Security Council’s senior director for Latin America, said in a press conference

on the summit: “US policy on this is very clear. The President doesn’t support

decriminalisation, but he does consider this is a legitimate debate. And it’s a legitimate

debate because it helps to demystify this as an option”. (Rogin 2012)

US and Mexico

The US is the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs. It makes up just 5% of the

global population, yet according to most estimates accounts for over 25% of global

demand for illicit drugs. At the same time, Mexico is the US’s largest supplier, and an

increasingly significant supplier of drugs to many European countries. Moreover, in

recent years Mexico has been hit by an unprecedented epidemic of violence stemming

from organised crime that is leading to ominous comparisons with Colombia.

Over the years there have been many studies of drug policy in the US, Mexico and their

trade partners. This was the starting ground for a conference held by the Yale Center

for the Study of Globalization. The subsequent eBook distils the lessons from work

presented by 20 leading experts (see Zedillo and Wheeler 2012).1

Why this debate now?

Drug policy in the US has remained essentially unchanged for over 40 years – ever

since US President Richard Nixon announced a “national war on drugs” in the late

1960s.2 The persistence of a ‘law enforcement approach’ is remarkable, especially

when we consider that experts doubted its validity even before it was fully enacted. In

fact, in March 1972 a National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse established

by Nixon himself issued its report contradicting the essence of the official policy. Indeed,

the Commission recommended that marijuana use should be decriminalised. This

recommendation apparently “so angered President Nixon that he refused to receive the

report publicly, in spite of the fact that the chair of the commission was a Republican

governor, Raymond P Shafer” (for a discussion see Musto and Korsmeyer 2002). And

just as the policy stance has persisted, so have the criticisms.

Yet this should not be taken to suggest that drug policy in the US and other countries

has totally lacked a rational foundation all along. The debate is really over the weight

that medical and public health concerns – not to mention basic human rights or even

economic rights – should receive in the formulation of policy. For whatever reason – and

many would point to political necessity – the goal of reducing crime and condemning

‘disruptive behaviour’ has dominated the rationale behind drug policies, leaving little

space for health strategies and paying little attention to the knock-on effects. Of course,

the architects and subsequent followers of the ‘war on drugs’ strategy believe that they

were acting on behalf of the public interest, but that is hardly a reason not to examine

the basis for, and the results of, their policies.

Will Mexico repeat Colombia’s misery?

Contributing to the sense of urgency in this debate is the high cost already paid by

Mexico. The violence caused by organised crime in the Mexican drug trade has

http://www.voxeu.org/article/rethinking-war-drugs-insights-us-and-mexico%23fn

http://www.voxeu.org/article/rethinking-war-drugs-insights-us-and-mexico%23fn

approached Colombian proportions in recent years. Political scientist Eduardo Guerrero

Gutiérrez (2012) estimates that between end-2006 and end-2012, the number of deaths

related to the activities of organised crime will reach 64,000 in Mexico.

There can be little doubt that if Central America is bound to become the next key

battleground for the “war on drugs”, it will be nothing short of devastating. Joaquín

Villalobos (2012) argues that if the trend continues Central America could see its

economies and political systems crumble under the pressure, returning the countries to

the instability of the cold war years.

What to do about US demand?

Although all agree that demand from the US is a chief cause of the troubles in Mexico
and Central America, there are differences in how to address this.

Jonathan Caulkins is not only sceptical of the political feasibility of legalisation of illegal

drugs, for example, but also argues that this position should be sustained (Caulkins and

Lee 2012). Caulkins is convinced that prohibition drives prices up far above legal levels;

that the taxes necessary to prevent a price collapse, if drugs were legalised, are

uncollectable. Moreover, he is not alone in seeing legalisation as an “irreversible game”

in that some drug use induced by legalisation would remain even if that policy change

were later undone.

Other authors argue that political support for the status quo remains strong. For

example, Keith Humphreys, a former senior advisor at the White House Office of

National Drug Control Policy in the Obama administration, places at zero the probability

of seeing a radical change in the policy towards cocaine any time soon, the drug whose

US market provides at least half of the Mexican drug gangs’ total revenue. Part of the

reason for this is that present policies, for all their flaws, have coincided with a relative

stabilisation in the overall levels of use in the US (see also Kleiman 2012 and Donohue

2012).

Yet despite this, Peter Reuter (2012) shows that there is very little evidence to suggest

that enforcement raises prices or reduces availability. Between 1980 and 2005, the

number of people imprisoned for drug offences in local jails and state and federal

prisons increased by a factor of 10, yet during this period of increased policing, the price

of heroin and cocaine fell around 70%.

Jeffrey Miron, meanwhile, reiterates the classical economic case for a laissez faire

approach. It stems from the uncontested fact that prohibition does not eliminate drug

markets, but simply drives them underground and the money into the hands of criminals

(Miron 2012). Miron proposes legalisation with a sin tax on drugs sufficiently stiff to yield

a price as high as under prohibition. While not endorsing outright legalisation, other

authors nevertheless do provide sensible arguments for moving away from the status

quo.

Without endorsing outright legalisation, other authors nevertheless do provide

arguments for moving away from the status quo in a direction that would address the

consequences of black markets. After reporting that 56.6% of the estimated cost of

illegal drug use in the US (estimated for 2002 as $217 billion in 2008 dollars) was due to

crime-related costs and only 8.7% was caused by health costs, Stanford Law Professor

John Donohue admits serious concerns about the balance of overall US drug policy. He

insists on the fundamental question of how it can be possible to have falling prices of

illegal drugs in the face of intense enforcement efforts – carrying an annual cost of more

than $40 billion. Interestingly, he invokes an earlier study by Caulkins and others that

found that an additional $1 million spent on treatment and demand reduction reduced

net cocaine consumption by 103.6 kg while the same amount of money spent on longer

sentences reduced consumption by just 12.6 kg.

What to do about Mexican supply?

On the other side of the market is the supply from Mexico. Mark Kleiman criticises the

US government’s long-standing demand that Mexico act to reduce the flow of drugs

across the border so that US drug consumption will be reduced. He claims that even if

Mexico were successful in crippling that traffic, the effects on drug abuse in the US

would be modest at best because shipments of drugs would simply be shifted to other

routes.

Moreover, somewhat surprisingly, some of those who are sceptical of the possibility or

even the convenience of any significant drug-policy changes in the US argue that

Mexico should change its strategies and policies to align them more with its own

interests and less with those of its northern neighbour. Both Kleiman and Caulkins

suggest that the objective of minimising violence should have a higher priority in the

Mexican strategy – a suggestion that no doubt would make more than one law enforcer

raise an eyebrow.

A change is needed

Despite their differences, the arguments and evidence presented in the eBook point

very strongly in the direction of a serious reconsideration of drug policy. The economic

and human costs paid both in the US as well as in the countries where the drugs come

from, cast doubt over the validity of such policies. Our US colleagues who tell us that

any significant change in the strategy is unlikely to happen in the US essentially for

political reasons may be right. But it doesn’t mean that those concerned about this

problem, for good reason, should give up. On the contrary, the resistance to change

should encourage more and better research and a bigger effort to foster a rational

discussion of the drug problem. Our eBook aims to contribute towards these ends.

References

Babor, Thomas F (2012), “The Public Health Impact of Drug Policies”, in Ernesto Zedillo
and Haynie Wheeler (eds.), Rethinking the “War of Drugs” Through the US-Mexico
Prism, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

Caulkins, Jonathan and Michael Lee (2012), “Legalizing Drugs in the US: A Solution for
Mexico’s Problems for Which Mexico Should Not Wait”, in Ernesto Zedillo and Haynie
Wheeler (eds.), Rethinking the “War of Drugs” Through the US-Mexico Prism, Yale
Center for the Study of Globalization.

Camín, Héctor Aguilar (2012), “On Mexican Violence”, in Ernesto Zedillo and Haynie
Wheeler (eds.), Rethinking the “War of Drugs” Through the US-Mexico Prism, Yale
Center for the Study of Globalization.

• Rethinking the ‘war on drugs’: Insights from the US and Mexico

US and Mexico
Why this debate now?
Will Mexico repeat Colombia’s misery?
What to do about US demand?
What to do about Mexican supply?
A change is needed
References

Medic8 (http://www.medic8.com/drug-addiction/addiction-and-crime.html)

Social Effects of an Addiction – Drug Addiction

We know about the physical and psychological effects of an addiction but what about the social
effects? In many ways this can be more harmful than the other two put together. Drug
addiction doesn’t just affect the addict: it has a far reaching effect which encompasses family,
friends, employers, healthcare professionals and society as a whole. If you are addicted to
alcohol, nicotine, drugs or even caffeine then the effects of this can negatively impact upon
Marriage/Relationships, Home/family life, Education, Employment, Health and wellbeing,
Personality, Financial issues, Law and order

Marriage/relationships

If you have a situation in which one half of a couple is an addict then this can cause untold
hardship for the other half. The person who is addicted may have changed from a previously
easy going personality to one who is prone to mood swings, violent outbursts, secrecy and
other forms of extreme behavior. This is difficult for their partner to deal with and is even
worse if there are children involved. It is both distressing and confusing for children to see one
parent (or even both parents) exhibit signs of their addiction.

The person who is suffering from an addiction may be in financial difficulties which the other
person is unaware of. Combine this with their irrational behavior, paranoia and in several cases,
criminal behavior and you have a recipe for marital breakdown. In many cases the addict
resorts to violence in desperation for their next ‘fix’. If he/she is craving a drink, cigarette or a
particular drug but is unable to satisfy that craving – either due to a lack of money or prevented
from doing so by their partner then violence is often the result.

The sad fact is that these actions are often committed by someone who is not a violent person
by nature but is driven by their need for this substance. Their addiction is their main priority in
life and that’s all that matters to them. Someone in the grip of an addiction can become selfish,
self-centred and oblivious to other people’s concerns. Things such as paying the mortgage and
bills or other day to day issues of running a home are no longer important to them. This often
leads to a breakdown in the marriage or relationship which causes financial hardship and
distress. The other half of the relationship is left to cope on his/her own which is even more
difficult if there are children. What can happen is that other members of the family closes ranks
and exclude the person with the addiction. This is mainly done to protect the family from other
consequences of his/her behavior but also as a means of presenting a united front to the rest of
society.

http://www.medic8.com/drug-addiction/addiction-and-crime.html

Home/family

On the subject of home/family life, there is also the possibility that the rest of the family may
feel embarrassed or ashamed at this behavior. They are bothered by what others might think
and are unsure as to what to do for the best. If you are suffering from an addiction then you will
probably find that your family is concerned but maybe needs you to realise that you have a
problem and are prepared to face up to it. It may seem as if your family has pushed you out
but it could also be the case that they see this as a form of ‘tough love’ in which they are giving
you time to reflect upon yourself and your addiction. This is done with the hope that you will
seek treatment for your addiction. They will provide support and help as well but you need to
take that first step.

Education

If a child or young person is suffering from an addiction then this will impact upon their
schooling, relationships with other children and their home life. One such effect of this is
truanting from school. This can happen if the child is addicted or if they have a parent who is an
addict and neglects to care for them. It is hard for a child or young person to resist the
temptation of alcohol, cigarettes or drugs. A desire to be part of the gang or to try ‘forbidden
fruit’ as a means of growing up can very quickly lead to addiction. Addiction tends to occur
much more quickly in a young person than in an adult. The problem is that they can be hooked
from just the first time they try a substance. If you are a parent who suspects that your child
has developed an addiction then look out for signs of anti-social or erratic behavior;
unexplained absences from school; reports from the school of theft or violent behavior from
your child or that he/she has been caught drug dealing on school premises. Their concentration
will be poor and motivation will have dropped. They may be spending inordinate amounts of
time in their room or on the other hand, be staying out most of the night and with people that
you don’t know.

It is equally hard if your parent or parents are the ones with an addiction. They are likely to be
so concerned with seeing to their own needs that yours are forgotten about. For them it is all
about their addiction whether that is alcohol, cigarettes or drugs. Your needs are superseded by
their addiction. They are controlled by their addiction and will do anything to feed it which can
include criminal behavior.

Employment

Employers are affected if any of their employees develops and addiction. The employee
concerned may have changed from a smart, punctual and efficient worker to someone who is
late for work, has neglected their appearance and personal hygiene and id displaying erratic or

unacceptable levels of behavior. They may have started to go absent for no good reason, not
completed their duties or stolen from colleagues and/or the company. This results in that
employee losing their job which then impacts upon their home and family life. Loss of their job
means a reduction in income – especially if he/she is the main breadwinner, and puts a strain on
the relationship. It can then lead to marriage/relationship breakdown and/or divorce. It can be
difficult if you suspect that one of your colleagues has become addicted and even more difficult
if you work in a highly stressful job in which excessive drinking and/or drug taking is part of the
company culture. If many of the team enjoy going to bars and clubs after work or it is part of
the job, e.g. entertaining clients then how do you know when social use of a substance or
having a few drinks with colleagues has become an addiction?

Health and wellbeing

A most obvious effect of drug addiction is that on physical health. There are some substances
such as alcohol or caffeine which is fine on an occasional basis or in moderate amounts but it is
when they become a regular habit that damage to your health occurs. A couple of cigarettes in
a day can also be harmful. You may think that you are a very light smoker and that this won’t
cause a problem but nicotine is a powerful stimulant and damage starts early on.

Drugs such as heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, poppers, ecstasy are dangerous in any amount
and should be avoided. There is no such thing as a safe, moderate amount of crack cocaine or
heroin. Apart from the long term effects on health there is also the fact that an addiction can be
fatal. Alcohol, cigarettes and drugs can kill either as a result of an overdose, suicide, an accident
or from the physical damage caused by these substances. Other side effects include an
increase in the number of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and birth
defects as a result of the mother’s addiction.

Personality

Addiction affects someone’s personality and behaviour in a variety of ways although this very
much depends upon the type of substance used and the amount; their psychological make up
before the addiction and physical health and their lifestyle. Some substances have a greater
effect than others upon mental health, for example, heroin is stronger than nicotine and will
have a bigger impact upon the brain. Added to that is the fact that all of us are different in
regard to our psychological make up which means that no two people are affected in the same
way. So, one person may experience a greater level of ‘damage’ than another person using the
same substance, mainly due to their brain chemistry. So what does an addiction do to
someone’s mental health and behavior? The most obvious sign is the fact that they behave in
ways which are totally out of character. They may become secretive or deliberately offensive;

self-harm; lie, cheat or steal; or place their need for their addiction above their family and
friends.

Other examples including paranoia, restlessness, low self-esteem or a lack of trust in
themselves and anyone else. On the other hand they may behave in an arrogant and uncaring
manner as if only their needs matter and no-one else’s. As the addiction worsens they may start
to withdraw from their family and friends or spend time with people who you don’t know. The
highs and low of their addiction can lead to anxiety and depression. The chemistry of the brain
is affected by addiction, for example, taking crystal meth, amphetamines, cannabis, ecstasy and
excessive alcohol use. These have the power to change certain structures of a person’s brain
which have a dramatic effect upon that person’s personality.

Financial issues

The costs of an addiction not only affect the sufferer but can also encompass family, friends and
society as a whole. There are the costs of policing, drug addiction help lines, support groups and
rehab clinics. Indirectly there is lost revenue in the form of tax and national insurance
contributions each time an addict loses their job or is unable to work. This means a drop in
revenue for the Treasury and an increase in welfare benefits, e.g. unemployment benefit. This
may sound extreme but if you multiply all of this by the number of drug addicts in the UK then
it all adds up to a hefty drain on the country’s purse strings. On a smaller scale there is the
financial damage to family or friends as the addict will resort to theft or other criminal means in
order to fund their habit.

Addiction and Crime – Drug Addiction

This is a difficult subject to address as the relationship between the two is complex and
thought-provoking. We know that many addicts resort to crime to pay for their habit but there
also some people who are addicted to the criminal act itself. So we have people who wouldn’t
normally commit crime but have only turned to it out of an act of desperation and then there
are those people who have already committed crime and then use this to fund their habit.

Punish or treatment?

The question is: do we punish people who commit crime to fund their addiction by locking
them up or do we help them by sending them into rehab? Some people may see the latter
option this as ‘going soft’ on criminals but there is a difference between the two and if
treatment helps them to kick their habit and prevent re-offending then it has to be considered
as an option. The ‘hang them and flog them’ brigade may differ but people who have
committed crimes in order to pay for their addiction may benefit more from help and
treatment rather than prison. The problem with prison is that drugs can be accessed (or

smuggled in) whilst they are confined which means that they are able to continue with their
habit. This means that they are unlikely to stop their addiction and will likely re-offend once
they leave prison.

The costs of dealing with this are prohibitively expensive so a better option may be to treat
addicts rather than punishing them. There is evidence to show that addicts are less likely to re-
offend if they receive treatment (source: 2008, Manchester University National Drug Evidence
Centre).

Legalize drugs?

Drug dealing is big business not just in the UK but around the world. There are organized drug
cartels in many countries that use the proceeds of this to fund criminal activity which means
that there is an ongoing battle between them and the authorities – which is likely to continue.
One idea put forward is that of legalizing drugs. Supporters of this argue that it would reduce
crime especially drug-dealing as addicts wouldn’t have to resort to criminal behavior to fund
their habit. The costs of drugs could be controlled and set a rate which addicts could afford
without having to steal in order to do so. Plus these drugs could be taxed and the revenue from
these used to fund drug rehabilitation treatment. There is also the possibility that doing this will
lessen the attraction. Many of us enjoy something which is considered to be ‘forbidden fruit’
and part of that attraction is the knowledge that what we are doing has an element of risk.

However, opponents of this claim that it would lead to many more addicts, which would place
an extra burden on taxpayers, the authorities and the State as a whole. What do you do with
people who are addicted to committing an offence? They may or may not be addicted to drugs
but they still have an addiction, which in this case is to crime. There is no easy answer to this
and work is still being undertaken into how this might be solved. It has been suggested that
unless we can change human nature itself then crime will always be with us.

Law and order

People who are addicted very often turn to crime as a means of paying for their addiction. This
can involve stealing or fraud to obtain the funds necessary to bankroll their addiction. This can
start with stealing from one’s partner, family or friends but can spread to include their
employer or several organizations. Another aspect is that of the cost of maintaining a police
force that have to deal with the after-effects of addiction. One such example and one that we
hear a great deal about in the media is that of ‘binge drinking’. People who have developed an
addiction to alcohol very often engage in drunken, anti-social behavior, usually in town and city
centers up and down the country. The police have the job of dealing with fights or semi-
conscious people lying in the street which is due to the effects of excessive alcohol

consumption. The majority of crime committed in the UK is usually drug-related. Burglary,
muggings, robberies etc are all ways of funding an addiction and the more serious the addiction
the greater the chance of these being accompanied by violence. There are people who are so
desperate to have a ‘fix’ or are completely controlled by their addiction that will do anything to
service this. If this means using violence then they will do so. In this case their needs have
overtaken any thoughts of rational or civilized behavior. They are not thinking of anyone else
but themselves as they are consumed by their addiction.

• Medic 8 (http://www.medic8.com/drug-addiction/addiction-and-crime.html)

Social Effects of an Addiction – Drug Addiction
Marriage/relationships
Home/family
Education
Employment
Health and wellbeing
Personality
Financial issues
Addiction and Crime – Drug Addiction
Punish or treatment?
Legalize drugs?
Law and order

Foreign Policy
at BROOKINGS

POLICY PAPER
Number 12, March 2009

Vanda Felbab-Brown

The Violent Drug Market
in Mexico and Lessons
from Colombia

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
brookings.edu

The Violent Drug Market
in Mexico and Lessons
from Colombia
Foreign Policy
at BROOKINGS
POLICY PAPER
Number 12, March 2009

Vanda Felbab-Brown

Acknowledgements

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s i i i

I would like to thank Carlos Pascual, Theodore Piccone, Michael O’Hanlon,
Mauricio Cardenas, Carol Graham, Gail Chalef, Chappell Lawson, and Sey-
om Brown for their insightful comments and suggestions. Any omissions or
errors in the paper are my own.

Table of Contents

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s v

Introduction: The Context and Goals of Counternarcotics Policy in Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

The Highly Violent Mexican Drug Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

The Colombia Analogy and Its Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

A Better Analogy for Mexico: Colombia Before Plan Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

The Existing Mexican Strategy and the Mérida Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Introduction: The Context and Goals of
Counternarcotics Policy in Mexico

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s 1

The drug-related violence and the breakdown in security in Mexico have escalated to extraordi-
nary levels over the past two years. According to pub-
licly available data, 6,290 people died in Mexico due
to drug-related violence in 2008.1 In private, some
Mexican officials give a number as high as 9,000
deaths, but even the lower figure is more than the
total number of casualties in Iraq during 2008, more
than in Afghanistan, and six times more than the av-
erage number for a civil war, about 1,000 people per
year. During the first eight weeks of 2009, over 1,000
people have already been killed in Mexico.2 In the
level of casualties, if not in the type of targets and
means, the violence in Mexico is greater even than
the violence that plagued Colombia in the 1980s and
early 1990s when Colombia went through a similar
confrontation between its drug-trafficking organiza-
tions (DTOs) and the state.

Even though the majority of those killed are people
involved in the drug trade, the violence has come to
affect the lives of both ordinary people who do not
dare venture out of their houses at night (or even dur-
ing the day) for fear of getting caught in the cross-fire,
and of elites who have become targets of extortion.3
Kidnapping is markedly on the rise. While most of
the kidnapping is linked to the drug trade—to intim-
idate and coerce recruits and involuntary participants

to ensure that they deliver promised services—kid-
napping for even rather meager pecuniary profits also
appears to be growing, indicating a spiral of violence
and criminality. Armed robbery has also increased
dramatically, along with the murder rates. The cost
of violence has become cheap since the state is over-
whelmed, the deterrent effect of punishment by law
enforcement has declined, and social and cultural re-
straints on violence have been degraded.

Civil society has come under serious threat with mur-
ders of journalists in Mexico among the highest in
the world. The law enforcement and judicial appara-
tus has been similarly threatened with public officials
facing the same awful choice that public officials in
areas of high crime and violence often face: plata o
plomo, i.e., accept a bribe or face murder. Given the
existing high levels of corruption in the Mexican law
enforcement apparatus, such pressure becomes all the
more intense. In some areas of Mexico, the security
situation has deteriorated so significantly that there is
anecdotal evidence that average Mexicans, not only
the upper-class, are leaving Mexico for the United
States because of the lack of security in their own
country—this despite the economic downturn in the
U.S. and the resulting loss of job opportunities north
of the border.4 Although most of the violence is high-
ly localized along critical drug smuggling routes, few

1 Associated Press, “Mexico Prez Hoped to Quell Drug Violence by 2012,” New York Times, February 27, 2009.
2 Ibid.
3 Mexican officials insist that 90% of the dead are involved in the drug trade, another 6% are police officers and soldiers, and only 4% innocent

bystanders. See, ibid. Because of underreporting by victims as well as institutional pressures to prevent panic, there are reasons to maintain a wide
confidence interval for such numbers. But even if this breakdown is, in fact, accurate, the preponderance of people linked to the drug trade among
the victims does not eliminate the fact that the sense of insecurity in Mexico has greatly increased and is affecting the general population.

4 While the levels of outflows of Mexican and Latinos from the United States due to the economic downturn remains far higher, such inflows are
nonetheless indicative of the localized collapse of elemental public safety in Mexico.

2 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

areas of Mexico are now immune from some drug-
related violence.

The economic costs for Mexico also have been sub-
stantial. Mexican states most significantly affected by
violence appear to have begun experiencing reduced
economic activity in terms of reduced investment,
tourism, and the dramatic escalation in transaction
costs such as protection rents, ransoms, and costs of
bodyguards. Yet it is in the domain of public safety
where the drug trade is most pernicious and where
the Mexican situation is most serious.

Some of the violence is also spilling across the bor-
der to the United States. Border patrol officers are
increasingly confronted by drug traffickers with fire-
power. Perhaps as much as 90% of the firearms used
by Mexican drug trafficking organizations5 have been
purchased in the United States. Murders and kidnap-
ping of U.S. residents who (or whose relatives) are
caught up in the drug trade have increased dramati-
cally. So has the kidnapping of illegal immigrants
who, sometimes snatched en masse from coyotes
(people smugglers), are held for ransom to be ex-
torted from their relatives in the United States. More
and more, coyotes force illegal immigrants to carry
drugs (mainly marijuana) as a payment. Because of
their involvement in illegality, both groups are likely
to significantly underreport abductions and kidnap-
pings. Increasingly, such crime is leaking from border
communities deeper into the U.S. border states. The
number of kidnappings in Phoenix, Arizona, for ex-
ample, tripled from 48 in 2004 to 241 in 2008.6 Drug
turf wars among the drug trafficking organizations are
beginning to occur in major cities in the U.S., such
as Dallas, Texas. Still, the violence and criminality on
the U.S. side of the border remain relatively low, and
nowhere close to their levels in Mexico.

The policy debate about how to address the drug
trade and the violence in Mexico frequently conflates

three distinct policy issues. Addressing these issues
suggest different strategies.

The three distinct policy questions are:

1) how to significantly disrupt drug supply to the
U.S., reduce consumption of illicit substances
in the U.S., and reduce the global drug trade;

2) how to reroute drug trafficking from Mexico;
and

3) how to reduce violence in the drug market in
Mexico and suppress crime in Mexico to man-
ageable levels.

Goal One: Reducing Consumption in the U.S.
and Globally – The key to success in achieving Goal
One is, of course, a significant reduction in demand
for drugs in the U.S., Europe, and increasingly else-
where in the world. Beyond the drug-consuming
countries that have traditionally been identified as
loci of consumption, such as West European coun-
tries and the United States, Iran and Pakistan have
long been significant consumption countries. New
large consuming markets have emerged in Russia
and Asia. In Latin America, countries that formerly
had been source and transit countries only, such as
Brazil, have become robust and significant consum-
ing markets as well. Mexico itself is now experienc-
ing increases in consumption, as drug supply has
increased, drugs have become a form of payment in
the illicit trade, and prevention and treatment poli-
cies are lacking. In fact, just like the traditional con-
suming countries in the West and North and per-
haps much more so the new consuming countries
have frequently abdicated the responsibility to un-
dertake robust prevention, treatment and demand-
reduction approaches. Further, the new markets re-
ceive minimum attention and resources.

Goal Two: Rerouting the Drug Trade from Mexi-
co – Goal Two is extremely difficult to achieve given
that the U.S. is such a dominant consumption mar-

5 The drug trafficking organizations frequently are referred to as cartels. Rarely, however, do DTOs exercise enough control over the market to set
prices. Even the larger drug trafficking organizations in Colombia during the 1980s—the so-called Medellín and Cali “cartels”—did not have this
capacity, and Mexican drug trafficking organizations certainly do not have it today.

6 Randal Archibold, “Wave of Drug Violence Is Creeping into Arizona from Mexico, Officials Say,” New York Times, February 24, 2009, A12.

F o r e i g n P o l i c y a t B r o o k i n g s 3

ket globally and for Latin American illicit substances
specifically. From the drug trafficking organizations’
perspective, the Mexico border is too strategic to
give up. Moreover, the border is long and its desert,
mountain, and river terrain too difficult to permit its
easy sealing off outside of legal crossings, even with
the border fence that is currently under construction.
At the same time, the level of flows of goods and
people across the border is too high and economi-
cally important to permit inspection of the majority
of vehicles at legal crossings.

The possibility always exists of a reopening of the Ca-
ribbean route through which most drugs were chan-
neled to the United States during the 1980s and early
1990s before the U.S. undertook extensive aerial
and maritime interdiction efforts in the Caribbean.
The increasing use of semi-submersibles to transport
cocaine from Colombia’s shore or Central America’s
coast to the United States is an early indication of
the DTOs’ resumed interest in the Caribbean route.
However, the existing levels of enforcement there
and, most significantly, the proximity of the Mexi-
can border with the United States makes the Mexico
route too convenient for traffickers to abandon. Fur-
thermore, if such a rerouting through the Caribbean
were to take place, it would likely result in increased
levels of corruption and violence along the new cor-
ridor, displacing the problems from Mexico into the
more vulnerable states of Central America and the
Caribbean.

Goal Three: Reducing the Level of Violence in Mexico
and Suppressing Crime to Manageable Levels – Goal
three is where the Mexican state has potentially the great-
est ability to influence developments. It is also in this

domain where action by the Mexican state is abso-
lutely critical since the provision of public safety is
the irreducible function of the state.

Paradoxically, strategies for accomplishing Goals Two
and Three may be somewhat contradictory, at least
in the short term. A very violent illicit market, as in
Mexico today, is bad not only for the legal economy,
but also bad for the illegal economy. Persistent fights
among the drug trafficking organizations and a last-
ing violent confrontation between those organizations
and the state may well generate a scramble among the
DTOs for a more peaceful and less enforced route.
But such an outcome would not necessarily enhance
public safety in Mexico. On the other hand, a global
reduction in demand is critical not only for Goal
One, but it will also be of enormous help with Goals
Two and Three. Clearly, demand reduction needs
to become the centerpiece of U.S. counternarcotics
policy both at home and abroad.

However, in the rest of the paper, I will concentrate
primarily on Goal Three—reducing violence in
Mexico—and on the direct strategy toward accom-
plishing this goal. I will first describe the illegal drug
economy in Mexico today. Second, I will contrast the
situation in Mexico with Colombia and with Plan
Colombia, to which Mexico is frequently being com-
pared. I will argue that although public policy anal-
yses center comparisons on and draw lessons from
Plan Colombia, the better analogy for Mexico is Co-
lombia before Plan Colombia, in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. Fourth, I will provide a brief description
of the Mexican response and the Mérida Initiative. I
will end with recommendations for a new strategy in
Mexico.

The Highly Violent Mexican Drug Market

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s 5

The level of violence present in Mexico for the past two or three years is not at all typical for
illegal markets. Nor is it common to drug markets.
Rather, it represents an aberration and indicates great
market instability.

Some of the violence is turf warfare between the cur-
rent largest DTOs—the Tijuana DTO, also known
as Arellano Félix Organization; the Federation, at the
core of which is the Sinaloa DTO; the Juarez DTO;
and the Gulf DTO. Smaller organizations include, for
example, La Familia which operates in Michoacán.
Some of this inter-organization violence had been set
off by state intervention against the drug trafficking
organizations in 2001 which particularly targeted the
Tijuana DTO and consequently inadvertently advan-
taged the Sinaloa group. The subsequent competition
over territory and smuggling routes accounts for some
of the current violence as well. Moreover, further ar-
rests of traffickers under Presidents Vicente Fox and
Felipe Calderón not only further destabilized the mar-
ket and set off an even fiercer competition, but also
pitted the drug trafficking organizations against the
state. Some of the violence is also within individual
organizations, such as infighting between the Alfredo
Beltrán Leyva faction of the Sinaloa drug trafficking
organization and their rivals from the faction led by
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Such periods of vio-
lent outbreak periodically take place in illicit markets
where peaceful channels of dispute resolution and ju-
dicial arbitration are frequently lacking, the lack of
trust undermines transactions, and the chance of be-
trayal to illegal rivals and the state runs high. Nor are
they unprecedented in Mexico; in the mid-1990s, for
example, the Tijuana and the Carillo Fuentes drug

trafficking organizations were engaged in a war, to
some extent triggered by law enforcement actions
against the drug trade. This violent episode left hun-
dreds of dead in Nuevo Laredo and was characterized
by law enforcement corruption and participation in
the violence reminiscent of today.

But the contemporary level of violence in Mexico
and its duration over several years clearly represent
a break with typical illegal markets. Moreover, the
level of savagery accompanying the violence is also
atypical. Some of it is strategic savagery meant to in-
timidate competing crime organizations, the state,
and the local population to accept authority of the
local DTO and prevent defections and intelligence
provision to opponents. However, some of the sav-
agery likely represents an out-of-control escalation of
violence: a loss of strategic control by the drug traf-
ficking organizations themselves over violence and
a removal of social restraints on violence—a sign of
how much both violence and life have become cheap
in Mexico.

Indeed, this level of violence—among the trafficking
organizations, within them, and the between them
and the state—is bad for the drug business. The tur-
moil in the Mexican drug market is in many ways
analogous to the level of chaos and violence in deeply
disturbed markets, such as in Afghanistan in the early
1990s prior to the emergence of the Taliban or in
Somalia. The analogy here is not meant to suggest
that the state has failed to the same extent as in these
countries. The Mexican state is clearly far stronger
and its resource-base and institutional core are far
more robust. The analogy applies to the Mexican il-

6 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

legal market, which is so disorganized and its transac-
tions costs so high that it undermines the illegal busi-
ness itself. In fact, the illegal market in Mexico is in
prime need of an arbitrator or regulator to emerge.

What form such a regulator and such stabilization
will take depends on several factors, one of which
is the response of the state. There are several pos-
sibilities:

• First, the illegal market could become regulated
internally as a result of the emergence of one or
several trafficking organizations that can impose
adequate control throughout their territories and
secure their territorial boundaries. Their control
would be sufficient and stable for them to impose
regulation to reduce transaction costs, facilitate
business, and reduce violence. In other words, un-
der this scenario, the drug trafficking organizations
in Mexico would simply battle it out and reach a
new modus vivendi, with newly delineated bound-
aries and newly established control mechanisms.
Such division of the trade, including of smuggling
routes and territories, generally characterizes drug
markets. Such a territorial division existed in Mexi-
co prior to the 2000s.

When such a stable power distribution among
crime organizations fails to materialize in illicit
markets, other belligerent actors, such as insurgent
and terrorist groups, can and frequently do step in.
They then assure stability and reduce transaction
costs. The Taliban, for example, performed such
a regulatory function in Afghanistan in the mid-
1990s for general smuggling and for drugs, and its
capacity to do so greatly facilitated its takeover of
Afghanistan.

One atypical aspect of the evolution of the drug trade
in Mexico has been the inability of Mexican insur-
gent groups—like the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation (EZLN) or the Popular Revolutionary
Army (EPR) and its splinters groups, such as the
Revolutionary Party of Insurgent People (EPRI)—
to significantly penetrate the drug trade. They do
participate in some trafficking, but their participa-
tion is not very robust or substantial, and they lack

the capacity to act as such a regulator on the illicit
market. During the 1970s, the Mexican authorities
were clearly concerned about such a penetration of
the drug trade by leftist guerrillas. In fact, the fear
of the guerrilla participation in the drug trade was
one reason why they consented to U.S. pressures
at that time for an intense eradication campaign,
including aerial spraying, against opium poppy and
cannabis cultivation in Mexico. Whether as a re-
sult of the anti-guerrilla policies or the guerrillas’
own internal weaknesses, the guerrilla groups failed
to significantly penetrate the drug trade then and
have not managed to robustly participate in it since.
In this respect, the evolution of the drug-conflict
nexus in Mexico differs with the trends in Peru, Co-
lombia, Thailand, Afghanistan, Burma, and other
locations of the drug-conflict nexus.

• Second, the state could prevail and succeed in
breaking down the DTOs into a number of smaller
and weaker crime groups that would continue con-
ducting illicit business, but would not be able to
generate great levels of violence. Such a state-crime
relationship would resemble the U.S. or Western
Europe today—crime, including drug-trafficking
exists, but it is not associated with paralyzing levels
of violence, and state penetration by crime orga-
nizations remains limited. This scenario represents
the optimal outcome, and it is the goal of President
Calderón’s efforts. It remains to be seen whether
the Mexican strategy as currently undertaken suc-
ceeds. Paradoxically, however, in the short term at
least, the current strategy of the Mexican govern-
ment will likely be associated with high levels of
violence, since every state intervention against the
DTOs further destabilizes the market and generates
new competition among and within the organiza-
tions to fill the vacuum as well as more opposition
to the state.

The very high levels of corruption among the
400,000-strong Mexican police, and the law en-
forcement and judicial institutions more broadly,
represent a formidable obstacle to the state to suc-
ceed. Police forces in Mexico consist of local police,
state police, and federal police. The local police are
by far the largest in numbers, and also the most

F o r e i g n P o l i c y a t B r o o k i n g s 7

corrupt. But higher-levels of the law enforcement
apparatus, including top specialized anti-crime
units, have not escaped serious corruption. For de-
cades, Mexico has struggled to root out the corrup-
tion and reform the institutions, with old institu-
tions being abolished or renamed. The revelations
in November 2008 about the DTOs’ penetration
of Mexico’s law enforcement reaching the highest
levels of the supposedly reformed institutions, in-
cluding Mexico’s Federal Agency of Investigation
(Agencia Federal de Investigación or AFI) and the
Special Organized Crime Investigation Division,
were damning and reveal the enormous challenges
for the state in conducting an effective offensive
against the DTOs.

• Third, a failure of the state to rapidly diminish the
power of the drug trafficking organizations and im-
prove public safety could well give rise to the re-
emergence in Mexico of the corporatist model of
state-crime accommodation typical of the 1960s
and 1970s. As Luis Astorga, a prominent Mexican
expert, argues, under the Institutional Revolution-
ary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional
or PRI) rule in the 1960s and 1970s, the former
Federal Security Directorate (Dirección Federal de
Seguridad or DFS) and the Federal Judicial Police
(Policía Judicial Federal or PJF)7 regulated the drug
trafficking organizations, mediated between them
as well as protected them.8 Some analysts further
suggest that DFS developed particularly strong
relations to the drug trafficking organizations dur-
ing the 1970s when it tolerated their activities in
exchange for their assistance with paramilitary op-
erations against a leftist urban terrorist group, the
23rd of September Communist League.9 After the
leftist group was wiped out in the late 1970s, DFS
personnel went into business with the traffickers.

The fact that DFS was one of the institutions in
charge of drug eradication gave it a critical advan-
tage in becoming such a regulator, as it often does
to institutions in charge of suppressing illicit crop
cultivation as well as interdiction against DTOs.
Indeed, the DFS was suspected of corruption by
drug traffickers as soon as it was established in the
late 1940s and put in charge of the first wave of
poppy eradication to placate the United States.10

Although the army has also conducted eradication
since the 1940s, it has remained less corrupt by the
drug trade than the police and the top domestic
law enforcement institutions. During periods of
intense eradication, up to one quarter of the army’s
active duty men—between 22,000 and 26,000,
according to statements by Mexican government
officials—were assigned to eradication.11 One rea-
son why the Mexican army experienced lower lev-
els of corruption was the fact that while it partici-
pated in interdiction and detention of traffickers,
its participation in this aspect of the counternar-
cotics effort was limited. Its role in counternarcot-
ics intelligence was even more constrained by the
Mexican police, including the DFS, that used its
privileged position and principal responsibility for
counternarcotics to regulate the trade and extract
rents. As a result, the most vulnerable participants
of the trade, Mexican cultivators of illicit crops,
bore the brunt of counternarcotics policies to ap-
pease the United States’ concerns about Mexican
narcotics, while the traffickers maintained a close
relationship with the police and other branches of
the law enforcement apparatus. In fact, a char-
acteristic of Mexican counternarcotics policies at
least until the late 1980s had been a dominant fo-
cus on destroying plants and an unwillingness to
arrest and prosecute traffickers.

7 Because of notorious corruption, the PJF was replaced by the AFI in 2002.
8 Luis Astorga, “El Tráfico de Fármacos Ilícitos en México: Organizaciones de traficantes, corrupción y violencia,” paper presented at a WOLA

conference on Drogas y Democracia en Mexico: El Impacto de Narcotráfico y de las Políticas Antidrogas, Mexico City, June 21, 2005, cited in Laurie
Freeman, “State of Siege: Drug-Related Violence and Corruption in Mexico: Unintended Consequences of the War on Drugs,” WOLA Special
Report, June 2006.

9 See, Peter Reuter and David Ronfeldt, “Quest for Integrity: The Mexican-US Drug Issues in the 1980s,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World
Affairs, 34(3), Autumn 1992, p. 102-103.

10 Sergio Aguayo, “Los usos, abusos, y retos de la seguridad nacional Mexicana: 1946-1990,” in Sergio Aguayo and Bruce Bagley, eds., En busca de la
seguridad pérdida: aproximaciones a la seguridad nacional Mexicana (Mexico: Singlo Veinturo Editores, 1990), pp. 107-145.

11 Reuter and Ronfeldt, pp. 108-109.

8 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

By the late 1980s, drug-related corruption also pen-
etrated Mexico’s political institutions. By then, all
major political parties at the time, including PRI,
the Democratic Revolutionary Party (Partido de la
Revolución Democrática, PRD), and the National
Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN) had
all been accused of having leaders and influential
backers with ties to the drug trade.12 The 1985
death in Mexico of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Ad-
ministration agent, Enrique Camarena, in which
high-level Mexican law enforcement officials were
implicated, also revealed “the intricate ties relating
the drug trafficking with police and political power
in Mexico.”13

Could such a corporatist accommodation between
the state and the drug trafficking organizations
emerge again in Mexico? Mexican DTOs today
are both more fragmented and more powerful
than their counterparts in the 1960s and 1970s, a
crime structure that decreases the chances of such
an accommodation. Moreover, Mexico today is
also a democratic country whose political leader-
ship appears determined to confront the DTOs
and whose citizens demand public accountability.
Further, the United States is critically focused on
developments in Mexico and would strongly dis-
approve of any such evident corporatist accom-
modation. All these conditions push against such
an accommodation. At the same, however, the
confrontation between the DTOs and the Mexi-
can state and the associated levels of violence are
deeply controversial within Mexico. Unless the
state can deliver improvements in security quickly,
public support could well evaporate among both
the general public and the elites in Mexico for the

continuing confrontation, giving rise to calls for
such an accommodation.

A more benign version of the state-crime accommo-
dation—more benign because crime would not pen-
etrate the highest levels of the state—would resemble
the Thomas Schelling model of organized crime in
the U.S. in the 1960s. Schelling argued that the U.S.
mafia at the time was best conceived of as a licensed
collector of the rents associated with the franchise
held by the police departments in individual U.S.
cities.14 The current level of corruption of the local
police especially in Mexico could easily provide a
platform for such a relationship. Ironically, however,
without a thorough police reform in Mexico, such
an accommodation may well put the crime organiza-
tions in the position of handing out the licenses to
the local police in reverse of the Schelling model.

• Fourth, and very dangerously, the state could re-
tract, providing public safety to only segments of
the Mexican population and to only parts of its ter-
ritory. Such a shrunken state would be consistent
with the historical developments in Latin America
where the scope of the state’s dominance has fre-
quently been minimal. In the existing security and
administrative vacuums, alternative forms of gover-
nance would emerge. While upper-class elites could
resort to private legal security providers in the form
of bodyguards, the non-elite segments of the popu-
lation would likely face far less benign security and
order providers. The maras (youth gangs) in Cen-
tral America, chimères (street thugs) in Haiti, drug
gangs in Brazil’s favelas (shanty towns), and possi-
bly even expanded insurgent groups come to mind
as such alternative governance structures.

12 See, for example, Sergio Mastretta, “Tierra Caliente: La cuenca cardenista,” Nexos¸154 (October 1990), pp. 47-64.
13 C. Ramírez, “El Caso Camarena y las Relaciones Bilaterales,” La Opinión, May 25, 1990, p. 5.
14 Thomas Schelling, “Economic Analysis of Organized Crime,” in President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice,

Task Force Report: Organized Crime (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1967).

The Colombia Analogy and Its Limits

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s 9

Both in popular discourse and in public policy analysis, Mexico is increasingly compared with
Colombia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the appropri-
ateness of adopting a “Plan Mexico,” a policy modeled
on Plan Colombia, is debated. Analysts frequently
talk of the “Colombianization” of Mexico. Some use
it to imply that the drug-related violence in Mexico
now resembles the drug-related violence in Colom-
bia. Others criticize the U.S. aid package to Mexico,
the Mérida Initiative, for imposing U.S. strong-fisted
source-country and interdiction counternarcotics
policies on Mexico and for exporting its drug wars.
Such criticism echoes the criticism in Mexico of U.S.
counternarcotics policies in the 1980s when many
Mexicans felt that the United States was deliberate-
ly exaggerating the drug problem in Mexico to the
detriment of Mexico’s sovereignty and security. But
while Colombia does provide some useful lessons,
the situation in the two countries is also different in
important ways.

In 2000, when Plan Colombia was adopted, the Co-
lombian state faced very severe security threats. By
then, Colombia had long been the major processing
and transshipment center for cocaine. During the
1990s, it also became the key locus of coca cultiva-
tion. By 2000, the cultivation of coca increased to
136,000 hectares, equaling peak levels in Peru during
the 1980s. Both the leftist guerrillas, especially the
Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC), and
the rightist paramilitaries who opposed them had

experienced dramatic growth throughout the 1990s.
Profiting from the drug trade as well as other illegal
economies, they expanded throughout the territory
of Colombia. By the early 2000s, the FARC reached
about 17,000 combatants, the second leftist guer-
rilla group, the National Liberation Army (Ejército
de Liberación Nacional, ELN) almost 5,000, and the
paramilitaries about 30,000.15 In many areas, includ-
ing close to the capital Bogotá and to other major cit-
ies, the belligerent actors prevented normal economic,
political, and social activity and sometimes complete-
ly displaced the Colombian state. In large swaths of
the rural areas, the state absence was even more pro-
nounced. Great insecurity prevailed throughout the
country. Attacks by armed groups along major roads
paralyzed land travel. Colombia also experienced very
high levels of crime, with some of the highest kidnap-
ping and homicide rates in the world. At the same
time, Colombia’s security apparatus was weak. The
number of professional soldiers, for example, reached
only 20,000 in 1998, less than the total number of
the leftist guerrillas. The military’s counterinsurgency
skills were poor, and it lacked mobility. In many ar-
eas, the police were absent, and where they were pres-
ent, they were frequently corrupt and intimidated.

After failed negotiations with the FARC in the 1990s,
Colombia’s President Andrés Pastrana mobilized the
state to challenge the guerrillas and the paramilitaries
and establish security and state presence throughout
the territory. His successor, President Álvaro Uribe
undertook a strong military offensive against the

15 Peter DeShazo, Tanya Primiani, Phillip McLean, “Back from the Brink: Evaluating Progress in Colombia, 1999-2007,” CSIS, November 2007, p. 5.

1 0 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

FARC, the so-called Democratic Security policy. The
United States supported this effort with generous fi-
nancial, hardware, and training assistance—called Plan
Colombia—that between 2000 when it was adopted
and 2008 has reached over $4.5 billion.16 The U.S. aid
package specified several key objectives: neutralizing
the drug economy and providing alternative develop-
ment opportunities to coca cultivation; strengthening
state presence and improving security; strengthening
the judiciary and fighting corruption; bolstering the
economy; and improving governance. However, the
counternarcotics and counterinsurgency focus domi-
nated the U.S. assistance. Training and equipment for
Colombian armed forces and for drug eradication and
interdiction lay at the core of Plan Colombia, with il-
licit crop eradication seen as a critical tool for weaken-
ing the guerrillas. After 2002, when U.S. aid could be
applied directly to counterinsurgency purposes with-
out a need to demonstrate a drug link, Plan Colombia
became more openly a counterinsurgency plan.

The Plan substantially succeeded in the counterinsur-
gency/security objectives, while it fared considerably
worse in its socio-economic objectives and failed in
its stated counternarcotics goals:

• In the design of Plan Colombia, neutralization of
the narcotics economy was defined as “reducing the
cultivation, processing, and distribution of narcot-
ics by 50 percent in six years”, through 2006. This
goal has clearly not been achieved. Although the
cultivation of poppy and production of heroin in
Colombia have declined by 50%, this illicit crop
and drug have been a marginal activity within Co-
lombia’s drug economy.

The principal illicit crop, coca, and the principal
drug, cocaine, have, in fact, not been reduced by
50%. In 2000, at the beginning of Plan Colombia,

136,200 hectares (ha) of coca were cultivated in
Colombia, with the estimated cocaine HCl poten-
tial of 580 metric tons (mt) according to U.S. De-
partment of State.17 In 2001, these numbers peaked
at 169,800 ha of coca and 839 mt of cocaine.18 De-
spite the largest aerial spraying ever and increasing-
ly substantial manual eradication, in 2006, at the
end of the designated six-year period, 157,200 ha
of coca were cultivated in Colombia with the esti-
mated cocaine potential of 610mt.19 Although both
numbers are smaller than the peak levels of 2001,
they represent neither a 50% reduction nor in effect
any decrease when compared to 2000, the baseline
year when Plan Colombia was launched. Rather,
both coca cultivation and cocaine production were
higher in 2006 than in 2000. The 2007 statistics
show an even greater failure to achieve the stated
goals and make a significant dent into Colombia’s
drug production and trafficking.

• However, the clear and great accomplishment of
Plan Colombia has been in the security sphere. Se-
curity has greatly improved throughout Colombia,
and the power and size of illegal armed groups has
been significantly degraded. Good security is not
only important on its own; it is also a necessary pre-
condition for the success of counternarcotics poli-
cies. Achieving strong and comprehensive security
is thus a vital step toward the success of counterna-
rcotics policies.

As a result of U.S. training, equipment, and sig-
nal intelligence, the fighting skills, mobility, and
intelligence-gathering capacity of the Colombian
forces have greatly improved. The Colombian mili-
tary has been able to strike at the FARC and seal off
individual frentes (the FARC’s organizational units).
Since 2003, the FARC has been largely in retreat. Its
capacity to mount large-scale offensive actions has

16 United States Government Accountability Office, Plan Colombia: Drug Reduction Goals Were Not Fully Met, but Security Has Improved; U.S. Agencies
Need More Detailed Plans for Reducing Assistance, October 2008, pp. 15, 28.

17 U.S. Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), March 2008, http://www.state.gov/documents/
organization/102583 , p. 129.

18 Ibid.
19 Ibid. The United Nations on Drugs and Crime has considerably lower estimates for both current and past-year production and considerable

controversy exist among the accuracy of the two sets of data. See, UNODC, Coca Cultivation in the Andean Region¸ June 2008, http://www.unodc.
org/documents/crop-monitoring/Andean_report_2008 .

F o r e i g n P o l i c y a t B r o o k i n g s 1 1

been significantly degraded. As a result of its battle-
field losses, the number of deserters has increased
dramatically since 2000. At the same time, as a
result of technical and signal intelligence provided
to the Colombian military by the United States as
well as intelligence provided by FARC deserters, the
military has scored important hits against both the
top leadership of the FARC and its medium-level
frente commanders. The expansion of the military
through the territory and its ability to pin down
FARC columns have severely hampered the group’s
logistics channels and its ability to communicate,
resupply, and redistribute resources among the vari-
ous frentes that are frequently spread throughout
vast territory. Consequently, the number of active
FARC combatants has been reduced to perhaps
9,000.20 The FARC is facing a serious threat of in-
ternal disintegration and potential fracturing. The
government also has been able to retake critical
long-term strongholds of the FARC, such as Meta.
The ELN has been weakened even further than the
FARC, to perhaps 2,500 combatants.21 The Co-
lombian government also struck a demobilization
deal with the paramilitary groups.

The substantial weakening of the leftist guerrillas
and the demobilization of the paramilitary groups
have translated into palpable improvements in se-
curity. Highway traffic has increased by 64% be-
tween 2003 and 2006. The numbers of homicides
has declined by 40% between 2002 and 2006,22

even if from some of the highest in the world and
from peak numbers even for Colombia. Kidnap-
ping has declined even more impressively by 80%,
once again from some of the highest levels in the
world.23 Overall, according to the Colombian Min-
istry of Defense, by 2008, the government was in
full or partial control of 90% of the country, up
from 70% in 2003.24

Nonetheless, challenges in the security sphere per-
sist, with illegal armed groups not fully defeated,
and overall security remaining spotty and tenuous
in many areas. Partial control does not necessarily
amount to sufficient control. The FARC and the
ELN still operate in large swaths of the rural areas
of the country, frequently in high, steep mountains
and jungles where the state struggles to reach them,
but from which they nonetheless intimidate local
populations, prevent normal life, and undermine
the government. New paramilitary groups, wheth-
er they are called paras or bandas criminales, such
as Aguilas Negras and Organización Nueva Gen-
eración, and others are emerging.25 Formed from
both previously demobilized paramilitary members
as well as from fresh recruits, these groups total as
many as 5000-6000 combatants.26 Some estimates
put the number at as much as 10,000.27 In some ar-
eas, these groups compete and fight with the FARC.
In others, they carve up territory and reach a modus
vivendi with the FARC. Still in others, they collude
with the FARC and local DTOs in the drug trade.
The lack of sustained and full security in those areas
hampers both efforts to improve public safety and
extend other socio-economic functions of the state
and the effectiveness of counternarcotics policies.
While the expansion of police to every municipal-
ity, frequently stressed by Colombian officials as a
key improvement, is important, the coverage of the
police frequently remains thin, with one or two po-
licemen in charge of a territory of several hundred
square kilometers.

• The socio-economic aspects of state presence con-
tinue to be lacking in vast parts of the country, in-
cluding in areas that the Colombian government
defined as areas of major importance, such as the
Macarena region of Meta. The lack of government
focus on the social and economic development of

20 Author’s interviews in Bogotá, Summer and Fall 2008.
21 Ibid.
22 DeShazo et all, p. 18.
23 Ibid.
24 Author’s interviews in Bogotá, Summer and Fall 2008.
25 See, for example, International Crisis Group, Colombia’s New Armed Groups, Latin America Report N. 20, May 10, 2007.
26 Author’s interviews with Colombian government officials, Fall 2008.
27 Author’s interviews with Colombian think tank experts, Fall 2008.

1 2 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

the rural areas and on inequality reduction threat-
ens to undermine the security accomplishments of
Plan Colombia, leaving root causes of violence un-
addressed.

• Alternative development efforts for coca farmers or
populations vulnerable to coca cultivation are im-
proving lives of those to whom they are available,
but they reach only a small percentage of the popu-
lation in need. Critical structural drivers of coca
cultivation and obstacles to licit livelihoods, such
as profound rural underdevelopment and structural
inequality, persist. The global economic crisis will
only compound the existing challenges.

Yet the challenges that Mexico faces today are substan-
tially different from Colombia’s travails both in the
conflict/violence sphere and in the narcotics sphere.

In the conflict sphere, the actors that the Colombian
state encountered from the mid-1990s and after the
adoption of Plan Colombia are quite unlike Mexico’s
violent actors today. The FARC was and is an orga-
nized, hierarchical irregular army, a visible one even if
hiding in jungles. As such, it can be targeted through
regular counterinsurgency kinetic operations. More-
over, despite its vast expansion in the 1990s, until
the 2000s, the FARC was not exposed to difficult
military confrontations—Colombia’s military forces
were very poor and frequently offered only minimal
resistance to FARC’s advancement in the rural areas.
More often than not, the Colombian military relied
on the paramilitaries to counter the guerrillas, instead
of engaging them directly.

Despite the emergence of militias fighting on behalf
of some of the Mexican drug organizations, such
as the Zetas of the Gulf “cartel” and the Negros of
the Sinaloa “cartel”, Mexican DTOs are organized
rather differently than Colombia’s guerilla groups.
Although the narcocorridos (songs) glorify the traf-
fickers’ status as warriors, most of the violent actions
are carried out by individuals or bands of hitmen,
rather than anything approaching the FARC or ELN

armies. The traffickers and their hitmen also number
in the hundreds, rather than tens of thousands, thus
making detection by the state far more difficult.

A better analogy for the challenge that Mexico faces
today are Colombia’s paramilitaries. Until the mid-
1990s, when the then-leader of the paramilitaries,
Carlos Castaño, sought to cloak the paras with politi-
cal legitimacy by presenting them as a regular army
and creating their umbrella organization, the United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Uni-
das de Colombia, or AUC), the paras were less visible
and less organized like an army, frequently being just
a band of hitmen. In fact, many of the paras were just
drug dealers and neighborhood thugs whose leaders
bought themselves positions of power in Castaño’s
AUC as a way of avoiding extradition to the United
States on drug-trafficking charges. Prominent ex-
amples of such traffickers include Jorge 40, Macaco,
Don Berna.

In many ways, they are quite similar to Mexico’s Zetas
and Negros, despite the Zetas different origin. While
many of the paras in Colombia emerged spontane-
ously (or with help from the Colombian military)
and later cooperated with the Colombian military
in fighting the leftist guerrillas, the Zetas were first
elite law enforcement officers and defected to the Gulf
“cartel” as its hired mercenary militia. They are the
most violent, feared, skilled, and technologically ad-
vanced among Mexican hitmen. Increasingly, they are
becoming independent of their Gulf DTO overlords,
themselves taking over aspects of the trade. Now
numbering as many as 500 with perhaps hundreds
more in a support network throughout Mexico, the
group, led by Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano,
is mostly composed of ex-elite-soldiers and counter-
narcotics officers. Many were originally members of
the Mexican Army’s elite unit, Grupo Aeromóvil de
Fuerzas Especiales, trained in arresting drug traffick-
ers. It is believed that some even received training at
the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas in Fort Ben-
ning, Georgia.28 Certainly, Zeta members have been
trained by foreign specialists, including Americans,

28 Ginger Thompson, “Mexico Fears Its Drug Traffickers Get Help from Guatemalans,” New York Times, September 30, 2005. See also, Freeman.

F o r e i g n P o l i c y a t B r o o k i n g s 1 3

French, and Israelis, in special operations, such as
rapid deployment, aerial assault, intelligence-gath-
ering, countersurveillance, ambushes, etc. In addi-
tion to former Mexican policemen and soldiers, they
also appear to have hired former Guatemalan troops
known as Kaibiles. They have been engaged not only
in a violent confrontation with the Mexican state, but
also in turf wars with their rivals, such as the Sinaloa
DTO. They have now become deeply entrenched in
Nuevo Laredo, in many areas functioning as a shadow
government, and their reach extends through Mexico.
They are expanding their activities from illicit trade
to extortion of legitimate businesses. In response, the
Sinaloa group created its own militia, the Negros. The
Zetas and the Negros pose some of the most serious
security threats to the Mexican state.

It is important to recognize that the Colombian state
has never really defeated the paramilitaries or even
seriously engaged them militarily. The paras took ad-
vantage of President Álvaro Uribe’s overtures for am-
nesty, which crystallized in the Justice and Peace Law
of 2005. This deal allowed the paramilitaries to avoid
a full confrontation with the state as well as extradi-
tion to the United States. In exchange for their de-
mobilization and disarmament, the Justice and Peace
Law imposed minimal penalties on the AUC leaders
and none for most rank-and-file soldiers. (In 2008,
thirteen of the most notorious paramilitary leaders-
cum-drug-traffickers were extradited to the U.S. in
for violating the terms of the amnesty and continuing
with their drug business.)

But the structural conditions that gave rise to the pa-
ras—a continuing security challenge by the guerrillas
and persistent state weakness in the security, adminis-
trative, and socio-economic domains—have not been
addressed. As detailed above, new paramilitary groups
or bandas criminales have emerged. The Colombian

state today is more capable and motivated to fight the
new paras—a positive development. But whether its
will and resources will be sufficient to eliminate this
resurgent threat remains to be seen. Moreover, little
effort by the Colombian government has been put
into addressing the paras’ penetration of the political
and administrative structures of Colombia and the
resulting corruption and distortion of the political
processes. In some parts of Colombia, such as along
the Atlantic coast, such parapenetration of public
and political institutions is pervasive.

In the narcotics sphere too, there are some funda-
mental differences between Mexico and Colombia.
From the 1990s on, cultivation of illicit crops in Co-
lombia was the most visible manifestation of the drug
trade, and hence eradication became the dominant
policy. Trafficking, no doubt, was and continues to
be pervasive and important, and a lot of resources
have been devoted to interdiction. In fact, the current
interdiction rates by the Colombian government are
very high, with about a third or more of the cocaine
flows captured within Colombia. Unfortunately, the
supply-side efforts have resulted in only very small
increases in the price of cocaine in the US, indicat-
ing that supply has not really been significantly de-
creased.29

In Mexico too, there is cultivation of illicit crops: of
opium poppy and cannabis. Over the past 10 years,
between 20,000-25,000 ha were cultivated with
opium poppy each year. This rather substantial level
of poppy cultivation is on par with Burma today
and higher than Thailand at its peak in the 1960s.
At the same time, about 15,000-20,000 ha of opi-
um poppy have been eradicated in Mexico each year
for the past ten years. With respect to cannabis, the
numbers are even higher—30,000-40,000 ha have
been cultivated each year and 20,000-30,000 ha

29 According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the retail price of cocaine per gram was $161.28 in 2000 and $168.39 in 2001, then
declining to $106.54 in 2003. In November 2007, ONDCP announced an increase in cocaine retail prices to $136.93 per gram. Given that in
January 2007, the cocaine retail price was a mere $95.35, one of the lowest recorded levels, the yearly average for 2007 was likely smaller than
$136.93. Nonetheless, even using the highest September 2007 data point, the cocaine price is still below both 2000 and 2001 and only 25% in
nominal terms of cocaine retail prices in 1981 when it was $544.59. See, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), “Data Show Record Low
Prices for Cocaine and Heroin,” http://www.wola.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=viewp&id=397, requested from ONDCP under the
Freedom of Information Act; and ONDCP, “White House Drug Czar, DEA Administrator Release New Data Showing Significant Disruptions in
U.S. Cocaine and Methamphetamine Markets,” Press Release, November 8, 2007, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr110807a.html.

1 4 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

have been eradicated.30 The cultivation of illicit crops
employs thousands of people. In some areas, such as
in the state of Michoacán, the drug economy—both
cultivation and trafficking—represent a substantial
portion of the local economy.

Overall, however, the dominant aspect of the drug
market in Mexico is trafficking, not cultivation. This
difference has critical implications for counterna-
rcotics and law enforcement strategies, facilitating
state actions against the drug trade in Mexico. While
fields cultivated with illicit crops may be easier to de-
tect than trafficking routes and eradication policies
against illicit crops may seem easier to conduct than
interdiction against traffickers, the political costs of
attacking the fields and the farmers are frequently
higher than the political costs of targeting traffickers,
especially violent traffickers. There is a fundamental
difference between labor-intensive illicit economies,
such as coca and poppy cultivation, which provide
employment for hundreds of thousands of people
in a particular locale, and labor-non-intensive illicit
economies, such as trafficking, which employ perhaps
thousands of people at most. All things being equal,
in poor countries with a paucity of legal economic
alternatives, populations are usually much more
willing to tolerate and support state actions against
labor-non-intensive economies, such as interdiction
against trafficking, rather than actions against labor-
intensive illicit economies, such as illicit crop eradica-
tion. This difference in support for counternarcotics
policies comes from the fact that labor-intensive il-
licit economies assure subsistence and sometimes en-
able social mobility for a far greater number of people
and a larger segment of the population than labor-
non-intensive economies do.31

The analytical distinction is not meant to imply that
traffickers and belligerents cannot derive any support
(or what I call political capital) from labor-non-inten-
sive economies. Even labor-non-intensive economies
can generate robust spillover effects for the overall

economy, which benefit the population. For exam-
ple, according to a Mexican economist Guillermo
Ibara, twenty percent of Sinaloa’s economic activity
is related to drugs—profits from drug smuggling un-
derlie sales in real estate, durables, and non-durables
(such as restaurant activity).32 When the drug trade
constitutes such a large portion of the local GDP, it
generates significant economic benefits for the local
population and its loss would cause substantial eco-
nomic pain in the state.

Moreover, Mexican traffickers are engaging at least to
some extent in the same patronage distribution that
crime organizations have conducted for decades all
over the world. Just like their notorious Colombian
counterparts, such as Pablo Escobar and Carlos Le-
hder, or the dons of the Italian Mafia and Camorra,
they give money to churches and community proj-
ects, such as public lighting, communications, and
roads, thus buying political capital.

Still, the intense level of violence that accompanies
the drug trade in Mexico, its increasingly indiscrim-
inate character, and the serious threat to the elemen-
tal safety needs of the population it causes will likely
limit the amount of political capital the Mexican
narcos can buy among even the poor population.
In fact, the escalating violence against the general
population itself suggests great limits to the narcos’
political capital. Public anger at the violence, cou-
pled with the relatively small economic benefits that
even marginalized populations can derive from la-
bor-non-intensive illicit economies, will likely result
in greater support for counternarcotics policies in
Mexico than the state has enjoyed in Colombia, Af-
ghanistan, or Peru, for example. Public support will
also be enhanced if the state concentrates on drug
interdiction and law enforcement policies, rather
than on eradication of illicit crops. Nonetheless, the
public support for the Mexican strategy against the
DTOs is not unlimited and, as discussed below, is
already exhibiting cracks.

30 For exact figures, see, U.S. Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 2008, http://www.state.gov/documents/
organization/102583 , p. 182.

31 See, Vanda Felbab-Brown, Shooting Up: Illicit Economies and Conflict (Brookings Press, 2009), forthcoming.
32 Cited in Manuel Roig-Franzia, “Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations Take Barbarous Turn: Targeting Bystanders,” Washington Post, July 30,

2008, p. A9.

A Better Analogy for Mexico: Colombia
Before Plan Colombia

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s 1 5

A c loser analogy to the situation in Mexico today is Colombia in the late 1980s and early 1990s
when the Medellín “cartel” was engaged in an all-out-
confrontation with the Colombian state and subse-
quently also with the Cali “cartel.” In response to the
pressure from the Colombian state against the drug
trade and the traffickers in the 1980s, the Colombian
traffickers alternated their strategy between attempt-
ing to negotiate an amnesty with the state and intimi-
dating the state through terrorism and violence.

At first, in the early 1980s, several of the prominent
drug traffickers, including Pablo Escobar, Carlos Le-
hder, and Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha created political
parties and ran in local elections to obtain immuni-
ty from legal prosecution and to secure acceptance
among Colombia’s traditional elites. They also aspired
to run in national elections. Their efforts, backed by
money handouts to the poor, met with only small
successes, and the state responded by ultimately dis-
qualifying them from the political process. In order
to avoid prosecution, the traffickers also offered to
pay Colombia’s then-large external debt, dismantle
their cocaine laboratories and trafficking networks,
and repatriate their off-shore assets, thus injecting $3
billion into the Colombian economy.

The state refused, threatening instead to extradite
them to the United States, and a first round of vio-
lence initiated by the traffickers ensued. In order to
deter the government from extraditing them, the traf-
fickers ordered the murder of judges and policemen,

offering the justice and law enforcement officials a
choice of plata y plomo (bribe or bullet), and effective-
ly paralyzing the justice system. After the traffickers
ordered the assassination of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, the
Justice Minister, the state crackdown against the traf-
fickers intensified. In addition to being behind the
extradition policy, Lara Bonilla had helped end Esco-
bar’s political career by revealing Escobar’s prominent
role in the drug trade.

In November 1985, the day that Colombia’s Supreme
Court was supposed to rule on the extradition of a
number of prominent drug traffickers, an urban left-
ist guerrilla group, the M-19, stormed the Supreme
Court’s building in Bogotá, the Palace of Justice.
During the attack, M-19 took almost 400 people
hostage, including the President of the Supreme
Court, Alfonso Reyes Echandía, and nine Supreme
Court Justices. The Colombian government replied
with heavy force and after a 28-hour siege defeated
the guerrillas. However, approximately one hundred
people died, including nine of the Supreme Court
justices and most of the 60 M-19 guerrillas. During
the siege, the M-19 burned up incriminating materi-
als on the traffickers.33 The M-19 denied that it un-
dertook the attack as a pay job for the Medellín DTO,
claiming instead that it sought to denounce the gov-
ernment of Belisario Betancur, which it blamed for
the failure of the peace negotiations between various
leftist guerrillas (including the FARC and the M-19)
and the government.34 Whether the attack was sim-
ply a pay job ordered by the Medellín “cartel” or had

33 Rex A. Hudson, “Colombia’s Palace of Justice Tragedy Revisited: A Critique of the Conspiracy Theory,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 7 (3),
Summer 1995, pp. 100-121.

34 Scott B. MacDonald, Mountain High, White Avalanche (New York: Praeger, 1989), pp. 42-3.

1 6 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

larger political goals, the M-19 clearly went out of
its way to destroy the evidence against the traffickers,
in addition to publicly denouncing the extradition
policy.35 Former M-19 members subsequently admit-
ted to receiving general assistance from Escobar later
on;36 and in 1988 the group was reportedly hired by
the Medellín drug trafficking organization to murder
Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos.37

In the late 1980s, the Colombian government once
again authorized extradition of drug traffickers to the
United States. In response, the Medellín traffickers
unleashed extraordinary levels of violence.38 Under
indictment, they created an association, Los Extra-
ditables, and initiated what Escobar called an all-out
war against the Colombian state. Scores of journal-
ists and judges were assassinated or threatened, para-
lyzing the judicial system. Between 1981 and 1991,
242 judges were killed and many more were forced
into exile abroad to avoid assassination. Politicians,
especially those embracing extradition, were equally
targeted. In 1989, the Medellín “cartel” assassinated
the Liberal Party presidential candidate Luis Carlos
Galán, a strong supporter of extradition and the man
who disqualified Escobar from participating in the
1990 presidential elections, along with four other
presidential candidates. The traffickers also resorted
to indiscriminate violence, placing bombs in Bogotá
and other cities, and attacking hotels, banks, and po-
litical offices. One bomb destroyed the building of
the Department of Administrative Security (DAS),
killing 100 people. A bomb aboard an Avianca flight
between Bogotá and Cali killed 119.39

In response, the Colombian government extradited
more than twenty suspected drug traffickers to the

United States between August 1989 and December
1990 and seized $125 million of their assets.40 José
Gonzales Rodríguez Gacha was shot by the police in
December 1989. Still, the violent retaliation by the
traffickers persisted, and the administration of Presi-
dent César Gaviria finally caved in 1991 and nego-
tiated a surrender policy with most of the Medellín
traffickers in exchange for light sentences. Escobar
turned himself in, on condition that he would be
placed in a special prison to be constructed by him
near Medellín. For thirteen months, Escobar stayed
in the prison, continuing to conduct his drug busi-
ness from there and even leaving the prison on occa-
sion. Ultimately, Escobar escaped the prison for good
in 1993.

After Escobar’s escape, the Medellín drug trafficking
organization was defeated by a systematic decapita-
tion strategy. This decapitation strategy was under-
taken by the Colombian state with U.S. assistance
and with critical help from the Cali drug trafficking
organization and Los Pepes (Los Perseguidos por Pablo
Escobar, People Prosecuted by Pablo Escobar). Los
Pepes were a militia put together by enemies of Esco-
bar at the instigation of Fidel Castaño, one of the top
leaders of Colombia’s paramilitaries. They and the
Cali “cartel” systematically eliminated the medium
commanders of Escobar’s organization and many of
the rank and file foot soldiers and ultimately provided
intelligence on Escobar himself. The Cali DTO also
contributed an estimated $50 million to the PEPES
to pay informers and assassins and buy weapons to
hunt down Escobar.41 The PEPES did kill forty of
Escobar’s people, gave evidence on about six of the
Medellín DTO members, and destroyed several of
Escobar’s properties, including his car park worth

35 The M-19 was not unique in denouncing extradition. Apart from many political leaders, other guerrilla groups, including the FARC and its
political branch, the UP, also denounced extradition.

36 Alonso Salazar, J., La Parábola de Pablo: Auge y Caída de Un Gran Capo del Narcotráfico (Bogotá: Planeta, 2001).
37 Scott B. MacDonald, Dancing on a Volcano: The Latin American Drug Trade (New Praeger, 1988), p. 35.
38 The Cali drug trafficking organization was considerably more restrained in its use of violence or its effort to achieve visible political power. Its

kingpin Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela remarked that unlike the Medellín drug trafficking organization, the Cali drug trafficking organization did
not kill judges and others, but bought them. Cited in Francisco Thoumi, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes (Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press, 2003), p. 203. The Cali drug trafficking organization also perfected a “support your local police” policy, not only putting large
numbers of officers on its payroll, but also helping rid the city of social “undesirables.”

39 The Medellín DTO also attempted to buy 120 Stinger missiles in Florida in April 1990, but its effort was foiled by the FBI.
40 Patrick L. Clawson and Rensselaer W. Lee III, The Andean Cocaine Industry (New York: St. Martin’s, 1996), p. 99.
41 Robin Kirk, More Terrible Than Death (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), p. 156.

F o r e i g n P o l i c y a t B r o o k i n g s 1 7

$5 million.42 The Cali drug trafficking organization
cooperated with the Pepes and with the Colombian
state because it believed that after the elimination
of the Medellín DTO it would be able to take over
Colombia’s drug market. However, when in the mid-
1990s, President Ernesto Samper’s dealings with the
Cali drug trafficking organization were revealed, the
Colombian state under U.S. pressure was forced to
move against the Cali DTO and did, in fact, succeed
in breaking it up.

Could the Mexican state play such a divide-and-rule
strategy among the trafficking organizations in Mex-
ico? Already under former President Vicente Fox, ex-
tradition of Mexican traffickers to the United States
was instituted to prevent their efforts to continue
running their trafficking organizations from Mexican
jails. The ensuing violence has been both in retaliation
against the state and a result of subsequent turf wars.
The ability of the Mexican state to play such a divide-
and-rule strategy is undermined by the fact that the
Mexican drug market is much more violent and fluid
and the complexity and fragmentation of its actors is

far higher than in Colombia in the 1980s and early
1990s when two DTOs dominated the market.

Moreover, the destruction of the Colombian drug
trafficking organizations did not have a fully happy
ending. Instead of the two big trafficking organiza-
tions, many smaller boutique drug trafficking orga-
nizations emerged. Their smaller size guaranteed that
they could not wield the same power, including vio-
lent coercion, against the state that their predecessors
could. This weakening of their power and reach was
an important accomplishment of the strategy against
the groups. But the fragmentation and smaller size of
the new DTOs also made further state actions against
them, including detection and intelligence-gathering,
far harder. More ominously, the demise of the drug
trafficking organizations enabled the expansion of the
paramilitaries, who took over the drug trade and later
incorporated many drug traffickers into their ranks.
Los Pepes themselves constituted a key organizational
platform for the paras/ AUC formation. And, as in-
dicated previously, both trafficking and cultivation of
coca subsequently greatly expanded in Colombia.

42 Harvey F. Kline, State Building and Conflict Resolution in Colombia, 1986-1994 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999), p. 137.

The Existing Mexican Strategy and the
Mérida Initiative

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s 1 9

In addition to extraditing traffickers to the United States, the Mexican state response to the violence
of the Mexican drug market and to the traffickers’
retaliation against the state has been to beef up the
law enforcement apparatus, primarily by deploying
the Mexican military to take on the drug trafficking
organizations. Since 2006, President Felipe Calde-
rón has deployed 45,000 soldiers to eight Mexican
states from Guerrero to Baja California as well as
5,000 extra Federales (federal police). A new 5,000
soldiers are slated for Ciudad Juarez, a city particu-
larly badly hit by the drug violence with 1,600 killed
there last year and whose police is paralyzed by fear of
the DTOs.43 To tackle the pervasive corruption, espe-
cially among the police and the law enforcement ap-
paratus, the Mexican government has also sought to
purge corrupt policemen and law enforcement offi-
cials and to undertake institutional reorganization of
the law enforcement apparatus. As of February 2009,
it has removed more than 25 high-level officials and
many more lower-level ones. Since 2006, the Mexi-
can government has spent $6.5 billion on top of its
normal security budget on fighting the cartels.44 In
February 2009, President Calderón announced that
he hoped that by 2012, the DTOs would be beaten
down enough to permit the withdrawal of the army
and federal police and hand law enforcement back to
local police.

As a result of the strategy undertaken so far, thou-
sands of “drug traffickers” have been arrested. By

some accounts, the number of arrests since 2001
has reached as many as 90,000, though this number
includes predominantly low-level peddlers. At the
same time, only 400 hitmen have been arrested. This
disparity in the focus of the counternarcotics effort,
at least in terms of the arrest record, is astounding,
but not surprising. The institutional propensity of-
ten pushes toward such a skewed outcome since cap-
turing actual and supposed low-level dealers is safer
and easier than targeting higher echelons of the drug
trade and their hitmen. But such a dominant focus
on the low-level actors in the drug trade is unlikely
to either calm the violence in Mexico or weaken the
crime organizations. Instead, it is likely to flood and
paralyze the judicial and prison systems, both already
under enormous strain.

However, as argued above, the arrests of top level traf-
fickers destabilized the drug market in Mexico in the
first place and helped spark the violence. Unlike the
Colombian drug market of the 1980s and early 1990s
where two groups dominated, the Mexican market
had at least four major and several smaller, but sig-
nificant DTOs. As a result, the propensity toward
complex turf wars was far greater in Mexico than in
Colombia. The Mexican state was neither prepared
for their intensity nor the level of violence the DTOs
were willing to inflict on the state. Moreover, the law
enforcement effort against the Colombian cartels pro-
ceeded in a phased manner: the state first targeted the
Medellín group and only then, under pressure from

43 The police chief of Cuidad Juarez, for example, resigned after several policemen were killed there and he was threatened that more would be killed
if he remained in office. See, Ken Ellingwood, “Mexico to Send Up to 5,000 More Troops to Cuidad Juarez,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2009.

44 Ibid.

2 0 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

the United States, the Cali DTO. Crucially, in the
first phase, the Cali DTO cooperated with the state
in the anticipation that it would be able to take over
the Medellín share of the market. Whether intention-
ally or not, the Colombian state played a divide-and-
rule strategy.

Moreover, while Mexican citizens clearly desire a
reduction in violence and have little tolerance for
the drug trafficking organizations, their support for
the military strategy of President Calderón has been
equivocal. With good reason, concerns have been
raised about human rights abuses by the Mexican
military and the state encroachments on civil liberties
in the name of the war on the DTOs. Although Mex-
ico did not experience a military coup and a military
dictatorship in the latter half of the 20th century like
other Latin American countries (but not Colombia),
its armed forces have not been free of human rights
abuse problems. For the past two years, allegations
of civilian deaths (even if occasionally compensated
by the state), long-term detentions incommunicado
and without charge, and house searches without war-
rant keep surfacing. Given Mexico’s recent transition
to democracy and the lack of institutionalized public
accountability, such complaints, while not surpris-
ing, are worrisome.

Furthermore, the deployment of the military to
counter the traffickers has so far failed to quell the vi-
olence. In fact, the military is drawing armed attacks
by the drug trafficking organizations, making public
support for the policy waver. In February 2009, pub-
lic protests against the use of the military temporarily
blocked border crossings in Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo,
Matamoros, and Cuidad Juárez and shut down parts
of Monterey. Although Mexican authorities alleged
that the demonstrations were organized by the DTOs,
most likely the Zetas, and Mexican newspapers la-
beled the demonstrations “narco-protests,” they are
nonetheless indicative of the public ambivalence to-
ward the military strategy and the state’s inability to
rapidly improve public safety and quell violence. The
question is whether the state can, by the use of the
military, sufficiently improve security fast enough to
maintain public support. Or whether the persistent
insecurity and its escalation will motivate Mexican

society to call for accommodation with the traffick-
ing organizations and thus weaken the resolve of the
state.

U.S. assistance to the Mexican state, through the
Mérida Initiative, has been consistent with the ap-
proach of the Mexican government, with the bulk of
the resources going for military and police support
and technical assistance and training. Out of the total
package of $1.6 billion to be distributed over three
years, the U.S. Congress authorized $400 million in
2008, with the majority of the money directed to-
ward counternarcotics, counterterrorism, and border
security, specifically helicopters and fixed-winged in-
terdiction aircraft. Approximately another third of
the $400 million is allocated for institution-building
and rule of law (including police, court, and prison
personnel training), and for public security and law
enforcement. In both of these categories, most of
the money is designated for hardware—for updating
the forensics database in Mexico, for example, or for
buying inspection equipment for the border. This al-
location of the assistance package corresponds to the
preferences of the Mexican government, which has
great sensitivities about any encroachment on its sov-
ereignty by the United States and feels much more
comfortable in accepting U.S. hardware, than in ac-
cepting U.S. technical advice on intelligence gathering
and institution building and reform. This allocation
of U.S. aid also is broadly consistent with U.S. coun-
ternarcotics aid to Mexico through the 1990s when
U.S. funds went almost exclusively to crop eradica-
tion, particularly to support spraying planes, with
some additional resources for in-country and cross-
border interdiction. Then, as now, no funds went to
alternative livelihoods programs and socio-economic
approaches for addressing crime. Nonetheless, the
basis for U.S. military and law enforcement training
for Mexico’s forces has already been established. Since
the mid-1990s, the United States has provided train-
ing to Mexican soldiers at the School of the Ameri-
cas. The U.S.-Mexico military cooperation through
the U.S. International Military Education and Train-
ing (IMET) program also has increased, after decades
of virtually no military-to-military contacts due to
the hostility of the Mexican military toward the U.S.
armed forces.

F o r e i g n P o l i c y a t B r o o k i n g s 2 1

Enhanced military and law enforcement mobility, as
facilitated by helicopters, for example, is clearly ben-
eficial and frequently makes an important difference
in counternarcotics operations. Technology can be of
great help. Nonetheless, many of the challenges fac-
ing Mexico are not highly susceptible to technologi-
cal fixes. The hardest task, though possibly one where
the U.S. does not have a very successful record both
in Mexico and across the world, is in police training
and reform.

That is not to say that the United States has had no
successes in assisting law enforcement and institu-
tional reform abroad. Notwithstanding the recent
revelations about the Colombian military killing
poor Colombian civilians and presenting them as
killed FARC guerrillas, the military in Colombia is
not only more competent, but also appears less cor-
rupt and more respectful of human rights than before

U.S. aid in the 1990s and 2000s. The judicial system
in Colombia has improved greatly, and the police also
seem to be less corrupt than previously, in no small
part as a result of U.S. efforts.

Nonetheless, the focus on hardware and technology
in the Mérida Initiative (instead of on processes and
capacity-building) raises concerns about the effective-
ness of the aid package. Moreover, the United States
is transferring the aid without detailed specification
on the part of the Mexican government of its strategy
for defeating the trafficking organizations or reducing
violence, and with little transparency and account-
ability on the Mexican part. This lack of specification,
transparency, and accountability for the use of U.S.
aid once again reflects Mexican concerns over sover-
eignty, but it also reflects a lack of articulation (and
arguably of formulation) by the Mexican government
of a strategy toward the drug-related violence.

Recommendations

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s 2 3

The violence in Mexico has escalated to such levels that it is doubtful whether the current
approach by the Mexican state to simply flood the
most affected states and areas with military forces in
a reactive mode can be effective in quickly reducing
violence and substantially weakening the drug traf-
ficking organizations. Yet the need to maintain pub-
lic support and rapidly reduce the death toll puts a
strong premium on quick and visible improvements
in public safety. Therefore, this paper proposes an
alternative strategy for Mexico that includes several
components: a phased ink-spot law enforcement
model; institutionalization of protection for human
rights and civil liberties; police and justice reform;
and the establishment of strategic and tactical intel-
ligence capacity against organized crime. On the U.S.
side of the border, the proposed strategy calls for a
beefing up of U.S. law enforcement via additional
law enforcement units, not via efforts to seal off the
border, as well as stepped up efforts to control arms
trafficking.

The objectives of the strategy detailed below are not
to end trafficking in Mexico, drug consumption in
the U.S., or eliminate crime. Rather, the objectives
of the strategy are to substantially reduce violence in
Mexico so that the state can once again provide its
irreducible function of assuring public safety and to
bring crime down to manageable levels, comparable
to those in the United States or Western Europe.

1) A phased “ink-spot” law enforcement approach
is a first element of the strategy. Notwithstanding
the serious concerns of human rights and civil lib-
erties violations by the Mexican military, the use

of military forces remains necessary because of the
weakness and corruption of the Mexican police
forces and other domestic law enforcement agen-
cies. Given the coercive capacity of the Mexican
drug trafficking organizations, including their fire-
power, and given the weakness and pervasive cor-
ruption of the Mexican police, relying on standard
law enforcement agencies in Mexico will leave the
police too vulnerable and susceptible to the traf-
fickers’ offer of a bullet or a bribe.

But unlike the current blanket military reaction to
the violence, the strategy recommended here ar-
gues for a “Phase One” redeployment and massing of
the military forces to focus initially on strategic areas,
establish firm control there, and then gradually in-
crease the areas of state predominance vis-à-vis the
drug trafficking organizations. Such a strategy is
analogous to, though not necessarily identical to,
an urban counterinsurgency “ink-spot” strategy.
This “ink-spot law enforcement” approach does
not call for increases of military forces, but a dif-
ferent form of their deployment. Phase One does
not necessarily imply a great level of violence by
the military forces or many kills or arrests of the
traffickers and their hitmen. But it does imply a
preponderance of the state’s coercive capacity so
that the state has the ability to establish firm pub-
lic safety.

Once the military has been able to impose order,
clear an area of the most violent traffickers that
terrorize a particular area, and hold the area in
Phase One, a second phase can, hopefully rather
quickly after the initial entrance of the robust

2 4 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

military forces, be undertaken. In Phase Two, the
military presence would be transformed into a
combined model of constabulary approach and com-
munity policing. This would permit dispersing
smaller units of the military/constabulary forces
among the population and the building up of
a relationship with the population. The ability
to assure the population’s safety and to demon-
strate responsiveness and accountability to the
citizens’ needs would increase intelligence flows.
This would enable further strategic hits against
the trafficking organizations, especially the most
violent ones. The Italian carabinieri could per-
haps be one model for such a constabulary force.
Interjecting reformed and capable police forces
into the constabulary units will be essential, both
as a transition mechanism to Phase Three and
because the Mexican military clearly currently
lacks an investigative capacity. It is thus unable
to capitalize on any short-term security improve-
ments to make sustainable strategic hits against
the drug trafficking organizations and its efforts
are frequently consumed by problematic arrests
of low-level dealers.

In Phase Three, as police reform is undertaken and
honest and capable policemen become available,
the police would replace the constabulary forces,
eventually completely eliminating the use of mili-
tary forces for domestic law enforcement and pub-
lic safety administration.

The Brazilian law enforcement approach toward
the favelas that has developed into a de facto ur-
ban counterinsurgency approach, provides one
possible model for such an ink-spot approach. In
fact, the current Brazilian strategy is being praised
as gaining results and improving the security in
the favelas. But it is premature to declare victory
in the favelas, and the verdict is still out on how
sustainable and scalable the apparent successes
are. More significantly, a transition toward a less
heavy military presence and toward regular police
law enforcement has yet to be implemented in the
supposedly-secured favelas. Not to mention the
fact that Brazil’s police remain deeply corrupt and
frequently violate human rights and that police

reform in Brazil remains an immense challenge.
Such police reform, however, is an indispensible
component of the strategy proposed here, and is
detailed below.

The difficulties and costs of such a phased ink-
spot law enforcement approach that involves the
use of Mexican military forces are not small. The
public in Mexico, while clearly suffering from and
outraged by the violence, is questioning the need
to deploy the military forces. Sensing the limits to
pubic support, President Calderón has indicated at
least a tentative end date for the deployment of the
military forces as 2012. The call in the strategy pro-
posed here for concentrating forces also generates
new public image problems for the government
because the massing of military forces will make
their presence all the more visible and because state
cannot give the impression that it is abandoning
portions of the territory and its population or ced-
ing it to the trafficking organizations.

The need for interagency cooperation in the out-
lined strategy is great. Such cooperation is frequent-
ly extremely difficult to achieve in any country and
Mexico has a history of problematic interagency
relations in the counternarcotics sphere and law
enforcement. Moreover, the Mexican military is
currently unprepared for Phase One or Phase Two
and a combined constabulary and community po-
licing model would require large-scale training of
the Mexican military. In fact, there are good rea-
sons to doubt the effectiveness of the Mexican mil-
itary even for Phase One and to wonder whether
its failures to establish security has been only due
to the dispersion of the forces and its insufficient
massing or due to structural shortcomings of the
Mexican military for the kind of urban constabu-
lary operations that the struggle against the drug
trafficking organizations requires. Although the
Mexican army is constructed more like a national
guard (analogous to the carabinieri), it has clearly
been struggling in its current mission in the cities.
In the hot zones which they are asked to secure and
where they are asked to deliver public safety, they
frequently live in fort-like barracks, removed from
the population.

F o r e i g n P o l i c y a t B r o o k i n g s 2 5

2) In addition to the phased law-enforcement ink-
spot strategy recommended here and even if the
current troop dispersion and the current mili-
tary strategy continue, police reform in Mexico
is absolutely essential. It must go beyond simply
increasing police salaries. It must involve the vet-
ting of police officers, financial disclosures, es-
tablishment of audits, including inspectors, and
protection for whistle-blowers. Police training
must include an emphasis on the role of the po-
lice in serving the people, protecting their safety,
and enforcing their human rights. Many of such
elements of police reform are already being un-
dertaken in Mexico. Yet such comprehensive po-
lice reform inevitably takes time and, in Mexico’s
case, is complicated by the scale of corruption of
the law enforcement apparatus as well as its size.
It is not clear how such a reform could be accom-
plished in three years by 2012, when President
Calderón hopes to hand law enforcement back
to local police. This deficiency and time pressures
intensify the need to move the military strategy
at least to Phase Two. The difficulties with police
reform in Mexico and the poor state of the police
echo the poor state of the police forces in Latin
America in general. Their ineffectiveness, capri-
ciousness, and corruption are notorious. Overall
in the Hemisphere, little progress has been made
improving the state of the police forces. Mexico’s
difficulties will be no smaller.

3) Police reform needs to be accompanied by judi-
cial reform and the strengthening of the judicial
capacity. The change from the inquisitorial to the
accusatorial system in Mexico adopted last year is
an important improvement. The Mexican govern-
ment established an eight-year guideline to transi-
tion the judiciary to the accusatorial system. Be-
cause of the size of the judiciary, eight years is an
ambitious goal. Meanwhile, further capacity needs
to be built into the system.

4) The capacity of the Mexican state to gather stra-

tegic and tactical intelligence on the trafficking
organizations must be increased. This is especially
imperative as even the army today, the temporary
frontline against the DTOs, does not have an in-

telligence capacity. Such intelligence units must
also be better insulated from penetration by the
trafficking organizations—a tall order given the
level of corruption in Mexico and the existing
penetration of the law enforcement apparatus by
criminal elements. The state needs to focus espe-
cially on the most violent organizations and strate-
gically strike against them, and intelligence analy-
sis must be directed toward such interventions.
Such intelligence analysis must center not only on
information-gathering for locating and arresting
particular traffickers, but critically on how such
actions by the state will reduce violence or desta-
bilize the drug market and potentially set off new
turf battles. The state needs to prepare for such de-
velopments and rapidly deploy law enforcement
units to mitigate local breakdowns in public safety
and to prevent the escalation of turf battles among
and within criminal organizations.

Such an intelligence capacity may well consist of
a fairly small unit within existing anti-crime or-
ganizations in Mexico. Its efforts may well not be
visible, and its establishment and analysis provided
by it will not deliver immediate political points for
the government from the public, but in the me-
dium and long term, such intelligence capacity
may well be the most important element of the
anti-organized crime strategy. U.S. aid in develop-
ing such an intelligence unit in Peru, for example,
ultimately led to the capture of Abimael Guzmán,
the head of Peru’s Shining Path, and the defeat of
the insurgency there.

Drug trafficking organizations are not insurgencies
or terrorist organizations. Blank decapitation policies
against them do not work for two reasons: First, the
ability of DTOs to replenish top and medium-level
managers arrested or killed by government forces is
great in absolute terms, and far greater than in the
case of insurgencies and terrorist organizations since
the leadership and organizations skilled required of
terrorist and insurgent leaders tend to be far greater
than those of drug traffickers. The history of the drug
trade is one of new traffickers and organizations re-
emerging each time law enforcement had seemed to
strike a decisive blow to the drug trade. However,

2 6 Th e V i o l e n t D r u g M a r k e t i n M e x i c o a n d L e s s o n s f r o m C o lo m b i a

while regenerative capacity of the drug trade is im-
mense and new DTOs and traffickers always will
emerge as long as the illicit drug market exist, the
DTOs and their managers are not equally violent and
powerful. Second, without a clear strategy and an an-
ticipation of reverberations in the illicit market of the
weakening of particular DTOs, just a blanket op-
portunistic decapitation strategy, implemented as in-
formation becomes available on some trafficker, will
simply lead to a greater turmoil in the market and
further turf battles among and within the remain-
ing trafficking organizations. Consequently, strategic
analysis by such an intelligence unit is as important
as information gathering.

5) The above-outlined law enforcement components
of the strategy need to be couched in strong and
clearly annunciated government support for the
institutionalization of democracy in Mexico
and for protection of human rights and civil
liberties. Mechanisms for addressing accusations
of abuses by the military and the police must be
established, resourced, and respected. Given the
fledgling status of Mexico’s democracy, such a fo-
cus on human rights protection and accountability
is all the more necessary. Respect for human rights
and democracy is in no way inconsistent with the
elements of the law enforcement approach out-
lined above. Ultimately, no democracy can thrive
if the state fails in its most elemental and irreduc-
ible function of assuring public safety.

6) The United States and other countries can con-
tribute to Mexico’s efforts in important ways. Be-
yond transfers of technology and equipment, the
United States and other countries, such as Britain,
Italy, and Brazil, can provide advice and training
in police reform, the establishment of constabu-
lary forces and community policing, the develop-
ment of strategic intelligence capacity, and human
rights and democracy promotion. In fact, multi-
lateralizing assistance to Mexico and involving
regional institutions, such as the OAS, will help
address Mexico’s concerns about sovereignty, even
if introducing new challenges in coordinating the
various aspects of such international assistance and
partnership.

7) U.S. assistance to Mexico must also involve efforts
on the U.S. part to strengthen gun control. Tight
gun control will not end violence in Mexico. Even
if no arms were flowing from the United States to
Mexico (unlike the current situation where arms
manufactured in the U.S. constitute 90% of the
weapons used by Mexican DTOs), Mexican crime
groups would find new suppliers on the extensive
global market with small arms and new ways to
eliminate their opponents. Moreover, given the
complexity of gun control politics in the U.S. and
the inherent difficulties of monitoring arms sales,
including by straw purchasers, Mexico cannot rely
on the U.S. stopping the gun flows. At the same
time, it is important to recognize that while Mexi-
can gun laws are far tighter than in the U.S.—a
key reason why Mexican DTOs buys weapons in
the U.S.—Mexico has minimal interdiction capac-
ity against weapons smuggling. Mexican Customs
have the capacity to search about 8% on a random
and frequently cursory basis. A demonstrated ef-
fort on the U.S. side and a beefed-up U.S. capac-
ity to reduce smuggling with weapons may thus
reduce weapons flows. Critically, however, it will
bring important diplomatic benefits, facilitating
U.S.-Mexican cooperation in the struggle against
the violent drug trafficking organizations. It will
also enhance of the capacity of the Mexican gov-
ernment to mobilize public support for law en-
forcement against the DTOs.

8) On the U.S. side of the border, there is also a
need to beef up law enforcement both to miti-
gate spillovers of current violence from Mexico
and to prevent the displacement of Mexican
DTOs to the U.S. territory as a result of signifi-
cant successes of Mexico’s strategy. While securing
the border through border patrol and the use of
“smart-border” technologies is important, there
are limits to (and great economic costs associated
with) how much the border can be sealed outside
of legal crossings, with or without the fence. There
are similarly great limits to how many people and
goods can be inspected at legal crossings. Instead
of attempting to seal off the border as some are
calling for, the United States should inject sup-
plementary law enforcement personnel in areas

F o r e i g n P o l i c y a t B r o o k i n g s 2 7

particularly susceptible to spillovers from Mexico.
Integration of such mobile reinforcements into
the existing law enforcement structures would, no
doubt, pose challenges; but nonetheless, such a
strategy may be better and more cost-effective than
just general permanent increases in police and law
enforcement forces in the U.S. border states. U.S.
law enforcement forces and border states need
to take early measures to anticipate and prevent
crime spillovers to the U.S. and efforts by crime
organizations displaced from Mexico to establish
themselves in the U.S.

About the Author

F o r e i g n P o l i c y at B r o o k i n g s 2 9

Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown is an expert on inter-
national and internal conflict issues and their man-
agement, including counterinsurgency. She focuses
particularly on the interaction between illicit econ-
omies and military conflict. She has been examin-
ing these issues in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
She is a fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings
Institution where she follows South Asia, the An-
dean region, Mexico, and Somalia, and an adjunct
Professor in the Security Studies Program, School
of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Prior to
taking up her position at the Brookings Institution,
she was assistant professor at Georgetown Univer-
sity. A frequent commentator in the media, she is
the author of the forthcoming book, Shooting Up:
Illicit Economies and Military Conflict (Brookings
Institution Press, 2009) which examines these issues
in Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan, Burma, Northern
Ireland, India, and Turkey. Her Ph.D. dissertation,
“Shooting Up: The Impact of Illicit Economies on
Military Conflict,” received the American Politi-
cal Science Association’s 2007 Harold D. Laswell
Award for the Best Dissertation in the Field of Pub-
lic Policy.

Dr. Felbab-Brown is also the author of numerous pol-
icy reports and academic articles, including “Peace-
keepers Among Poppy: Counternarcotics Policy in
Afghanistan,” Journal of International Peacekeeping,
February 2009; “Expand the Agenda in Pakistan and
Afghanistan,” Brookings Presidential Memo, Decem-
ber 2008; “Implications of Mumbai Attacks for Af-
ghanistan,” Brookings Brief, December 2008; “The
Weak, the Bad, and the Ugly: Policy Options in Af-
ghanistan, Brookings Brief, October 2008; “Tackling
Transnational Crime: Adapting US National Security
Policy in Latin America,” National Strategy Review
Forum, Spring 2008; United States National Security
Policy in Latin America: Threat Assessment and Policy
Recommendations for the Next Administration, the
Brookings Institution, May 2008; “From Sanctuaries
to Protostates,” in Michael Innes, ed. Denial of Sanc-
tuary: Understanding Terrorist Safehavens (Westport:
Praeger, 2007); “The Coca Connection: Conflict and
Drugs in Colombia and Peru,” Journal of Conflict
Studies, Winter 2005; “The Intersection of Terror-
ism and the Drug Trade,” in James J.F. Forest, The
Making of a Terrorist (Westport: Praeger, 2005); and
“Afghanistan: When Counternarcotics Undermine
Counterterrorism,” Washington Quarterly, Fall 2005.

Foreign Policy
at BROOKINGS
POLICY PAPER
Number 12, March 2009
Vanda Felbab-Brown
The Violent Drug Market
in Mexico and Lessons
from Colombia
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
brookings.edu

Interpersonal violence
and illicit drugs

1. Introduction to the topic and purpose of briefing

Interpersonal violence (see Box 1) and illicit drug use are major public health
challenges that are strongly linked. Involvement in drug use can increase the risks
of being both a victim and/or perpetrator of violence, while experiencing violence
can increase the risks of initiating illicit drug use. Debate continues as to whether the
relationship between drugs and violence is causal or an association, with the two
being linked through shared risk factors (see Table 2). The impacts of drug-related
interpersonal violence can be substantial, damaging individuals’ health and the
cohesion and development of communities, whilst also shifting resources from other
priorities, particularly within health and criminal justice services. Globally,
interpersonal violence accounts for around half a million deaths per year (1); for every
death there are many more victims affected by violence physically, psychologically,
emotionally and financially. Illicit drugs are used by millions of individuals throughout
the world, and both their effects and the nature of illicit drug markets place major
burdens on health and society (2-4).

This briefing summarises the links between interpersonal violence and illicit drug
use, identifies risk factors for involvement in drug-related violence, outlines
prevention measures that address drug-related violence, and explores the role of
public health in prevention. It discusses links between drugs and violence based on
available evidence, focusing primarily on illicit drugs. In general, the illicit use of
prescription drugs is not discussed and the links between alcohol and violence have
been covered elsewhere (

5

).

1

DRUGS
VIOLENCE

Box 1: Interpersonal violence

Interpersonal violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened
or actual, against another person that either results in or has a high likelihood of
resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation (1).
Interpersonal violence can be categorised as:-

• Youth violence: violence committed by young people.

• Child maltreatment: violence and neglect towards children by parents and
caregivers.

• Intimate partner violence: violence occurring within an intimate relationship.

• Elder abuse: violence and neglect towards older people by family, carers
or others where there is an expectation of trust.

• Sexual violence: sexual assault, unwanted sexual attention, sexual coercion
and sexual trafficking.

2. Magnitude of drug-related interpersonal violence

Internationally, there are wide geographical variations in illicit drug use (Table 1).
Whilst cannabis is the most widely used drug globally, use ranges from around 2

%

of the population aged

15

-64 in Asia to 15% in the Oceania region (6). Rates of
mortality from violence also vary, from

14

.4 per 100,000 of the population in high
income countries to 32.1 per 100,000 in low to middle income countries (1).

Table 1: Global average estimates of use of selected illicit drugs by region, all
people aged 15 to 64 years (

20

06 or latest year) (6)

2

Region

Cannabis Amphetamines Ecstasy Cocaine Heroin

N
u
m
b
e
r
o
f

u
se

rs
(t
h
o
u
sa
n
d
s)

% N
u
m
b
e
r
o
f

u
se
rs
(t
h
o
u
sa
n
d
s)
% N
u
m
b
e
r
o
f
u
se
rs
(t
h
o
u
sa
n
d
s)
% N
u
m
b
e
r
o
f
u
se
rs
(t
h
o
u
sa
n
d
s)
% N
u
m
b
e
r
o
f
u
se
rs
(t
h
o
u
sa
n
d
s)
%

EUROPE 2

9

,200 5.3 2,490 0.5 2,947 0.5 4,008 0.8 3,

13

0 0.

6

Western/Central

22

,100 6.9 1,950 0.6 2,6

24

0.8 3,895 1.2 1,370 0.

4

South-East 1,700 2.0

18

0 0.2 204 0.2 67 0.1 130 0.2

Eastern 5,400 3.7 350 0.2 1

17

0.1 46 0.0 1,630 1.1

AMERICAS 40,500 6.9 5,670 1.0 3,094 0.5 10,

19

6 1.7 1,520 0.

3

North 30,600 10.5 3,720 1.3 2,367 0.8 7,097 2.4 1,270 0.4

South 9,900 3.4 1,960 0.7 727 0.3 3,099 0.8 250 0.1

ASIA 51,100 2.0 13,750 0.5 2,103 0.1 335 0.0 6,080 0.2

OCEANIA 3,200 14.5 470 2.9 706 3.2 301 1.4 30 0.1

AFRICA 41,600 8.0 2,260 0.4 199 0.0 1,147 0.2 1,

21

0 0.2

GLOBAL

16

5,600 3.9 24,650 0.6 9,047 0.2 15,987 0.4 11,970 0.3

Data on the involvement of illicit drugs in violence are not routinely collected on an
international basis, whilst many incidents of violence are unrecorded by health or
criminal justice agencies. Despite this, a range of research has identified the extent
of drug-related violence victimisation and perpetration in specific settings and
populations.

Illicit drug use by perpetrators of violence

• In Los Angeles, USA, 35% of methamphetamine users aged 18-25 years old
were found to have committed violence while under the influence of the drug (7).

• In Memphis, USA, victims and family members believed that 92% of perpetrators
of intimate partner violence had used drugs or alcohol during the day of the
assault and 67% had used a combination of cocaine and alcohol (8). A study on
intimate partner violence in China found that partners who used illicit drugsa were
significantly more likely to abuse their spouses physically, sexually, or both (9).

• Results from the British Crime Survey 2007/08 showed that victims of violent
crime believed the offender to be under the influence of drugs in 19% of
incidents (10).

• In Australia, perpetrators of violence against nurses in emergency departments
were perceived to be under the influence of drugs in 25% of cases (11).

• In Atlanta, USA, ecstacy users with higher levels of lifetime use exhibited
higher rates of aggressive and violent behaviour (

12

).

• In Rhode Island, USA, a quarter of women arrested for intimate partner violence
and referred by courts to intimate partner violence prevention programmes
reported symptoms consistent with a drug-related diagnosis (13).

• In Canada, boys reporting sexual harassment perpetration were seven times
more likely to use drugs and girls four times more likely to use drugs (14).

• In a study of violence in youth holiday resorts among young German, Spanish
and British holidaymakers, the use of cocaine during the holiday was associated
with triple the odds of involvement in fighting and use of cannabis with double
the odds (15).

• In England and Wales, 12% of arrestees held for assault tested positive for
cocaine use and 24% for opiate use (excluding methadone) (16).

• Amongst patients to emergency departments in Cape Town and Durban in South
Africa those with violence-related injuries were more likely to test positive for
drugs than patients with other injury types (17).

3

a Where the type of drug used is not defined, this is because the source does not provide this information.

Illicit drug use by victims of violence

• In Victoria, Australia, 17.5% of sexual assaults were allegedly drug facilitated. Of
these, many had knowingly consumed recreational or prescriptive drugs prior to
the assault taking place (18).

• In the USA, victims of child physical or sexual abuse, or neglect have been
estimated to be 1.5 times more likely to report illicit drug use, particularly
cannabis, in adulthood during the past year than non-abused individuals (19).

• In a European survey on violence victimisation among dependent drug users in
Austria, England, Germany and Switzerland, 42% reported a history of being
attacked, assaulted or molested in the last six months (20).

• In the USA, women’s use of hard drugsb including cocaine and heroin was
associated with increased odds of experiencing intimate partner violence in
ongoing relationships; both cannabis and hard drug use were associated with
increased likelihood of being a victim of intimate partner violence in new
relationships (21).

• In Ontario, Canada, individuals reporting parental substance use were at more
than twice the risk of exposure to childhood physical and sexual abuse (22).

• In emergency room studies, cannabis and cocaine use in combination with
alcohol were related to violence-related injuries in the UK, Canada and South
Africa (

23

).

• In Scotland, 25% of drug users had been assaulted in the last six months (24).

Violence within illicit drug markets

The lack of formal social and economic controls in illicit drug markets facilitates the
spread of violence. Without legal means for resolving business conflicts within drug
markets, there is a tendency for violence to emerge as the dominant mechanism of
conflict resolution (25-29). Furthermore, gangs and individuals involved in the drug
dealing often carry guns for self defence from other groups or individuals who pose
a threat to drug operations (30,31).

• In Pittsburgh, USA, almost 80% of 19 year olds who sold hard drugs such as
cocaine were found to also carry a gun (32).

• In England and Wales approximately one third of all arrestees reported owning
or holding a gun at some time in their lives; a key reason for doing so was for
protection or self defence in buying or selling drugs (16).

4

b Whilst there is no internationally agreed terminology for discussing hard drug use, this brief will use this term to refer to the
use of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines.

• In the Caribbean, drug sales and trafficking have led to increases in armed gangs
who are attracted by the profits made through such activities (33).

• The presence of drug-gangs in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, contributes
to a continued influx of weapons to the community and associated violence (34).

3. Mechanisms linking interpersonal violence and illicit drugs

There are multiple mechanisms linking interpersonal violence and illicit drug use.
These links are far from simple and although associations are well established, few
studies have examined causal relationships. Different illicit drugs have different
effects and as such some drugs may be related to violence more than others.
Individual personality and biological factors, situational factors (the setting in which
drug use occurs) and socio-cultural factors are all influential in this relationship (31,35-
39).

Three theoretical explanations for the drug-violence relationship have been proposed.
Firstly, drug use may be linked to violence at the direct psychopharmacological level.
Here, as a result of short- or long-term ingestion of specific substances, individuals
may experience changes in physiological functioning that, in an unintoxicated state,
restrain behaviour. Secondly, drug-related violence can be economic compulsive, in
that individuals addicted or dependent on illicit substances (e.g. cocaine and heroin)
will commit crimes, including violent crimes, as a means to fund their drug use
(25,40-47). Thirdly, drug-related violence can be systemic, with violence being an
inherent part of the illicit drug market. Violence is used to enforce the payment of
debts, to resolve competition between dealers, and to punish informants (25-
29,40,44,45,47,48).

Research into the drugs-violence relationship has shown that:

• The effects of some drugs, including crack/cocaine, amphetamines and
benzodiazepines have been found to increase aggressive and violent behaviour
(29,35,38,40,46,49-55). Whilst cannabis and heroin use can reduce the likelihood
of violence during intoxication, some studies suggest that withdrawal from long-
term use is associated with aggression (6,7,40,47,49,56).

• Individual beliefs and expectations of the effects of drugs (e.g. increased
confidence and aggression) mean that some drugs are used in preparation for
involvement in violent behaviour (57-59).

• Drugs and violence may be linked as those involved in one form of deviance such
as drug use may be more likely to engage in other deviant behaviours such as
violence (7,40,60,61).

• Experiencing violence and living in dysfunctional households (e.g. where illicit
drugs are consumed amongst household members) during childhood is
associated with drug use in later life (62,63).

5

• Drugs are used as a coping mechanism to deal with the distress associated with
being a victim of violence (64-66).

• Exposure to unsafe environments in which drug use occurs increases an
individual’s risk of violent victimisation (67).

• Prenatal and perinatal drug use by parents have been shown to increase levels
of stress amongst parents and may result in subsequent child maltreatment
(68,69), whilst drug dependence can also lead to individuals failing to fulfil parental
responsibilities (67).

4. Shared risk factors for illicit drug use and interpersonal
violence

A range of factors can increase an individual’s risk of being a victim and/or perpetrator
of drug-related interpersonal violence. Whilst illicit drug use alone is a risk factor for
violence (1), many of the risk factors for drug use are also shared with those for
involvement in violence. Table 2 follows the ecological model (1) for understanding
factors related to illicit drug use and interpersonal violence by identifying shared risk
factors associated with the individual, relationships between individuals, and
communities and society.

Table 2: Shared risk factors for illicit drug use and interpersonal violence
(1,40,70,71)

6

Individual (microlevel) Relationship (mesolevel)

• Stress/depression/anxiety • Parental substance abuse and deviance

• Personality and behavioural problems including
impulsivity, hyperactivity, sensation seeking and
attention problems

• Aggression

• Family interaction including low parental
monitoring, poor supervision and discipline, family
conflict, low parental expectations, parental
rejection, low level of family cohesion

• Mental health problems • Family structure – single parents and divorce

• Gender – malesc • Peer behaviour (e.g. drug using peers)

• Age – young peopled Community and societal (macrolevel)

• Education and school performance including
absence, truancy, lack of formal support and low
educational aspirations

• High drug availability

• Low socio-economic status

• Neighbourhood disorder

c However, women are more at risk of becoming a victim of certain types of violence such as sexual violence.
d This does not include elder abuse.

5. Risk factors for drug-related interpersonal violence

The below sections outline a range of risk factors specifically linked to drug-related
interpersonal violence.

Individual level factors

Gender: In general, males are more at risk of experiencing violence and
correspondingly drug-related violence (40,54,72,73). For example, a study of heroin
users in Scotland found that males were significantly more likely to have been
victims and perpetrators of assault than women (24). However, women who have
been abused and/or neglected in childhood may be at greater risk than males of
subsequently developing drug use and dependence and being arrested for both
violent and non-violent crimes (74). In a Norwegian study, female hard drug users
admitted to treatment had experienced more childhood emotional and sexual abuse
and neglect than males (75).

Age: Age is a risk factor for both violence perpetration and victimisation among drug
users (72,76). Young peoplee are at a higher risk of drug-related interpersonal
violence, particularly intimate partner and gang-related violence (32,34,73,76,77).

Gang membership: Gang membership is a risk factor for both drug use and violence
perpetration. Research shows that the use of drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy and
cocaine is often integrated into the day-to-day activities of criminal subcultures and
gangs (59). In Latin America and the Caribbean, youth gangs involved in drug
trafficking are involved in higher levels of violence than young people who do not
belong to a gang (78).

Psychiatric factors: There are elevated levels of psychiatric conditions, particularly
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)f, in drug users experiencing and perpetrating
violence. For example, high rates of intimate partner violence have been found
among women with both drug use and PTSD (80), while the presence of both
cocaine dependence and PTSD is associated with increased perpetration of partner
violence (81). Furthermore, psychological distress and PTSD associated with
experiencing rape and physical assault are related to greater severity of drug use
(66).

A history of childhood victimisation: A history of abuse and/or witnessing violence
in childhood increases the risk of subsequent use of crack, cocaine, heroin, cannabis
and methamphetamine (61). At the same time it increases the risk of being a victim
of violence, particularly intimate partner violence, in later life (66,74,82-88).

Social functioning problems: Social functioning problems such as school, family,
work and financial problems have been found to increase an individual’s risk of
perpetrating drug-related violence (7).

7

e The World Health Organization (1) defines young people as those between the ages of 10 and 29 years.
f PTSD following a traumatic event may involve intense fear, anxiety and/or feelings of helplessness. Symptoms can develop
shortly after the event or can take years to emerge and include: re-experiencing the trauma through nightmares; obsessive
thoughts; and flashbacks. Further, the individual may avoid situations, people, and/or objects which remind them about the
traumatic event (79).

Drug use and dealing: Young people’s drug use and initiation into drug dealing
increases the risk of weapon carrying, and being a victim or perpetrator of violence
(7,40,89-96). Furthermore, within the illicit drug market violence is common place,
with firearms specifically used by dealers, runnersg and users for protection,
enforcement and punishment (26,30).

Type of drug: A range of drugs, particularly cocaine and amphetamines (including
methamphetamine) are associated with increased aggressive and violent behaviour
(31,46,49-52,72). Users of cocaine and/or heroin may be at greater risk of observing,
perpetrating and being a victim of violence than users of cannabis (72,73). Individuals
under the influence of benzodiazepines have been found to be more likely to act
aggressively than non-intoxicated individuals. However, such findings may be due to
high levels of pre-existing hostility and aggressive dispositions (53-55). The non-
prescribed use of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs) is also associated with a
number of psychiatric and behavioural changes including aggression, which in some
cases may lead to violence. As with other drugs, whether such effects are caused
by AAS use, or whether users are predisposed to such effects, remains unclear (97-
101).

Relationship level factors

Parental use of drugs: A connection between parental use of heroin and cocaine
and the risk of child maltreatment, poor parenting and neglect has been documented
(22,67-69,102). A child’s exposure to unsafe environments in which parental drug
use occurs may increase their risk of being a victim of violence (66). Prenatal drug
exposure is also associated with increased levels of parenting stress and child
maltreatment (69).

Exposure to violence: Young people who have experienced or witnessed violence
have been found to be more likely to use cannabis and hard drugs than those who
have not experienced violence (102). Aggression and violence may be learned and
transmitted within violent and illicit drug using families. A North American study
found that children raised in households where crack is sold and used, routinely learn
aggressive and violent behaviours through observation and interaction with their
drug using parents and other kin (103). Exposure to family deviance and drug use are
both risk factors for violence perpetration and illicit drug use (1,62,63).

Community level factors

Drug availability: A high availability of drugs within communities contributes to the
prevalence of drug-related violence and is a risk factor for initiation into both drug use
and violence (1,104-106). Children exposed to drug trafficking are also at increased
risk of delinquency including drug use and violence (107). A higher number of arrests
for drug possessions in a neighbourhood have been found to be positively related to
the rate of child maltreatment (108).

8

g Individuals who deliver drugs to drug users for sellers.

Neighbourhood deprivation: Neighbourhood level factors such as a lack of
employment opportunities, vacant housing, and a lack of street lighting allow illicit
drug markets and associated violence to flourish (40,106).

Nightlife environments: Widespread drug use and the existence of drug markets
in nightlife environments contribute to violence (109). Within nightlife-focused
holiday resorts in Spain, use of cocaine and cannabis was associated with increased
risk of being involved in violence during a holiday (15). Drug use has also been
identified as a common occurrence amongst door staff working in nightlife settings
(110,111). Furthermore, opportunities to control drug sales in nightlife have resulted
in individuals with violent and criminal tendencies occupying and controlling door
staff positions (111,112). In such environments door staff may use violence,
intimidation and bribery to take control of illicit drug markets and may also be victims
of violence by criminal gangs who force door staff to allow drug dealing to take place
in night time settings (111).

Societal level factors

Culture of violence and drug use: A culture of violence, drugs and criminality
contributes to risks of individuals using drugs and experiencing violence. For
example, street children are at high risk of violence and illicit drug use as a result of
the environment in which they live (113). Almost half of street children in Rio de
Janeiro report a history of physical abuse and illicit drug use and one third report
belonging to a gang (114). A study of Nigerian street children found a quarter
operated as drug couriers, 14% abused drugs and a third had been arrested for
street fighting and drug use (115).

Social and economic inequality: Social inequalities and poverty are also linked to
violence. For example, a lack of money and employment opportunities can lead
young people to become involved in drug markets, which in turn contributes to the
risk of violence perpetration and victimisation (33,34,107,113-118).

6. Effects and costs of drug-related violence

Individual level: The consequences of drug-related violence are significant, placing
huge burdens upon the health and well-being of victims, their families and friends,
witnesses, and even perpetrators; whilst exacerbating fear within communities and
placing pressure on health and other public services. Studies have found associations
between the severity of drug use by perpetrators of violence and the severity of
violence perpetrated (7). Further, non drug using individuals living with illicit drug
users are at increased risk of death as an outcome of violence within the home (119).
Aside from physical injuries, psychiatric effects are also evident with studies finding
an association between violence exposure, subsequent PTSD and severity of
substance use (66). The cyclical nature of drugs and violence means children of drug
using parents are at increased risk of experiencing maltreatment and neglect (22,67-
69). Furthermore, witnessing or experiencing violence during childhood can heighten
the risk of drug use in later life (19,63,87).

9

Community level: On a wider level, drug-related violence can affect communities
and society through, for instance, increasing the fear of crime and discouraging
people from visiting areas associated with drug-related violence (26,120,121).
Financial pressures are also placed on health and other public services, for example
through the costs of treatment for victims and implementation of criminal sanctions
for offenders. International demand for illicit drugs places large burdens upon
countries where drugs are produced. Effects associated with drug trafficking within
countries, and across country borders, include issues surrounding gun and gang-
related violence, kidnapping, organised crime and corruption (3,5,38,122). Health
and social problems associated with illicit drug markets and violence also undermine
development efforts and contribute to the maintenance of social inequality in many
countries (28).

Internationally, few countries routinely measure the involvement of drugs in violence,
and the subsequent economic costs. Although this means the economic costs of
drug-related violence globally are unknown, estimated costs are large. In the USA
crime committed by those under the influence of drugs, or to gain money to obtain
drugs, has been estimated at $103.6 million, which was the equivalent of 25.7% of
the total cost of violent crime in 1999 (123). In the UK the social and health harms
arising from heroin and/or crack cocaine use, including the costs of crime committed
by users in order to fund their habit, were estimated to amount to £21 billion
annually. Specifically, the annual costs of drug-motivated crimes including violence,
sexual crime and robbery were estimated to be £4 billion (4).

7. Prevention

Rigorous studies on the effectiveness of prevention initiatives specifically addressing
drug-related violence are scarce. However available evidence suggests that
programmes that aim to prevent violence in drug-users, or seek to reduce violence
and illicit drug use simultaneously, can have positive effects (124-131). Drug use and
violence can also be addressed concurrently by screening victims presenting with
violent injuries for drug use, and similarly drug users for involvement in violence.
This section provides a brief overview of studies exploring interventions that address
both drug use and violenceh. The vast majority of studies have been implemented
in high-income countries, particularly the USA. In general, strategies to reduce drug-
related violence should incorporate a range of approaches that seek to address the
individual, relationship, societal and environmental factors that contribute to both
violence and illicit drug use.

A number of demand reduction programmes aimed at perpetrators and victims of
intimate partner violence who abuse drugs have been found to be effective in
reducing violence among substance using individuals. For example, The Dades
County Integrated Domestic Violence model (USA) is a specialised treatment

10

h This briefing does not discuss interventions that work to reduce drug use or violence separately. For violence prevention, the
World Health Organization has produced a range of evidence briefings covering forms of effective intervention, including:
Reducing access to lethal means; Increasing safe, stable and nurturing relationships between children and their parents
and caretakers; Developing life skills in children and adolescents; Reducing availability and misuse of alcohol; Promoting
gender equality; Changing cultural norms that support violence, and Victim identification, care and support programmes.

programme addressing substance abusing behaviours, aggression and anger
directed at intimate partners, based on the idea that aggression directed at intimate
partners stems from issues of power and control. The programme has been
successful in maintaining attendance at substance use treatment and also resulted
in lower rates of violence towards intimate partners compared to individuals
participating in separate intimate partner violence and substance use programmes
(124).

Behavioural Couples Therapy (BCT) has also shown success in reducing drug use
and aggression among perpetrators of intimate partner violence. BCT involves both
partners in counselling with the aim of resolving common relationship problems and
teaching skills to promote partner support for abstinence from substance use. The
non-substance-using partner is also taught coping skills to apply when faced with a
situation where intimate partner violence may occur. A number of studies have
shown BCT participation reduces drug use, drinking, and relationship problems to a
greater extent than individual treatment for the user (125-128). Given the co-
occurrence of substance use and intimate partner violence, integrated programmes,
as well as screening and referral between services (e.g. Alcohol, Smoking and
Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) [129]), offer an effective way of
responding to both problems (130).

Multi-component programmes that tackle violence and illicit drug use
simultaneously through a variety of measures can prevent both drug use and related
violence. For example, Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is an intensive family and
community-based treatment that aims to strengthen protective factors proven to
reduce the risk of future offending and anti-social behaviour among juveniles.
Intervention strategies include strategic and structural family therapy, behavioural
parent training, and cognitive behaviour therapies. These use a variety of techniques
to improve family function, parenting skills and coping strategies. MST identifies and
responds to risk factors for youth violence and substance use at the individual,
family, peer, school and community levels. The main aim of MST is to help parents
effectively respond to young people’s behavioural problems and to help young
people cope with family, peer, school, and neighbourhood issues. MST has produced
positive outcomes with violent substance using and dependent adolescents and has
reduced violence, aggression and substance use among participants (131-133).

A number of school and community based prevention initiatives have reduced
risky behaviours, including violence and drug use, among young people in the USA.
For example, CASASTARTi is a North American community and school-centred
programme that targets high-risk youth between the ages of eight and 13 years,
their families and communities. The programme aims to create a working
partnership between schools, law enforcement, and community-based health or
social service organisations to reduce drug-related crime and violence and initiation
into substance use. At one year follow up young people participating in the

11

i Striving Together to Achieve Rewarding Tomorrow’s, by the Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA).

programme have been found to be less likely to use, sell and traffic illicit drugs, to
engage in violent crime, and to associate with delinquent peers (134-136). School-
based programmes alone, such as Too Good for Drugs and Violence (USA)
incorporates curriculum based activities with the aim of building protective factors
against drug use and aggressive behaviour. However, the programme has only
evidenced positive differences in young people’s immediate intentions to participate
in drug use and violence, with 45% of people having fewer intentions to smoke
cannabis and 45% having fewer intentions to engage in aggressive behaviours (137,
138).

Also in the USA, Life Skills Training (LST) has been used to teach young people a
range of skills including problem solving and decision making, resistance to media
influences, stress and anxiety management and communication skills. The
programme was reported to be effective in reducing tobacco, alcohol and drug use,
and violence. Young people receiving LST were significantly less likely to engage in
physical fights or delinquent behaviour at three month follow up (139). Mentoring
programmes such as the Big Brothers Big Sisters programme in the USA have
shown success in reducing drug use and violence among young people. The
programme involves weekly four hour meetings with volunteer mentors on a one to
one basis. Adolescents participating in the programme have been found to be 46%
less likely to use drugs, 27% less likely to use alcohol, 52% less likely to play truant
from school and a third less likely to hit someone over the 18 month follow up period
(140-142).

Diversionary projects aimed at reducing offending and drug use among young
people have been developed in several countries. In Peru, Deporte y Vida (Sport and
Life) involves schools helping to prevent drug use, delinquency, violence and gang
activities among disadvantaged children and adolescents through a programme of
cultural, educational and sporting activities, including street football (143,144). The
impact of these types of programmes on young people’s drug use, offending
behaviour and violence has yet to be fully evaluated.

Drug use and violence commonly occur in nightlife environments. Interventions
that can help reduce the availability and use of drugs and prevent violence in such
environments include: modifications to the nightlife environment itself (e.g. improved
lighting), search policies upon entry to venues (e.g. for drugs and weapons),
improving late night transport, and registration and checking of door staff for criminal
convictions, including violence and drug dealing (109,145). While such interventions
have been found to contribute to reduced violence in nightlife, their effects
specifically on drug-related violence are largely unmeasured.

Internationally, whilst reducing the demand for illicit drugs will impact on the levels
of drug-related violence, reducing supply and access to illicit drugs, and disrupting
illicit drug markets is also important. A range of initiatives have been developed to
tighten security and drug control along country borders, to reduce drug trafficking
and its associated problems, including violence and organised crime (e.g. The

12

Programme of Assistance for the Prevention of Drug Abuse and Drug Trafficking in
Belarus [146] and the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Strategic
Programme Framework for Central Asia [147]). However, a comprehensive
description of such programmes is beyond the scope of this briefing.

8. The role of public health

Working alongside health, criminal justice and other agencies, public health
professionals have a central role to play in preventing drug-related violence (see Box
2). Promoting an evidence-based public health approach to violence, public health
professionals should encourage and facilitate the use of data and research from a
wide range of sources to provide a comprehensive understanding of the extent,
causes and risk factors relating to drug-related violence.

Developing intelligence for effective prevention

Despite a growing research body, internationally there remains a dearth of
intelligence on the extent of drug-related violence and the relationship between
these two public health priorities. Health, criminal justice and other agencies in
contact with victims and perpetrators of drug-related violence are ideally placed to
collate and disseminate a wide range of information on levels and patterns of such
violence. This information is paramount to understanding which population groups
and communities are most at risk and targeting appropriate resources and
interventions where they are most needed. Public health professionals are ideally
placed to advocate for stronger data collection systems, collate data from a range of
sources and use such data to identify key issues, trends and appropriate target
groups.

Box 2: The role of public health agencies in reducing drug-related violence

• Collating and disseminating intelligence on the magnitude of the problem and
groups at higher risk.

• Promoting, funding, and conducting research examining the links between drugs
and violence, and the costs to society.

• Identifying, informing, developing, implementing and evaluating interventions to
reduce drug-related violence.

• Advocating for policy to reduce drug use and violence.

In addition to routine data collection, research on drug-related violence must be
expanded to provide greater evidence on risk factors and effective prevention
measures. Given that drugs have different pharmacological effects and are taken
within differing social contexts, research should focus on which drugs have a greater
association with violence, as well as the effects of dose, individual, situational and
environmental factors. Examination of variations in global patterns of drug use and
violence would provide further opportunity to identify and exchange comparative

13

information on the nature, reasons and risk factors for drug-related violence. A wide
range of measures are being implemented and evaluated throughout the world,
seeking to prevent drug use and violence. Strong links between these and with other
health outcomes (e.g. HIV) should be reflected in programme evaluations. Thus,
monitoring a wider range of outcomes would not only provide additional information
on violence and drugs but also greater insight into links between them. While data
and evaluations described above are required to develop prevention initiatives in all
countries, such information is particularly scarce in low to middle income countries,
where evidence on effective prevention is limited but drug-related violence can be
high.

Services for victims and perpetrators of drug-related violence

Given the multi-agency role of public health, professionals should help raise
awareness of the links between drugs and violence and the role of services in
responding to these issues. Within drug treatment and other health settings (e.g.
emergency rooms, services for intimate partner violence), staff are well placed to
identify concurrent drug and violence-related problems amongst both victims and
perpetrators. However, professionals may not recognise, identify, or intervene to
support victims or help perpetrators cease their abusive behaviours. While
interventions that aim to identify and address drug-related violence should be
developed and promoted, resources are required to provide such services and train
and support staff. In general, services dealing with violence-related incidents should
be aware of the links with drug use, be able to identify potential problems and have
access to a range of options for providing support or referral.

Advocacy, collaboration and promoting prevention

Public health practitioners should promote a multi-agency approach to the prevention
of drug-related violence that aims to tackle risk factors at the individual, relationship,
community and societal level. Possible stakeholders include international
organisations, governments, health services, criminal justice agencies, local
authorities, grass-roots organisations, the media and academics, as well as local
communities. At the national and international level, health organisations have a key
role in advocating for policies that acknowledge the links between drugs and
violence and aim to address their causes (e.g. social inequalities, poverty, poor
parenting).

14

9. Policy

Across the WHO regions, a range of policy measures already exist that aim to reduce
the impact of illicit drugs and violence internationally. Specific to drugs, the United
Nations has agreed a number of conventions that are internationally accepted as the
vehicle for combating transnational organised crime and drug trafficking (see Box 3,
Page 17). Furthermore, the UNODC anti-drugs campaign aims to raise awareness of
the major societal problems that illicit drugs represent and mobilise support for drug
control. The campaign aims to tackle different aspects of drug control including: drug
use; drug cultivation and production; and illicit drug trafficking (3).

The World Report on Violence and Health (1) sets out a public health approach to
preventing violence within which drugs are highlighted as a risk factor for violence
perpetration and victimisation. World Health Assembly resolution WHA56.24 (148)
endorses the implementation of its recommendations. Furthermore, the international
Violence Prevention Alliance has been established to provide a forum for the
exchange of intelligence and practice between governments and agencies working
to reduce violence across the world.

Priorities for action

• The consequences and control of drug-related violence are multi-agency
problems which require a co-ordinated response between health professionals,
criminal justice and other agencies. Public health has a critical role in coordinating
a multi-agency response to prevent drug-related violence, underpinned by shared
intelligence and a common evidence base.

• Whilst tackling current drug problems is a major judicial issue, public health
professionals should play a key role in developing policies and strategies that aim
to tackle the root causes of drug-related violence. Such policies should
encompass evidence informed prevention, service development for those
involved in violence and training for commissioners and practitioners. They should
also seek to develop shared intelligence on drug-related violence across specialist
and generic services.

• There are links between drugs and violence at the individual, relationship,
community and societal levels, and therefore tackling the causes and
consequences requires an integrated approach that recognises and responds to
risk factors at all these levels.

• Increased investment is required to evaluate the effects of co-ordinated and
integrated programmes to prevent and treat both drug use and violent behaviour,
and to disseminate evidence based practice.

• Whilst investment for researching links between illicit drugs and violence is
required globally, efforts to increase the evidence base in low to middle income
countries is paramount in order to understand the impact of drug-related violence
in different settings.

15

• Internationally, both health and criminal justice agencies should aim to improve
and standardise the recording of illicit drug use and its involvement in violence.

• Capacity building and training for staff is required especially for those who
regularly come into contact with drug users, or those affected by violence, in
order to allow them to identify concurrent drug and violence-related problems
and provide support or refer individuals to appropriate services.

Conclusion

Interpersonal violence and illicit drug use both pose major public health challenges.
This briefing identifies strong associations between being both a victim and
perpetrator of violence and illicit drug use. Moreover, a range of risk factors at the
individual, relationship, community and societal level have been identified that
increase an individual’s risk of experiencing drug-related violence. Although a clear
relationship exists between drugs and violent behaviour, the nature of this link is
multi-faceted and few studies have examined causal relationships. These links exist
for several reasons, some direct (the pharmacological effects of drugs) and some
indirect (violence occurring in order to attain drugs, violence within illicit drug markets
and drug use as an outcome of violent victimisation). Despite a range of evidence
suggesting links between various categories of drugs and violent behaviour, there is
a lack of prevention interventions aimed at reducing violence that is specifically drug
related. Multi-agency strategies to reduce drug-related violence should adopt a broad
approach aimed at addressing factors that contribute to both violence and illicit drug
use. Although traditionally considered a problem solely for criminal justice, a public
health approach to drug-related violence offers a way of better understanding,
responding to and ultimately preventing, violence that is related to illicit drug use.

16

Box 3: United Nations conventions for combating transnational organised
crime and drug trafficking

Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, 2000: is a legally-binding
instrument committing States to take measures against transnational organised
crime including: drug trafficking, the creation of domestic offences, the adoption of
frameworks for mutual legal assistance, extradition, law enforcement cooperation
and technical assistance and training (149).

Convention Against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances, 1988: provides comprehensive measures against drug trafficking,
including provisions against money laundering and the diversion of precursor
chemicals. It provides for international cooperation through extradition of drug
traffickers, controlled deliveries and transfer of proceedings (150).

Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971: established an international
control system for psychotropic substances. It responded to the diversification and
expansion of the spectrum of drugs of abuse and introduced controls over a number
of synthetic drugs according to their abuse potential and their therapeutic value (151).

Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961: aims to combat drug abuse by
coordinated international action. There are two forms of intervention and control.
First, it seeks to limit the possession, use, trade, distribution, import, export,
manufacture and production of drugs exclusively to medical and scientific purposes.
Second, it combats drug trafficking through international cooperation to deter and
discourage drug traffickers (152).

17

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/afg/afg_drug-situation_2002-10-01_1 , accessed 5.01.08.

148) Resolution WHA56.24. Implementing the recommendations of the world report on violence
and health. In. Fifty-Sixth World Health Assembly, Geneva, 12-28, May 2003, Resolutions,
decisions and annexes. Geneva, World Health Organisation, 2003 (WHA56/2003/REC/1).

149) United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, 2000.

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24

Amanda Atkinson, Zara Anderson, Karen Hughes, Mark A Bellis, Harry Sumnall and Qutub Syed

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EconomicHistories of the Opium Trade

Siddharth Chandra, University of Pittsburgh

The history of opium has attracted the attention of historians for decades, and in a way that the

history of few other commodities has. Because a lot has already been written on the opium trade

in various parts of the world (for a sampling, see the citations at the end of this article), this piece

will focus on the history of the opium trade through the lens of the economic historian. In other

words, it will address the question “Why is opium of special interest to economic historians?”

Following a brief background of the opium trade, a discussion of this question is provided with a

focus on Asia and with references to more detailed and case-specific sources.

Opium: A Brief Background

Opium is produced from the opium poppy. The primary narcotic agent in opium is morphine. The

morphine-rich sap of the poppy is derived from incisions made in the bulbous portion of the flower.

The harvesting of the sap is an extremely labor-intensive process. The sap is then boiled down (or

gradually dried to about ten percent of its original water content) to make opium.

Opium belongs to the narcotic class of drugs, which also includes its modern derivatives such as

morphine and heroin. To quote the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (formerly the UN

Drug Control Program), “sought-after effects” include a “sense of well being by reducing tension,

anxiety and depression; euphoria, in large doses warmth, contentment, relaxed detachment from

emotional as well as physical distress,” and “relief from pain (analgesia).”1 “Long-term effects”

include, among a host of other things, “rapid development of tolerance and physical and

psychological dependence” and, in the case of “abrupt withdrawal,” “moderate to severe

withdrawal syndrome which is generally comparable to a bout of influenza (with cramps, diarrhea,

running nose, tremors, panic, chills and sweating, etc.).”2 Current research has begun to show how

opium affects the human brain through neural pathways, and how the addict’s brain is different

from that of the non-addict.

Key production centers of raw opium in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included

China, India, the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean), and Persia. While Chinese-grown opium was

used entirely for domestic consumption, raw opium from the other production centers was often

exported to feed the growing worldwide demand for the drug during this period. By the early

twentieth century, in some colonies, the processing of this raw opium had been taken over by the

state. The Dutch, for example, invested in a state-of-the-art opium-processing factory in Batavia

(now Jakarta) in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia). Similarly, the British set up their

own opium factories in India. Interestingly, the British colonial facilities (at Neemuch and

Ghazipur in India) are still being used to produce opium, which is now legally exported to the

United States and other countries for medicinal purposes; the morphine derived from this opium

is used worldwide as a painkiller of last resort in patients, especially those who are terminally ill.

Opium and its derivatives have been and continue to be consumed in many forms. Historically,

opium was eaten, drunk, or smoked. At present, in addition to these means of consumption,

Economic Histories of the Opium Trade

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opium derivatives can also be injected, as in the case of heroin. Opium was also often mixed

with other ingredients to create popular products. For example, tobacco was mixed with the drug

to make madak, one of the most widely used forms of opium in parts of late-nineteenth century

India.

Why Is Opium of Special Interest to Economic Historians?
What differentiates opium from other tradable commodities, such as rubber and sugar, for

example, is its highly addictive nature. Because of the physical and psychological dependence that

it is capable of creating in significant numbers of its users, as a commodity, opium possesses a

potential for economic gain (especially for producers) and loss (especially for consumers) that

surpasses the potential of most commodities.

At least three broad themes dominate research on the economic history of opium. The first is the

repeated use of opium in the accumulation of power and wealth, especially at the state level. The

second is the clash between economic and ethical interests in determining the role of opium in

society. The third is the (in)effectiveness of different regimes and drug control strategies in

reducing the negative health and social consequences of widespread opium consumption, with its

implications for the present-day management of the consumption of addictive substances in

general and opium and its derivatives in particular.

Opium as an Instrument of State Power
While there are many examples of the use of opium as an instrument of state power, perhaps the

two most well-known examples are the role of opium in trade relations, and the use of opium as a

source of revenue for the state. Between 1856 and 1860, Britain fought China (in the Second

Opium War) over the right to trade with China. The British victory ensured that European powers

would have continued access to the Chinese market for opium. More importantly for Britain, the

victory ensured that it would continue to sell the one good in China that had the potential to reduce

or even eliminate its burgeoning trade deficit with China. In exchange for tea, silk, and other non-

(or less-) addictive commodities, China would receive opium. A consequence of the Second

Opium War was the gradual but significant increase in the prevalence of opium consumption in

China. Not coincidentally, the British trade deficit with China also fell.

Across nineteenth and early twentieth century Asia, the use of opium to generate excise revenues

for states, and especially colonial powers, gradually became standard practice. Britain (in India

and Malaya, for example), the Netherlands (in the Netherlands East Indies), Japan (in Taiwan),

and France (in French Indochina) all used different forms of state intervention to ensure that a

portion of the sizeable proceeds from the sale of opium ended up in state coffers. In some cases,

the revenue accounted for well over ten percent of all state revenues. Table 1 shows the

contribution of revenues from opium to the Netherlands Indies budget over the period 1914-1940.

Because of the low cost of production of opium, for every Guilder of cost that the state incurred,

it made close to four Guilders in profit!

Table 1

Contribution of the Opium Regie to the Government Budget in the Netherlands Indies

Year

Opium

Revenue†

Total

Revenue†

Opium %

of Total

Opium

Profits†

Profit as

% of Opium

Revenue

1914 35.0 281.7 13.5 26.7 76

1915 32.6 309.7 11.2 25.2 77

1916 35.3 343.1 10.8 28.4 80

1917 38.2 360.1 11.4 30.4 80

1918 38.8 399.7 10.2 30.1 78

1919 42.5 543.1 8.2 33.2 78

1920 53.6 756.4 7.5 41.6 78

1921 53.3 791.8 7.1 42.1 79

1922 44.2 752.6 6.2 34.5 78

1923 37.6 650.4 6.1 30.1 80

1924 35.3 717.9 5.1 28.1 80

1925 36.6 753.8 5.2 28.7 78

1926 37.7 807.9 5.2 29.1 77

1927 40.6 779.1 5.7 31.4 77

1928 42.8 835.9 5.7 34.6 81

1929 40.9 848.5 5.3 32.7 80

1930 34.5 755.6 5.3 27.1 79

1931 25.3 652.0 4.6 19.0 75

1932 17.3 501.8 4.5 12.3 71

1933 12.7 460.6 3.7 8.6 68

1934 11.1 455.2 3.2 7.2* 65*

1935 9.5 466.7 2.6 6.1* 64*

1936 8.9 537.8 2.2 5.7* 64*

1937 11.5 575.4 2.5 7.7* 67*

1938 11.9 597.1 2.6 8.0* 67*

1939 11.5 663.4 1.7 8.6* 75*

1940 11.7 N.A N.A 8.5* 72*

Sources: For opium, the source data are Dutch East Indies Opiumregie, Verslag betreffende den Dienst der Opiumregie (Batavia:

Landsdrukkerij, 1915-1933) and Dutch East Indies Opium- en Zoutregie, Verslag betreffende de Opium- en Zoutregie en de

Zoutwinning (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1934-1940). For total revenue, the source data are P. Creutzberg, Changing Economy in

Indonesia: A Selection of Statistical Source Material from the Early Nineteenth Century up to 1940. Volume 2: Public Finance

1816-1939, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), p.43-44. The latter source contains data only until 1939. This table was also

published in Chandra (2000), p.104.

†In millions of current (i.e., not adjusted for inflation) Guilders.

*These figures are derived from the combined accounts of the Opium and Salt Regie. They were computed by subtracting from

opium revenue all elements of cost which were totally or partially attributable to the opium section of the Opium and Salt Regie.

The numbers, therefore, underestimate the profitability of opium.

Economic vs. Ethical Interests
Because of its addictive nature and the relative insensitivity (inelasticity) of consumption to small

or moderate fluctuations in its price, opium was an especially reliable source of revenue for

governments in general and colonial governments in Asia in particular. The fact that it was

addictive, and in many cases strongly so, however, raised ethical questions about its suitability as

a target of taxation and, more broadly, as a legal commodity. Framed simplistically, the ethical

questions were (i) should a state rely for revenue on the sale of a good that is demonstrably causing

the physical and economic ruin of some of its subjects? and (ii) even if the state is not a direct

financial beneficiary of the sale of opium, should it permit the use of such a substance by its

subjects? By the early twentieth century, these ethical concerns had led to the development of a

widespread anti-opium movement in Europe. This clash of ethical and economic interests led to

lively debates both in Europe and in Asia, and a number of states moved to accommodate (or at

least ostensibly accommodate) the ethical interests by instituting changes in opium regimes.

Opium Regimes
There is widespread agreement among historians that opium consumption increased worldwide

(and in most cases at the country-level as well) in the second half of the nineteenth century. As the

ethical debate intensified in the early twentieth century, however, states voluntarily instituted

changes in their opium regimes ostensibly aimed at reducing the opium problem in their colonies

and at home. The Netherlands, for example, moved to take complete control of the manufacture

and sale of opium across the Netherlands Indies. The Opium Regie, as the system came to be

called, was modeled on the French system in French Indochina. Whether there was ever any

intention to reduce the drug problem in the Netherlands Indies is questionable. Clearly, in the first

decade in which the Regie was in operation, opium sales increased substantially, netting the

government enormous profits.

Most statistics do, however, show a marked decline (albeit in many cases not a steady one) in

opium consumption between 1900 and 1936. These statistics are used to argue that (i) the regime

changes that were instituted were actually intended to reduce opium consumption and (ii) the

regime changes were successful in combating the opium problem. In fact, the use of 1936 as the

reference year is rather unfortunate. The effects of the Great Depression, which began in 1929,

were being felt as late as 1936, especially in the trade-oriented economies of Asia. Because of the

precipitous drop in incomes during the Depression and the inflexibility of official opium prices in

many economies, the ability of opium consumers to purchase legal opium fell drastically,

contributing to a precipitous drop in the consumption of legal opium. Figure 1 demonstrates this

phenomenon in the Netherlands East Indies. To the extent that this drop in legal opium

consumption was not countered by increases in the consumption of contraband opium (which is

not measured), the Great Depression deserves far more credit than it has received to date for the

decline in opium consumption between 1900 and 1936.

Conclusion
The addictive nature of opium makes it a particularly interesting candidate for study by economic

historians. The three broad areas of interest discussed above are of direct or indirect relevance to

contemporary problems. In the area of drugs and state power, after opium and heroin were banned

in the first half of the twentieth century, in a number of instances, criminal syndicates took the

trade over from the states that had once controlled it. Like their predecessors, they have since used

it to accumulate vast fortunes and power. In some cases, they have even come to pose a credible

threat to the states themselves. In the area of ethics vs. economics, debates continue to rage over

government intervention in markets for intoxicating or addictive substances and activities,

including hard drugs, marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, and gambling. Should these activities be legal?

Should the government tax them, and if so, how heavily? In the area of regimes, what regimes are

likely to yield optimal outcomes for the management of addictive substances and activities?

Just as the issues illuminated by the study of the economic history of opium are hotly debated, so

too does the consumption of opium and its derivatives continue unabated to this day. And, because

accurate information about opium is extremely difficult to come by in the present regime because

the drug is illegal, historical data dating back to a time when opium was consumed legally and

openly is of particular importance in the debates surrounding the history and management of the

problem of addiction.

References

Brook, T. and B.T. Wakabayashi, editors. Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000.

Chandra, S. “What the Numbers Really Tell Us about the Decline of the Opium Regie.” Indonesia 70 (2000):101-23.

Chandra, S. “The Role of Government Policy in Increasing Drug Use: Java, 1875-1914.” Journal of Economic History
62 (2002): 1116-21.

Courtwright, D.T. Dark Paradise: Opium Addiction in America before 1940. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1982.

Crothers, T.D. “Some New Studies of the Opium Disease.” Journal of the American Medical Association XVIII (1892):
227-33.

Dick, H., 1993. “Oei Tiong Ham.” In The Rise and Fall of Revenue Farming: Business Elites and the Emergence of
the Modern State in Southeast Asia, edited by J. Butcher and H. Dick, 272-80. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.

Fauci, A.S., E. Braunwald, K.J. Isselbacher, and J.B. Martin, editors. Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine:
Companion Handbook, fourteenth edition. New York: McGraw Hill, 1998.

Foster, A.L. “Prohibition as Superiority: Policing Opium in South-East Asia, 1898-1925.” International History Review
22 (2000): 253-73.

Hamilton, M. “Opioid FAQ.” 1994. http://leda.lycaeum.org/?ID=11312, as viewed in May 2004.

Liu, J.L., J.T. Liu, J.L. Hammitt, and S.Y. Chou. “The price elasticity of opium in Taiwan, 1914-1942,” Journal of
Health Economics 18 (1999): 795-810.

McCoy, A. The Politics of Heroin. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003.

Moyers, B. “Moyers on Addiction. Science: The Hijacked Brain.” PBS Online and WNET/thirteen, 1998.
http://www.thirteen.org/closetohome/science/. Accessed on May 4, 2004.

http://leda.lycaeum.org/?ID=11312

http://www.thirteen.org/closetohome/science/

Reader’s Digest. Prescription and Over-the-Counter Drugs. Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest, 1998.

Rush, J.R. “Social Control and Influence in Nineteenth Century Indonesia: Opium Farms and the Chinese of Java.”
Indonesia 35 (1983): 53-64.

Rush, J.R. “Opium in Java: A Sinister Friend.” Journal of Asian Studies 44 (1985): 549-62.

Rush, J.R., Opium to Java: Revenue Farming and Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Indonesia, 1860-1910. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1990.

Trocki, C.A. Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore, 1800-1910. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1990.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). http://www.unodc.org (accessed May 4, 2004).

van Luijk, E.W., and J.C. van Ours. “The Effects of Government Policy on Opium Consumption: Java, 1875-1904.”
Journal of Economic History 61 (2001): 1-18.

van Luijk, E.W., and J.C. van Ours. “The Effects of Government Policy on Drug Use Reconsidered.” Journal of
Economic History 62 (2002): 1122-25.

van Ours, J.C. “The Price Elasticity of Hard Drugs: The Case of Opium in the Dutch East Indies, 1923-1938.” Journal
of Political Economy 103 (1995): 261-79.

1 For a brief but informative description of opium and opiates, see the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime at
http://www.unodc.org (accessed May 4, 2004) and especially the files on opium under the link “Drug Abuse and
Demand Reduction.”

2 UNODC, http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/report_1998-10-01_1_page014.html (Accessed May 4, 2004). See also
Crothers (1892) for medical accounts of the “opium disease.”

Preparation of this piece was assisted by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Substance Abuse Policy
Research Program and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA BSTART grant 1R03DA014322), National
Institutes of Health.

Citation: Chandra, Siddharth. “Economic Histories of the Opium Trade”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert
Whaples. February 10, 2008. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/economic-histories-of-the-opium-trade/

http://www.unodc.org/

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/chandra.opium#sdendnote1anc

http://www.unodc.org/

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/chandra.opium#sdendnote2anc

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/report_1998-10-01_1_page014.html

Economic Histories of the Opium Trade