Illegal drug trade in Latin America
The illegal drug trade in Latin America concerns primarily the production and sale of cocaine and cannabis, including the export of these banned substances to the United States and Europe.
[1] Drug consumption in Latin America remains relatively low, but cocaine in particular has increased in recent years in countries along the major smuggling routes.
[1] The United States is the primary destination, but around 25 to 30% of global cocaine production travels from Latin America to Europe, typically via West Africa.
[1] Following their demise, the Norte del Valle cartel has filled the Colombian vacuum, along with rightwing paramilitaries (e.g. United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AUC) and leftwing insurgent groups (FARC, ELN).
[1] As a result of the concentration of drug trafficking, Latin America and the Caribbean has the world's highest crime rates, with murder reaching 32.6 per 100,000 of population in 2008.
[5] This has lead to notable traffickers and kingpins like El Chapo (Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera) being extradited to face real time behind bars in the United States.
[6] Since 2008, the U.S. Congress has supported the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) with approximately $800 million[7] to "fund programs for narcotics interdiction, strengthening law enforcement and justice institutions and violence prevention through work with at-risk youth".
[2] For more than ten years, the U.S. has been funding Plan Colombia, which aims to combat illegal drugs production in the country, especially the growing of coca, the plant from which cocaine is produced.
[8] The administration has left financing for eradication projects in the Andes largely unchanged, despite debate over whether such efforts can sharply restrict the supply of cocaine or significantly increase the price in the United States in the long run.
[12] In 2007, the U.S. launched the Merida initiative, a bilateral partnership that supports Mexico's law enforcement, helps to counteract the illegal trade in narcotics and strengthens border security.
The four main focuses of this initiative are 'disrupting organized criminal groups; institutionalizing the rule of law; creating a 21st-century border, and building strong and resilient communities'.
[19] According to Peter Dale Scott, "The Guadalajara Cartel, Mexico's most powerful drug-trafficking network in the early 1980s, prospered largely because it enjoyed the protection of the DFS, under its chief Miguel Nazar Haro, a CIA asset.
