The War on Drugs was a concept introduced by Richard Nixon to enforce the notion, created at the beginning of the 20th century, that drug users were criminals. This view created the necessary justification for the justice system to punish this people, instead of framing the abuse of substance as a health disorder that had to be treated with compassion, similarly to alcoholism.
These policies, based on the criminalization of drug users, have had a big impact in Latin America, especially in Colombia and Mexico, which are the countries most affected by the drug trade. Colombia is the main producer of cocaine in the world, while Mexico is the main gateway to narcotics to the US.
Similarly, the war on drugs have had a huge effect in the Latinx community in the US, that has been linked to drugs and crime, a view that has often underpinned a biased enforcement of the law against people of color. Statistics show that incarceration rates over drug related offenses affect disproportionately people of color.
These policies, based on the criminalization of drug users, have had a big impact in Latin America, especially in Colombia and Mexico, which are the countries most affected by the drug trade. Colombia is the main producer of cocaine in the world, while Mexico is the main gateway to narcotics to the US.
Similarly, the war on drugs have had a huge effect in the Latinx community in the US, that has been linked to drugs and crime, a view that has often underpinned a biased enforcement of the law against people of color. Statistics show that incarceration rates over drug related offenses affect disproportionately people of color.
The war on drugs has its base on a view that aims to stop altogether the use of drugs, a pipe dream in itself since mind altering substances have always been part of humanity, and have always been present in different cultures throughout the world.
The prohibition regime started at the beginning of the 20th century, as a puritanical reaction in the US to the masses of migrants coming from countries that were not protestant and white. Thus, the first calls to regulate opium coincided with the moral corruption attributed to Chinese immigrants; while cocaine was linked to sexual crimes committed by black men, and marijuana was tied to the presence of Mexicans in the US (Escohotado 1994, 86).
Alcohol, a substance that was prohibited too for a number of years in the first half of the 20th century, was linked to Irish and Jewish immigrants, and thus proscribed by a puritanical majority in the US.
The origin of the prohibition has always been based on the anxieties felt by the Anglo and protestant majority in the US, and has been a way to tie specific communities to crimes. Linking these groups to illegal activities has been an easy way to stigmatize them and control them.
Regardless of the stigma against drug users, viewed as morally corrupt and crime-prone individuals, narcotic consumption did not seem to be a social problem throughout most part of the 20th century. As a matter of fact, during the fifties and sixties, cultural and artistic movements, such as jazz and rock and roll, were associated with the consumption of illicit substances.
The use of drugs among the artistic communities had been well established since the 19th century in Europe. Writers, philosophers and poets such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Balzac, Nietzsche and Thomas DeQuincy experimented with drugs, and view them as a way to widen perception and self-knowledge.
In the sixties, the use of marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, peyote and other mind altering substance became popular and were used in a massive scale. The people that used them, young people in search of personal freedom, were often associated with political movements such as pacifism.
The opposition to the Vietnam war coincided with other social activity in the US, as the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties and as the fight for the rights of the black community, such as the one led by Malcolm X and later on by the Black Panthers.
These perceived threats to the social order prompted president Richard Nixon to formulate in 1971 for the first time the concept of the war on drugs, which in reality became a war on drug users and specifically a war on certain social groups – the ones that menaced his imperiled government.
A top Nixon aide, John Ehrlichman, said in a 1994 interview published 22 years later in Harper's magazine what the war on drugs was really about: “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying. We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did” (Baum 2016).
Apart from this candid admission one can only guess what were the true intentions of the Nixon administration when he declared his war on drugs. The reality, though, seem to confirm exactly what Ehrlichman had said, and have been consistent with the hysteria that more than a century ago led to the prohibition regime.
The enforcement of the laws regarding drug use and drug possession have disproportionately targeted black people. After the black community, Hispanic individuals are the most affected by these selective application of the laws.
The prohibition regime started at the beginning of the 20th century, as a puritanical reaction in the US to the masses of migrants coming from countries that were not protestant and white. Thus, the first calls to regulate opium coincided with the moral corruption attributed to Chinese immigrants; while cocaine was linked to sexual crimes committed by black men, and marijuana was tied to the presence of Mexicans in the US (Escohotado 1994, 86).
Alcohol, a substance that was prohibited too for a number of years in the first half of the 20th century, was linked to Irish and Jewish immigrants, and thus proscribed by a puritanical majority in the US.
The origin of the prohibition has always been based on the anxieties felt by the Anglo and protestant majority in the US, and has been a way to tie specific communities to crimes. Linking these groups to illegal activities has been an easy way to stigmatize them and control them.
Regardless of the stigma against drug users, viewed as morally corrupt and crime-prone individuals, narcotic consumption did not seem to be a social problem throughout most part of the 20th century. As a matter of fact, during the fifties and sixties, cultural and artistic movements, such as jazz and rock and roll, were associated with the consumption of illicit substances.
The use of drugs among the artistic communities had been well established since the 19th century in Europe. Writers, philosophers and poets such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Balzac, Nietzsche and Thomas DeQuincy experimented with drugs, and view them as a way to widen perception and self-knowledge.
In the sixties, the use of marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, peyote and other mind altering substance became popular and were used in a massive scale. The people that used them, young people in search of personal freedom, were often associated with political movements such as pacifism.
The opposition to the Vietnam war coincided with other social activity in the US, as the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties and as the fight for the rights of the black community, such as the one led by Malcolm X and later on by the Black Panthers.
These perceived threats to the social order prompted president Richard Nixon to formulate in 1971 for the first time the concept of the war on drugs, which in reality became a war on drug users and specifically a war on certain social groups – the ones that menaced his imperiled government.
A top Nixon aide, John Ehrlichman, said in a 1994 interview published 22 years later in Harper's magazine what the war on drugs was really about: “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying. We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did” (Baum 2016).
Apart from this candid admission one can only guess what were the true intentions of the Nixon administration when he declared his war on drugs. The reality, though, seem to confirm exactly what Ehrlichman had said, and have been consistent with the hysteria that more than a century ago led to the prohibition regime.
The enforcement of the laws regarding drug use and drug possession have disproportionately targeted black people. After the black community, Hispanic individuals are the most affected by these selective application of the laws.
According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, African Americans and Anglos use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate for African Americans for drug charges is almost six times that of whites.
Moreover, African Americans represent 12.5 percent of illicit drug users, but 29 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 33 percent of those incarcerated in state facilities for drug offenses.
Drug offenses became the main reason the US became the country with the highest number of incarcerated people in the world. Although the US makes up about five percent of the world’s population, it has 21 percent of the world’s prisoners.
Hispanics have been heavily affected too by this punitive approach. According to figures published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, buy they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015.
If African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as Anglos, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40 percent, according to NAACP.
Michelle Alexander says that the war on drugs created the system of mass incarceration in the US, that affects not only the millions of people currently in prison but the millions more that are currently on probation or parole.
More than 70 million people now have criminal records that authorize legal discrimination against them, relegating them to a permanent second-class status. The overwhelming majority ensnared by this system have been convicted of nonviolent crimes and drug offenses (Alexander 2010).
Even though the prohibition was based on racial premises and that its enforcement was racist, the US managed to convince the international community to adopt similar approaches all throughout the world.
The United Nations (UN) approved a series of conventions that bolstered the punitive view espoused by the US. The last piece of these international framework was the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. It complements the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.
Moreover, African Americans represent 12.5 percent of illicit drug users, but 29 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 33 percent of those incarcerated in state facilities for drug offenses.
Drug offenses became the main reason the US became the country with the highest number of incarcerated people in the world. Although the US makes up about five percent of the world’s population, it has 21 percent of the world’s prisoners.
Hispanics have been heavily affected too by this punitive approach. According to figures published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, buy they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015.
If African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as Anglos, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40 percent, according to NAACP.
Michelle Alexander says that the war on drugs created the system of mass incarceration in the US, that affects not only the millions of people currently in prison but the millions more that are currently on probation or parole.
More than 70 million people now have criminal records that authorize legal discrimination against them, relegating them to a permanent second-class status. The overwhelming majority ensnared by this system have been convicted of nonviolent crimes and drug offenses (Alexander 2010).
Even though the prohibition was based on racial premises and that its enforcement was racist, the US managed to convince the international community to adopt similar approaches all throughout the world.
The United Nations (UN) approved a series of conventions that bolstered the punitive view espoused by the US. The last piece of these international framework was the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. It complements the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.
As of today, there are 190 Parties to the Convention, of which 185 are UN member States. So, the punitive framework is well extended around the world. The stated goal was to “eliminate or reduce significantly” the production, trafficking and consumption of illegal drugs over the next decade.
By any measure, these objectives have not been achieved, according to the UN itself. Over 100 billion dollars are spent annually on law-enforcement activity focused on curb an illegal drug market that generates revenues estimated at 500 billion dollars. At the same time, coca and opium production reached record levels in 2017, and in the last decade a large number of potent synthetic drugs were designed.
According to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an independent body comprising 24 members, including 12 former heads of state or government and four Nobel Prize laureates, the emphasis on prohibition has resulted “in devastation for millions of people who use drugs, cultivators, women used as couriers, families, ethnic minorities, and vulnerable communities. Human rights violations, violence, disproportionate sentencing, prison overcrowding, public health crises, and endangered state institutions continue to break lives all over the world”.
The punitive approaches have functioned as well as a justification for the US to intervene, pressure, cajole and bully countries all over the world, especially in Latin America. The drug problem has been framed in the public debate in the US as an issue of drugs coming into the country. The issue of demand of drugs from the US consumers is not usually addressed, although it is the main driver of the market.
According to a research paper published by the civil rights group Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), since Portugal decriminalized drug use in 2001, the number of people voluntarily entering treatment has increased significantly, and rates of problematic and adolescent drug use has fallen (DPA 2019).
By any measure, these objectives have not been achieved, according to the UN itself. Over 100 billion dollars are spent annually on law-enforcement activity focused on curb an illegal drug market that generates revenues estimated at 500 billion dollars. At the same time, coca and opium production reached record levels in 2017, and in the last decade a large number of potent synthetic drugs were designed.
According to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an independent body comprising 24 members, including 12 former heads of state or government and four Nobel Prize laureates, the emphasis on prohibition has resulted “in devastation for millions of people who use drugs, cultivators, women used as couriers, families, ethnic minorities, and vulnerable communities. Human rights violations, violence, disproportionate sentencing, prison overcrowding, public health crises, and endangered state institutions continue to break lives all over the world”.
The punitive approaches have functioned as well as a justification for the US to intervene, pressure, cajole and bully countries all over the world, especially in Latin America. The drug problem has been framed in the public debate in the US as an issue of drugs coming into the country. The issue of demand of drugs from the US consumers is not usually addressed, although it is the main driver of the market.
According to a research paper published by the civil rights group Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), since Portugal decriminalized drug use in 2001, the number of people voluntarily entering treatment has increased significantly, and rates of problematic and adolescent drug use has fallen (DPA 2019).
Considering the evidence it has been clear that the US government has exploited the war on drugs as a way of internal social control, to have a tight grip on populations that it deems problematic, and as a way to control people of color even outside its territory – in Latin America.
The war on drugs became the new justification the US had for intervening in Latin America after the end of the Cold War. Without the urgent need to fight communism and the emergence of progressive social movements, the drug flow became the latest reason the US government saw the region as a potential threat and thus as a priority to the US military.
These interventions could be understood as an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, which was declared in 1821 as an official US policy that it's still actively implemented in the region (Prevost, 2011). The essence of the doctrine is that the region of North, Central and South America and the Caribbean represent a hemisphere “unto itself” naturally dominated by the US and largely free of influence from any other region in the world, especially Europe.
The first of these programs was Plan Colombia, launched in 2000 with the stated objective of confronting the increasing violence in the South American country. In the next 16 years, the US would spend more than 10 billion dollars to help fight the criminal organizations that flourished with drug money.
Most of the resources devoted to the plan went to military spending, according to an analysis published in 2016 by the think tank Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). According to this paper, 71 percent of the US investment for Plan Colombia went to aerial mobility, illicit crop eradication, drug interdiction, training and development, intelligence and training and maintenance centres.
The results were at best mixed. Land cultivated with coca has grown during this period, according to the UN, and during the first eight years of the plan violence increased in Colombia. More than ten years later, homicide rates started to decrease.
There were other consequences of Plan Colombia. WOLA analysis stated that the militarization of the drug problem in Colombia derailed a peace process that was going on in the country in 2000. Others analysts agree. According to Virginia Bouvier, from the Washington-based United Institute of Peace, “the prospect of a militarized plan to strengthen the Colombian military at a time when peace was being negotiated tilted the balance of power towards the military”.
The war on drugs became the new justification the US had for intervening in Latin America after the end of the Cold War. Without the urgent need to fight communism and the emergence of progressive social movements, the drug flow became the latest reason the US government saw the region as a potential threat and thus as a priority to the US military.
These interventions could be understood as an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, which was declared in 1821 as an official US policy that it's still actively implemented in the region (Prevost, 2011). The essence of the doctrine is that the region of North, Central and South America and the Caribbean represent a hemisphere “unto itself” naturally dominated by the US and largely free of influence from any other region in the world, especially Europe.
The first of these programs was Plan Colombia, launched in 2000 with the stated objective of confronting the increasing violence in the South American country. In the next 16 years, the US would spend more than 10 billion dollars to help fight the criminal organizations that flourished with drug money.
Most of the resources devoted to the plan went to military spending, according to an analysis published in 2016 by the think tank Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). According to this paper, 71 percent of the US investment for Plan Colombia went to aerial mobility, illicit crop eradication, drug interdiction, training and development, intelligence and training and maintenance centres.
The results were at best mixed. Land cultivated with coca has grown during this period, according to the UN, and during the first eight years of the plan violence increased in Colombia. More than ten years later, homicide rates started to decrease.
There were other consequences of Plan Colombia. WOLA analysis stated that the militarization of the drug problem in Colombia derailed a peace process that was going on in the country in 2000. Others analysts agree. According to Virginia Bouvier, from the Washington-based United Institute of Peace, “the prospect of a militarized plan to strengthen the Colombian military at a time when peace was being negotiated tilted the balance of power towards the military”.
Others analysis have criticized Plan Colombia because it opened the door to a wide range of human rights violations in the country, and begun an era characterized by military's atrocities. During a single period of heightened US assistance, the Colombian military killed more than 5,000 civilians in the country (Lindsay-Poland 2018).
For the political establishment in Washington, nonetheless, the plan has been a success. According to a story ran in 2016 in the The Washington Post, Plan Colombia “is celebrated today by many Republicans and Democrats in Congress as one of the top US foreign policy achievements of the 21st century. Colombia, a fast-growing nation of 50 million, has become the leading US ally in South America and a major free-trade partner”.
With that mindset, the US proceeded to implement a similar plan to combat, largely by military means, the flow drugs from another country – Mexico.
Drug trafficking had already been exacerbated in Mexico by another US policy. Apart from the ever increasing demand of drugs in the US, the economic model pushed by the so-called Washington consensus in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union had had an impact in the trafficking in Mexico.
Neoliberal policies, which meant privatization of public companies, reduced state functions and purportedly open markets for trade, was institutionalized after the approval of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among Mexico, United States and Canada.
The market reforms imposed on Mexico to enter the global market as a trading partner benefited mainly the US corporations, which could enter this country with less restrictions, in a model akin to necolonialism (Gálvez 2018).
Agricultural employment fell by 30 percent between 1993 and 2008, meaning that 2.3 millions peasants and farm workers were expelled from their lands. Moreover, since NAFTA's inception the real value of the Mexican minimum wage dropped in about 20 years more than 25 percent (González 2011).
“With more than two million farm laborers out of work since NAFTA began, the northern cities of Mexico are teeming with an army of desperate unemployed men. Many of those unemployed become easy to recruit for the operations of the drug gangs”, according to González.
In that economic context, the Mérida Initiative, which was also called Plan Mexico in reference to the similar effort in Colombia, was presented in 2007 aiming at combating drug trafficking, transnational organized crime, and money laundering. As of 2017, 1.6 billion of Mérida Initiative assistance had been delivered to Mexico for training, equipment, and intelligence. This aid included the purchase of 22 aircrafts (Seelke, 2017).
For the political establishment in Washington, nonetheless, the plan has been a success. According to a story ran in 2016 in the The Washington Post, Plan Colombia “is celebrated today by many Republicans and Democrats in Congress as one of the top US foreign policy achievements of the 21st century. Colombia, a fast-growing nation of 50 million, has become the leading US ally in South America and a major free-trade partner”.
With that mindset, the US proceeded to implement a similar plan to combat, largely by military means, the flow drugs from another country – Mexico.
Drug trafficking had already been exacerbated in Mexico by another US policy. Apart from the ever increasing demand of drugs in the US, the economic model pushed by the so-called Washington consensus in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union had had an impact in the trafficking in Mexico.
Neoliberal policies, which meant privatization of public companies, reduced state functions and purportedly open markets for trade, was institutionalized after the approval of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among Mexico, United States and Canada.
The market reforms imposed on Mexico to enter the global market as a trading partner benefited mainly the US corporations, which could enter this country with less restrictions, in a model akin to necolonialism (Gálvez 2018).
Agricultural employment fell by 30 percent between 1993 and 2008, meaning that 2.3 millions peasants and farm workers were expelled from their lands. Moreover, since NAFTA's inception the real value of the Mexican minimum wage dropped in about 20 years more than 25 percent (González 2011).
“With more than two million farm laborers out of work since NAFTA began, the northern cities of Mexico are teeming with an army of desperate unemployed men. Many of those unemployed become easy to recruit for the operations of the drug gangs”, according to González.
In that economic context, the Mérida Initiative, which was also called Plan Mexico in reference to the similar effort in Colombia, was presented in 2007 aiming at combating drug trafficking, transnational organized crime, and money laundering. As of 2017, 1.6 billion of Mérida Initiative assistance had been delivered to Mexico for training, equipment, and intelligence. This aid included the purchase of 22 aircrafts (Seelke, 2017).
According to this analysis, by the Congressional Research Service, most of the resources went toward the purchase of aircraft, surveillance software, and other goods and services produced by the US private defense contractors.
This further militarization of the war on drugs waged by the Mexican government has proved to be disastrous for the human rights record of the country.
According to the civil group Amnesty International (AI), president Enrique Peña Nieto security strategy, was based on “increased militarization, creating a fertile breeding ground for serious human rights violations”.
The tally of the damage was appalling: more than 37,000 disappeared persons, multiple instances of extrajudicial executions carried out by security forces; and the widespread practice of torture, including sexual torture, as a standard procedure in the justice system (AI, 2018).
The punitive approach implied in the war on drugs (the mandate imposed by the US to militarily curb the flow of drugs instead on controlling the demand by offering rehabilitation therapies to drug users), opened the door to direct interventions from the US in Mexican territory, as well as in countries of Central America.
These interventions have been implemented by specific programs created by law-enforcement agencies of the US government. One of the most infamous was the operation later known as Fast and Furious, which is just a part of a series of operations launched by the Arizona Field Office of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with the stated goal of detaining major criminal kingpins
This further militarization of the war on drugs waged by the Mexican government has proved to be disastrous for the human rights record of the country.
According to the civil group Amnesty International (AI), president Enrique Peña Nieto security strategy, was based on “increased militarization, creating a fertile breeding ground for serious human rights violations”.
The tally of the damage was appalling: more than 37,000 disappeared persons, multiple instances of extrajudicial executions carried out by security forces; and the widespread practice of torture, including sexual torture, as a standard procedure in the justice system (AI, 2018).
The punitive approach implied in the war on drugs (the mandate imposed by the US to militarily curb the flow of drugs instead on controlling the demand by offering rehabilitation therapies to drug users), opened the door to direct interventions from the US in Mexican territory, as well as in countries of Central America.
These interventions have been implemented by specific programs created by law-enforcement agencies of the US government. One of the most infamous was the operation later known as Fast and Furious, which is just a part of a series of operations launched by the Arizona Field Office of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with the stated goal of detaining major criminal kingpins
Operated from 2006 to 2011, the program “purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them”, according to internal communications by ATF agents that were part of a subsequent investigation by Congress.
This was not the first program launched by the ATF in Mexico to track the illicit sales of guns to Mexican territory with the intent of producing arrests of high-level suspects, but it was the first time this kind of operation was run without the knowledge of the Mexican government, which was left in the dark.
The consequences were dire. The ATF monitored the sale of about 2,000 firearms, of which only 710 were recovered as of February 2012, according to an analysis by the Department of Justice. Some minor straw purchasers were arrested but no high-level cartel figures had been apprehended, according to ATF agents.
The program not only failed spectacularly in targeting criminal masterminds in Mexico, but actually increased the violence it supposedly wanted to solve. The office of the Attorney General of Mexico declared that firearms linked to Fast and Furious were found in crime scenes where at least 150 Mexican civilians were maimed or killed.
Moreover, according to an investigative report published by the Mexican weekly Proceso, the most powerful drug organization in the country, Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Ismael “Mayo” Zambada, was the main recipient of the guns trafficked to Mexico under Fast and Furious.
The US government itself acknowledged that a grenade-launcher was seized in the house where “Chapo” Guzman was living in Sinaloa state just before his last arrest in 2016.
There's more hard evidence that the guns that were smuggled to Mexico under the umbrella of Fast and Furious ended up in the hands of criminals associated with the Sinaloa cartel. In 2011, the governor of Chihuahua, César Duarte, announced the largest seizure of weapons in Ciudad Juárez's history. State authorities recovered one machine gun capable of bringing down an aircraft, grenade-launchers, dozens of assault rifles, 50 millimeters guns and thousands of magazines.
This was not the first program launched by the ATF in Mexico to track the illicit sales of guns to Mexican territory with the intent of producing arrests of high-level suspects, but it was the first time this kind of operation was run without the knowledge of the Mexican government, which was left in the dark.
The consequences were dire. The ATF monitored the sale of about 2,000 firearms, of which only 710 were recovered as of February 2012, according to an analysis by the Department of Justice. Some minor straw purchasers were arrested but no high-level cartel figures had been apprehended, according to ATF agents.
The program not only failed spectacularly in targeting criminal masterminds in Mexico, but actually increased the violence it supposedly wanted to solve. The office of the Attorney General of Mexico declared that firearms linked to Fast and Furious were found in crime scenes where at least 150 Mexican civilians were maimed or killed.
Moreover, according to an investigative report published by the Mexican weekly Proceso, the most powerful drug organization in the country, Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Ismael “Mayo” Zambada, was the main recipient of the guns trafficked to Mexico under Fast and Furious.
The US government itself acknowledged that a grenade-launcher was seized in the house where “Chapo” Guzman was living in Sinaloa state just before his last arrest in 2016.
There's more hard evidence that the guns that were smuggled to Mexico under the umbrella of Fast and Furious ended up in the hands of criminals associated with the Sinaloa cartel. In 2011, the governor of Chihuahua, César Duarte, announced the largest seizure of weapons in Ciudad Juárez's history. State authorities recovered one machine gun capable of bringing down an aircraft, grenade-launchers, dozens of assault rifles, 50 millimeters guns and thousands of magazines.
The weapons were found in a house linked to the main lieutenant of the Sinaloa Cartel in Ciudad Juárez, José Antonio Torres Marrufo, aka “Jaguar”.
Some have argued that the fact that so many Fast and Furious firearms were found in the hands of Sinaloa Cartel members was not a coincidence. They say it's a well orchestrated plan of the US to tip the balance of the war on drugs in Mexico by aiding a criminal organization combat their rivals, perceived as being more threatening to the US national security.
Documents filed in the northern court of Illinois in relation to the case of drug trafficker Vicente Zambada Niebla, the eldest son of Mayo Zambada and the natural heir of the Sinaloa Cartel, argued that this criminal organization had an agreement with the US government.
“In exchange for information about rival drug trafficking organizations, the United States government agreed to dismiss the prosecution of the pending case against (Humberto) Loya Castro”, according to the motion filed in the case.
Loya Castro was the main lawyer of the Sinaloa Cartel. In fact, Loya Castro was indicted in 1985 in a court in California, just to have the charges dismissed two decades later because his cooperation, according to government motions filed in the trial of Chapo Guzmán in New York.
One part of the alleged agreement between the Sinaloa Cartel and the US government implied the shipments of guns to this criminal organization in Mexico to support them in their fight against rivals, according to the court motions.
This same strategy, of “divide and conquer” regarding criminal organizations in Latin America, had been deployed before, precisely in the case of Colombia, according to a former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Some have argued that the fact that so many Fast and Furious firearms were found in the hands of Sinaloa Cartel members was not a coincidence. They say it's a well orchestrated plan of the US to tip the balance of the war on drugs in Mexico by aiding a criminal organization combat their rivals, perceived as being more threatening to the US national security.
Documents filed in the northern court of Illinois in relation to the case of drug trafficker Vicente Zambada Niebla, the eldest son of Mayo Zambada and the natural heir of the Sinaloa Cartel, argued that this criminal organization had an agreement with the US government.
“In exchange for information about rival drug trafficking organizations, the United States government agreed to dismiss the prosecution of the pending case against (Humberto) Loya Castro”, according to the motion filed in the case.
Loya Castro was the main lawyer of the Sinaloa Cartel. In fact, Loya Castro was indicted in 1985 in a court in California, just to have the charges dismissed two decades later because his cooperation, according to government motions filed in the trial of Chapo Guzmán in New York.
One part of the alleged agreement between the Sinaloa Cartel and the US government implied the shipments of guns to this criminal organization in Mexico to support them in their fight against rivals, according to the court motions.
This same strategy, of “divide and conquer” regarding criminal organizations in Latin America, had been deployed before, precisely in the case of Colombia, according to a former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Robert Bonner, who led the DEA 1990 to 1993, stated in an op-ed published in The New York Times in 2010 that the campaign against criminal organization in Colombia had been a success that could be replicated in Mexico.
In line with the uplifting assessments of Colombia's anti-drug strategy by the US government officials, Bonner said that since the cartels were transnational organizations the efforts against them “required the involvement of more than one country”, that country being the US.
“A divide-and-conquer strategy can be effective. The Colombian government chose to attack one cartel at a time rather than fighting a two-front war”, wrote Bonner.
According to the motion filed in Zambada Niebla's case this amounted to an open admission by a US official that the strategy against organized crime in Colombia involved, if not the open support to one of the parties, at least the active disregard of their criminal activities. The motion stated that this strategy was in line with the alleged agreements of the Sinaloa Cartel with the US government.
The US government has denied any agreement with the Sinaloa Cartel although it is a fact that one of its high-level members cooperated with the DEA, and that his cooperation led to the dismissal of charges. It is a fact too that weapons smuggled under a program sanctioned by the US government ended up in the hand of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The active intervention of the US in the internal affairs of Mexico regarding the war on drugs may be surprising, although it is perfectly consistent with the racial undertones that have always been an integral part of the prohibition. It is consistent too with the US policy to Latin America as a whole.
Since the Monroe Doctrine, successive US governments have seen the region as part of its own backyard, where in the 20th century they had to prevent communism. After the demise of the Soviet Union, criminal organizations fueled by drug money, have been identified as a major threat to the security of the US.
Thus, the US government have forcefully implemented the war on drugs in its territory, affecting mainly people of color, African Americans and Latinx. It has exported this same view to Latin America, where the allegedly constant threat of organized crime has served to justify military interventions.
This trend could be partially curbed within the next years in Mexico. The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced during his first five months in office a new strategy to combat the drug problem in the country, which could mean a dramatic shift away from the criminalization of drug users. The National Development Plan for 2019-2024 stated that a “prohibitionist strategy is unsustainable” because it leads to violence and has a high public health cost.
This proposed plan would mean to negotiate directly with the United States and in multilateral venues such as the UN. If it succeeds this could mean the first step to end the war on drugs in the Americas.
ALL IMAGES USED IN THIS ESSAY ARE FREE FORM COPYRIGHT
Notes and Resources:
-Escohotado, Antonio. 1994. Las drogas. De los orígenes a la prohibición. Madrid: Alianza editorial.
-NAACP. Criminal Justice Fact Sheet: https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
-Baum, Dan. 2016. Legalize It All. How to win the war on drugs. Harper's: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
-Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press
-United Nations Conventions on Drugs:
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CND/conventions.html
-UN World Drug Report 2018:
https://www.unodc.org/wdr2018/
-Drug Policy Alliance. 2019. Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Learning From a Health and Human-Centered Approach:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/drug-decriminalization-portugal-learning-health-and-human-centered-approach
-Global Commission on Drug Policy:
http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/press-release-public-statement-of-the-global-commission-on-drug-policy-on-the-cnd-ministerial-segment-declaration
-The Many Lessons of Plan Colombia:
https://www.wola.org/analysis/the-many-lessons-of-plan-colombia/
-Cosoy, Natalio. 2016. Has Plan Colombia really worked? BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35491504
-Lindsay-Poland, John. 2018. Plan Colombia. U.S. Ally Atrocities and Community Activism. Duke University Press.
-Plan Colombia’: How Washington learned to love Latin American intervention again. The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/plan-colombia-how-washington-learned-to-love-latin-american-intervention-again/2016/09/18/ddaeae1c-3199-4ea3-8d0f-69ee1cbda589_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.93c305a60cf6
-Drug Policy Alliance. Brief History on the Drug War: http://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war
-Seelke, Clare Ribando; Finklea, Kristin. 2017. U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond. Congressional Research Service: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41349.pdf
-Amnesty International. 2018. Enrique Peña Nieto. El recuento de los daños: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/11/enrique-pena-nieto-el-recuento-de-los-danos/
- Office of the Inspector General. 2012. A Review of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious and Related Matters:
https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2012/s1209.pdf
-Emails show top Justice Department officials knew of ATF gun program
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-oct-03-la-na-atf-guns-20111004-story.html
-Rápido y Furioso: armas para el Chapo: https://www.proceso.com.mx/289679/289679-rapido-y-furioso-armas-para-el-chapo
-A Review of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious and Related Matters:
https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2012/s1209.pdf
-Mexico demands answers on guns:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-mar-11-la-naw-mexico-guns-20110311-story.html
-U.S. Government and Top Mexican Drug Cartel Exposed as Partners:
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/north-america/item/17396-u-s-government-and-top-mexican-drug-cartel-exposed-as-partners
-The New Cocaine Cowboys:
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/opinion/22iht-edbonner.html
In line with the uplifting assessments of Colombia's anti-drug strategy by the US government officials, Bonner said that since the cartels were transnational organizations the efforts against them “required the involvement of more than one country”, that country being the US.
“A divide-and-conquer strategy can be effective. The Colombian government chose to attack one cartel at a time rather than fighting a two-front war”, wrote Bonner.
According to the motion filed in Zambada Niebla's case this amounted to an open admission by a US official that the strategy against organized crime in Colombia involved, if not the open support to one of the parties, at least the active disregard of their criminal activities. The motion stated that this strategy was in line with the alleged agreements of the Sinaloa Cartel with the US government.
The US government has denied any agreement with the Sinaloa Cartel although it is a fact that one of its high-level members cooperated with the DEA, and that his cooperation led to the dismissal of charges. It is a fact too that weapons smuggled under a program sanctioned by the US government ended up in the hand of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The active intervention of the US in the internal affairs of Mexico regarding the war on drugs may be surprising, although it is perfectly consistent with the racial undertones that have always been an integral part of the prohibition. It is consistent too with the US policy to Latin America as a whole.
Since the Monroe Doctrine, successive US governments have seen the region as part of its own backyard, where in the 20th century they had to prevent communism. After the demise of the Soviet Union, criminal organizations fueled by drug money, have been identified as a major threat to the security of the US.
Thus, the US government have forcefully implemented the war on drugs in its territory, affecting mainly people of color, African Americans and Latinx. It has exported this same view to Latin America, where the allegedly constant threat of organized crime has served to justify military interventions.
This trend could be partially curbed within the next years in Mexico. The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced during his first five months in office a new strategy to combat the drug problem in the country, which could mean a dramatic shift away from the criminalization of drug users. The National Development Plan for 2019-2024 stated that a “prohibitionist strategy is unsustainable” because it leads to violence and has a high public health cost.
This proposed plan would mean to negotiate directly with the United States and in multilateral venues such as the UN. If it succeeds this could mean the first step to end the war on drugs in the Americas.
ALL IMAGES USED IN THIS ESSAY ARE FREE FORM COPYRIGHT
Notes and Resources:
-Escohotado, Antonio. 1994. Las drogas. De los orígenes a la prohibición. Madrid: Alianza editorial.
-NAACP. Criminal Justice Fact Sheet: https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
-Baum, Dan. 2016. Legalize It All. How to win the war on drugs. Harper's: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
-Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press
-United Nations Conventions on Drugs:
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CND/conventions.html
-UN World Drug Report 2018:
https://www.unodc.org/wdr2018/
-Drug Policy Alliance. 2019. Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Learning From a Health and Human-Centered Approach:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/drug-decriminalization-portugal-learning-health-and-human-centered-approach
-Global Commission on Drug Policy:
http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/press-release-public-statement-of-the-global-commission-on-drug-policy-on-the-cnd-ministerial-segment-declaration
-The Many Lessons of Plan Colombia:
https://www.wola.org/analysis/the-many-lessons-of-plan-colombia/
-Cosoy, Natalio. 2016. Has Plan Colombia really worked? BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35491504
-Lindsay-Poland, John. 2018. Plan Colombia. U.S. Ally Atrocities and Community Activism. Duke University Press.
-Plan Colombia’: How Washington learned to love Latin American intervention again. The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/plan-colombia-how-washington-learned-to-love-latin-american-intervention-again/2016/09/18/ddaeae1c-3199-4ea3-8d0f-69ee1cbda589_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.93c305a60cf6
-Drug Policy Alliance. Brief History on the Drug War: http://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war
-Seelke, Clare Ribando; Finklea, Kristin. 2017. U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond. Congressional Research Service: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41349.pdf
-Amnesty International. 2018. Enrique Peña Nieto. El recuento de los daños: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/11/enrique-pena-nieto-el-recuento-de-los-danos/
- Office of the Inspector General. 2012. A Review of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious and Related Matters:
https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2012/s1209.pdf
-Emails show top Justice Department officials knew of ATF gun program
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-oct-03-la-na-atf-guns-20111004-story.html
-Rápido y Furioso: armas para el Chapo: https://www.proceso.com.mx/289679/289679-rapido-y-furioso-armas-para-el-chapo
-A Review of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious and Related Matters:
https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2012/s1209.pdf
-Mexico demands answers on guns:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-mar-11-la-naw-mexico-guns-20110311-story.html
-U.S. Government and Top Mexican Drug Cartel Exposed as Partners:
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/north-america/item/17396-u-s-government-and-top-mexican-drug-cartel-exposed-as-partners
-The New Cocaine Cowboys:
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/opinion/22iht-edbonner.html