NCJ Number
180552
Date Published
March 1996
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This paper assesses the effectiveness and impact of U.S. antinarcotics efforts in the Andean region (Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru) and offers policy recommendations.
Abstract
The Andean region is the frontline of America's "war on drugs." The Clinton Administration's supply-side strategy targets the sources of production of the coca leaf (a traditional crop among peasant communities that can be mixed with chemicals and refined to produce cocaine) and the Latin American drug kingpins through eradication and interdiction efforts. Seven years after the "war on drugs" was announced by President Bush, however, no significant dent has been made in the amount of coca grown for cocaine production or in the flow of illicit drugs across U.S. borders. Neither eradication nor interdiction strategies have been effective in achieving their goals. U.S. international drug control efforts are not only ineffective, but may be doing more harm than good. In the Andean region, U.S. antinarcotics efforts have the harmful side effect of forging ever closer U.S. ties with abusive police and military forces. Thus, U.S. international drug control efforts are apparently undermining other important U.S. policy goals of promoting human rights and democracy. This paper recommends that U.S. assistance programs for the Andean region be shifted from military and police efforts to sustainable development activities and the strengthening and reforming of local judiciaries where host governments have shown political will toward this. The U.S. Government should also be held accountable for its pledge that "human rights abuses are not continued by any country which receives U.S. counternarcotics assistance."