By John Walsh

More than half a century after the advent of a global drug prohibition regime and the launch of the U.S. “war on drugs,” the results have been disastrous for Latin America and the Caribbean, and for the United States itself. Even worse, prohibition’s consequences are exacerbating other grave problems—corruption and organized crime, violence perpetrated with impunity, forest loss and climate change, and displacement and migration—making solutions to these challenges even more difficult to achieve. The Biden administration’s historic embrace of harm reduction represents an enormous, lifesaving advance for U.S. drug policy. But even with harm reduction services, moves to decriminalize drug possession, and shifts underway to legally regulate recreational cannabis, the brunt of drug prohibition remains intact and the drug war rages on in the Americas. The principal victims of government repression in the name of drug control and of the predations of organized crime have always been and continue to be the most impoverished and marginalized communities…. Regulatory models must prioritize the interests and inclusion of those communities most harmed by the punitive enforcement of drug prohibition. Such regulatory frameworks will be far better suited than prohibition to protecting human rights and promoting health, gender and racial equality, security and environmental sustainability.

Washington, DC: WOLA, 2022. 28p.

By Stephen Rolles

Global drug policy is rooted in a laudable urge to address the very real harms that non-medical psychoactive drugs can create. Such concerns have driven a prohibitionist global agenda: an agenda that gives clear and direct moral authority to those who support it, while casting those who are against it as ethically and politically irresponsible. However, such binary thinking can be problematic. By defining the most stringent prohibition as the most moral position, it makes nuanced consideration of the impacts of prohibition difficult. In particular, it makes it very difficult to look at and learn from the impacts and achievements of prohibition. Historic attempts to do so have foundered on a sense that analysing prohibition means questioning prohibition, and that questioning prohibition is in itself an immoral act—one that allies the questioner with the well known infamies of the world’s illegal drug trade. Ironically, supporting the status quo perpetuates that trade, and the harms that it creates.

It is not the purpose of this report to revisit these various findings; they are freely and easily available elsewhere. Rather, we seek to reconsider the management of illicit drugs in the light of the experience that they represent and embody. Using that experience, we will set out a blueprint for non-medical drug management policies that will minimise the harms that such drug use creates, both on a personal and on a societal level. In short, our goal is to define a set of practical and effective risk and harm management and reduction policies. Such policies will represent a clear and positive step towards the positive outcomes that prohibition has tried, and failed, to achieve. A strictly prohibitionist stance would understand them to be immoral, because they call for the legally regulated production and availability of many currently proscribed drugs. Transform’s position is, in fact, driven by an ethics of effectiveness, and as such represent an attempt to re-frame the global harm management debate in exclusively practical terms

London: Transform Drug Policy Foundation, 2009. 232p.

By Marie Claire Van Hout and Tim Bingham

This research aimed to assemble an evidence base around perceived anti-social behaviour associated with the provision of drug treatment in Dublin’s city centre, upon which to build a strategic response incorporating short/medium/long term goals and actions within the area. It will be used to guide discussions on how to reduce visibility of drug related public nuisance, improve public perceptions of safety in the area and provide comprehensive, safe, effective and appropriate treatment services within a series of short, medium and long-term strategies.

Dublin:Strategic Response Group, 2012. 187p.

By Tim McSweeney, Paul J. Turnbull, and Mike Hough

This summary sets out the main findings from a review of the recent literature on strategies to tackle illicit drug markets and distribution networks in the UK. The report was commissioned by the UK Drug Policy Commission and has been prepared by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, School of Law, King’s College London. The main literature searches for this review were conducted during late September 2007 using a number of search terms and bibliographic data sources. In drawing together the evidence for this review we aimed to answer four broad questions: • What is the nature and extent of the problem? • What are current UK responses? • What are effective strategies for dealing with these issues? • Where are the gaps in our knowledge and understanding? This review restricted itself to domestic measures for tackling the drugs trade. As well as production control (e.g. assisting the Afghan government to implement its National Drug Control Strategy), there are a range of measures as part of the current drug strategy that are aimed at tackling drug markets and distribution networks within the UK’s borders.

London: The UK Drug policy Commission, 2008. 90p.

By The UK Drug Policy Commission

Over the past ten years, UK drug strategies have increasingly focused on providing treatment and support services for drug-dependent offenders – who commit a disproportionate number of acquisitive crimes (e.g. shoplifting and burglary) – as a way of reducing overall crime levels. This criminal justice focus has been reinforced in the recent 2008 UK drug strategy (new Welsh and Scottish drug strategies are also being developed). The UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC) has analysed the evidence for the effectiveness of these initiatives for reducing drug use and reoffending and of the wider impact of this more prominent criminal justice approach. To inform our analysis we commissioned an independent review of the published evidence from leading researchers at the Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR), King’s College London. We also listened to policy experts, local commissioners, drug workers and current and ex-drug users.

London: The UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC), 2008. 80p.

By The UK Drug Policy Commission

In this report, UKDPC proposes a radical rethink of how we structure our response to drug problems. It analyses the evidence for how policies and interventions could be improved, with recommendations for policymakers and practitioners to address the new and established challenges associated with drug use.

London: The UK Drug Policy Commission, 2012.173p.

By Mariana Viollaz and Jeni Klugman

In this note, we experiment with potential improvements on the measurement of violence in the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index to better reflect the reality on the ground in countries experiencing high levels of gang violence. First, we propose an extension to the measure of conflict from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program—currently the most comprehensive measure of organized violence—by including a more accurate number of deaths associated with gang violence alongside “battle deaths.” We show what difference this would make to WPS Index rankings for a set of four Central American countries and Mexico.

Washington, DC: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, 2018. 12p.

By Cristina Eguizábal, Matthew C. Ingram, Karise M. Curtis, Aaron Korthuis, Eric L. Olson and Nicholas Phillips

Throughout the spring and summer of 2014, a wave of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America began arriving at the U.S.-Mexican border in record numbers. During June and July over 10,000 a month were arriving. The unexpected influx triggered a national debate about immigration and border policy, as well as an examination of the factors compelling thousands of children to undertake such a treacherous journey. Approximately two-thirds of these children are from Central America’s Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. According to interviews with the children their motives for migrating ranged from fleeing some of the world’s highest homicide rates, rampant extortion, communities controlled by youth gangs, domestic violence, impunity for most crimes, as well as economic despair and lack of opportunity. Many hoped to reunite with family members, especially parents, who are already in the United States. The wave of migrants has underscored chronic problems in the region that stem back decades. It is often assumed that international drug trafficking explains the surge in violence since 2009, but other important factors are also at play. Drug trafficking is certainly a factor, especially in areas where criminal control of territory and trafficking routes is contested, but drugs do not explain the entirety of the complex phenomenon. Other factors have also contributed. While there are important differences among the three countries, there are also common factors behind the violence. Strong gang presence in communities often results in competition for territorial and economic control through extortion, kidnapping and the retail sale of illegal drugs. Threats of violence and sexual assault are often tools of neighborhood control, and gang rivalries and revenge killings are commonplace. Elevated rates of domestic abuse, sexual violence, and weak family and household structures also contribute as children are forced to fend for themselves and often chose (or are coerced into) the relative “safety” of the gang or criminal group. Likewise, important external factors such a weak capacity among law enforcement institutions, elevated levels of corruption, and penetration of the state by criminal groups means impunity for crime is extraordinarily high (95 percent or more), and disincentives to criminal activity are almost non-existent. Public confidence in law enforcement is low and crime often goes unreported.

Washington DC: Wilson Center, Latin America Program, 2015. 296p.

By Steven S. Dudley

The U.S. Government estimates that 90 percent of the illicit drugs entering its borders passes through the Central American Isthmus and Mexico. Of this, close to half goes through Central America.1 Functioning as a transshipment point has had devastating consequences for Central America, including spikes in violent crime, drug use and the corroding of government institutions. Mexico receives most of the media attention and the bulk of U.S. aid, but the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras – have combined murder rates roughly double that of Mexico. While Mexico is having some limited success dealing with its spiraling conflict, vulnerable States in Central America are struggling to keep the organized criminal groups at bay, even while they face other challenges such as widespread gang activity. U.S. and Mexican efforts to combat the drug cartels in Mexico seem to have exacerbated the problems for Central America, evidenced by ever increasing homicide rates. 2 “As Mexico and Colombia continue to apply pressure on drug traffickers, the countries of Central America are increasingly targeted for trafficking, which is creating serious challenges for the region,” the State Department says in its recently released narcotics control strategy report.3 Problems are particularly acute in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, three States with vast coastlines, large ungoverned spaces and the greatest proximity to Mexico. However, geography is only part of the problem. Armed conflicts in Guatemala, El Salvador and parts of Honduras between 1960 and the mid-1990s laid the foundations for the weapons trafficking, money laundering and contraband traffic that we are witnessing today. Peace accords in Guatemala and El Salvador, and police and military reform, only partially resolved deep-seeded socio-economic and security issues, and, in some cases, may have accelerated a process by which drug traffickers could penetrate relatively new, untested government institutions. Despite the gravity of the problem, Central America has had little regional or international cooperation to combat it. Examples of cross-border investigations are few. Communication between law enforcement is still mostly done on an ad-hoc basis. Efforts to create a centralized crime database have failed. Local officials are equally frustrated by the lack of international engagement and policies that often undermine their ability to control crime, especially as it relates to alleged gang members.

Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars; Trans-Border Institute, San Diego: University of San Diego; 2010. 30p.

By Rolando Navarro Gómez

Authorized to Steal: Organized Crime Networks Launder Illegal Timber from the Peruvian Amazon reveals the extent to which public officials systematically enable criminal networks to illegally harvest timber in Peru. It identifies by name 34 Peruvian government officials who have been complicit in laundering timber from harvest to sale. In addition, it elaborates the administrative, civil, and criminal penalties officials could face for their role in enabling illegal logging and explores how the failure to enforce these penalties allows the continued proliferation of illegal practices in Peru’s logging sector.

Washington, DC: Center for International Criminal Law, 2019. 54p.

By Shamini Jayanathan

This report, commissioned by the Environmental Investigation Agency UK (EIA) in partnership with Africa Nature Investors Foundation (ANI) and supported by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), is the first of its kind to undertake an in-depth legislative analysis of the federal wildlife-related laws of Nigeria alongside those of six states identified as key for addressing wildlife crime in Nigeria, namely Adamawa, Kano, Lagos, Rivers, Cross River and Taraba States. It builds on recommendations made by the EIA in its report of 2018 regarding Nigeria’s progress on its National Ivory Action Plan (NIAP) which included the need to conduct an assessment under the auspices of the International Consortium for Combatting Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). This report’s focus on legislation will complement such an effort that will in due course be undertaken by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Nigeria: Africa Nature Investors Foundation; London:Environmental Investigation Agency (UK), 2021. 36p.

By Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 saw the world come to a virtual standstill, with global lockdowns disrupting or halting transport and trade routes and travel. The hopes that illegal wildlife trade activities would also be disrupted or halted were largely misplaced – as millions of people worldwide adapted and started working from home, so too did the traffickers. Over the past decade, we have seen a shift of focus as organised criminal networks involved in illegal wildlife trafficking from the continent of Africa to markets in East and South-East Asia have further turned their attention from East and Southern Africa to West and Central Africa, moving their operations to both source and export increasing quantities of illegal wildlife. Based on ongoing EIA investigations, this report presents a brief analysis of these two regions and provides an overview of the ongoing activities of the networks operating in them. Through engagement with illegal traffickers and traders operating out of Nigeria and beyond, details and documents shared with investigators reveal how they exploit the existing status quo of the region, which has a wealth of natural resources but is faced with a number of challenges – pockets of civil unrest, high levels of poverty and weak rule of law, all underpinned by corruption.

London; Washington, DC: EIA, 2020. 27p.

By Bridget Connelly and Henry Peyronnin

Wildlife trafficking in the air sector in Latin America and the Caribbean (also known as the LAC region) is a serious and significant problem. As in other regions, the confluence of habitat destruction, economic polarization, and convenient availability of international travel has facilitated wildlife trafficking at a national, regional, and international level. The consequences for wildlife populations have been dire – against the backdrop of a 94% drop in regional animal population sizes between 1970 and 2020, the C4ADS Air Seizure Database shows that seizures of animal products along air routes increased steadily until 2019.

The LAC region poses particular concern for two reasons. First, it is one of the principal remaining repositories of biological and species diversity in the world. Increasing wildlife trafficking will continue to degrade this essential environment. Second, the LAC region is the home to many of the world’s most capable and violent trafficking organizations, which raises the risk that wildlife trafficking will empower organizations seeking to impose more direct harms on humans.

Washington, DC: USAID Reducing Opportunities for Unlawful Transport of Endangered Species (ROUTES). 2021. 16p.

By Livia Wagner

Criminal groups quickly recognized that controlling large swaths of land and illicit and legitimate enterprises linked to illegal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon enabled them to generate larger profit margins with fewer risks due to the lack of a government law enforcement presence. Gold constitutes an ideal medium for criminal groups to launder proceeds obtained from other illegal activities. Compared to other natural resources and illicit goods, gold is valuable by volume. Also, COVID-19 is not only having an impact on the global economy and surging unemployment. It is driving gold prices to historical record highs since 2012, leading to an influx of illegal miners to unlicensed mining sites where they invade protected indigenous lands, stripping swaths of forest bare, poisoning rivers with mercury, and laundering illegal gold through mineral shops. The nexus between illegal mining and other organized crime complicates the design of strategies to address this problem effectively. Specifically, intersections with human trafficking and forced labor, migrant smuggling, and the drug trade have been identified. However, the form and degree can vary significantly.

Miami: Florida International University, The Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, 2021. 27p.

By Livia Wagner

Throughout history, man has venerated gold. Gold was the first of the three gifts of the Magi to Jesus. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the values of world currencies were fixed in terms of gold (the Gold Standard). Olympic athletes vie for gold medals and the best footballer in the world is awarded the Ballon d’Or. An extremely well behaved child is ‘as good as gold’ and a generous person has ‘a heart of gold’.

It is only natural to think positively about gold, just as it is equally natural to think negatively about drugs. But, as the Global Initiative proves in its latest research report: “Organised Crime and Illegally Mined Gold in Latin America”, illegally mined gold is now more important to organized crime in some countries of Latin America than narcotics:

In Peru and Colombia – the largest cocaine producers in the world – the value of illegal gold exports now exceeds the value of cocaine exports.

Illegal mining is the easiest and most profitable way to launder money in the history of Colombian drug trafficking.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, 2016. 100p.

By Camila Gianella, Maritza Paredes and Lorena Figueroa

Policies and strategies implemented to combat illegal logging in Peru appear to have had limited success. Addressing corruption in the forest sector requires an understanding of the role of political and informal power arrangements that shape individual and collective behaviours. Forest governance outcomes can only be strengthened by considering the networks, actors, powers, and interests that interact with wider conditions.

Bergen, Norway: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2021. 25p.

By The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)

For a decade, Vietnam has been repeatedly highlighted for its role in the international illegal wildlife trade, so it is encouraging to see the recent efforts taken by the Government to address its involvement; it is to be congratulated for the measures it has taken and the successes it has had domestically. Yet despite these efforts to tackle illegal wildlife trade in country, Vietnam’s reputation is tarnished by the fact that it is the primary destination for illegal wildlife products sourced from across Africa and shipped by criminal networks directly or indirectly to meet the demand in Vietnam and beyond. These networks are accelerating the decline of Africa’s biodiversity and are exacerbating corruption and weak rule of law in many source and transit countries in the continent.

London; Washington, DC: EIA, 2021. 32p.

By Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin

The report ‘Myanmar’s Growing Illegal Ivory Trade with China’ released today (subs: October 2, 2018) shows that one town in particular, Mong La - a frontier town in the notorious Golden Triangle on the border of China - has experienced a ‘prolific growth’ in ivory trading. The number of new ivory items seen for sale in the town grew by 63% in three years, and now accounts for over a third of the ivory seen in the country.

The report by ivory trade specialists Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin recounts how Chinese visitors smuggle worked ivory from Mong La back home with little concern about getting caught. This ivory has often come up the Mekong River into the lawless eastern periphery of Myanmar where it is for sale in both retail and bulk. The wholesale price for African raw ivory in late 2017 in the Golden Triangle region has remained stable at about USD 770 to USD 800 per kg since late 2015.

Myanmar has the largest captive, or ‘domestic’, elephant population in the world with over 5,000 individuals. Traders there say that the internal ivory trade is legal for trimmed domestic elephant tusk tips and from licensed animals that have died, and operate accordingly. (Trading in the tusks of the remaining wild elephants in Myanmar – numbering perhaps 2,000 – is acknowledged to be illegal). The ivory from captive elephants is used for local carving and retail sale especially in Mandalay and Yangon. Their tusks are also sold wholesale in Mandalay to Chinese traders, who smuggle them across the China border in contravention of the existing international ivory trade ban.

Traders reported that 90% of buyers were Chinese wishing to smuggle the ivory home, as also found by the same authors in market surveys in Hong Kong (2015) and Laos (2017). In Vietnam (2016) this was estimated to be 75%.

Nairobi, Kenya: Save the Elephants, 2018. 92p.

By The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)

In this report, EIA documents for the first time the systematic export and import of illegal wood from Peru to the United States. In many ways, this report not a new story: the system’s corruption is something of which everyone in the sector is aware. EIA’s contribution lies in having identified and patiently put together the pieces of the puzzle to reveal the mechanism that allows this trade to happen: what Peruvians call the “laundering machine”.

EIA’s investigative work focused on reconstructing the routes that timber takes from the Amazon to the warehouses of US importers, through use of official information obtained under Peru’s Transparency and Access to Public Information Law. The links in this chain are willfully obscured to perpetuate confusion about the origins of almost all timber traded in Peru. EIA was able to reconstruct the chain of custody for trade in cedar (Cedrela odorata) and bigleaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) only because both species are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) and thus require specific export permit documents. The same illegal modus operandi is being applied for other species, but the even more limited information available regarding non-CITES species trade makes it virtually impossible to connect the concession of origin with the shipments being exported.

Washington, DC; London:: EIA, 2012. 72p.

By Mary Utermohlen

"This report highlights the widespread, pervasive nature of wildlife trafficking by air, with each major world region impacted. Our analysis shows that traffickers of all types exploit the same vulnerabilities within airports, often using the same trafficking methods to circumvent law enforcement and airport authorities. Furthermore, seizure data shows that many wildlife trafficking networks rely on the same smuggling methods over time, suggesting that a thorough understanding of airport-specific or country-specific trafficking patterns could be instrumental in reducing the air transport system's vulnerability to trafficking," said the report’s author Mary Utermohlen, Program Director at C4ADS.

In addition to contributing to the extinction of endangered species, threatening local livelihoods, and undermining regional and global security, illegal wildlife trade is a risk factor for the spread of zoonotic diseases. According to the Center for Disease Control, three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases originate in animals. Many of the species seized in air transport—including live birds, live reptiles and mammals—are high-risk carriers of zoonotic diseases and may end up in illegal or unregulated markets around the world.

Godalming, UK: Traffic, 2022. 12p.