Fighting drugs with smart development policy

A speedboat ploughs through the water, filmed from above in black and white. There’s a sudden flash of light, then nothing but grey smoke. The video by the US military from September shows the destruction of a boat that was allegedly being used to smuggle drugs in the Caribbean. Four people were reported killed. The fact that human rights organisations condemn such campaigns as extrajudicial killings is of no interest to the Trump administration. It wants to attract media attention to show: we’re doing something.

There’s no question that something has to be done. The number of drug users worldwide has recently climbed dramatically: according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, it rose by over a third to 331 million within 10 years. More and more people are dying from drug use – currently almost 500,000 a year. The lost years of health, the violence and criminality associated with drugs, the social costs – there are more than enough reasons to increase investment in the fight against drugs. One part of this task is undoubtedly consistent criminal prosecution, but it should be done with adherence to applicable laws.

Especially when influential countries like the USA put their heavy-handed drug policies on display, it’s important to remember that the fight against drugs cannot be won with security measures alone. The cartels adapt, communicate using encrypted platforms and sometimes transport their goods with drones. They establish new routes and purposefully use politically unstable regions to expand their influence. For example, the internal conflict in Myanmar has benefited local drug production. Myanmar is the world’s largest producer of illegal opium and the main source of methamphetamine in Asia.

At the same time, it’s clear that anyone who destroys coca plantations in Colombia, Peru or Bolivia without a thought for the local population is simply kicking the problem down the road. The plantations will pop up somewhere else, while the former producers will be left struggling to figure out how they should feed their families now.

Offering legal opportunities

Consequently, development policy approaches should receive more attention in the fight against drugs. It is crucial, for example, to offer legal sources of income to people who earn their livelihoods cultivating plant-based drugs, in accordance with the concept of “Alternative Development”. German development cooperation has long championed this approach, and its efforts were recognised internationally in the Lima Declaration on Alternative Development as early as 2012. 

A similarly holistic approach can be taken to people who consume drugs. They often do so out of despair and a lack of prospects. Development policy measures aimed at fighting poverty or reducing youth unemployment can therefore also serve as part of farsighted policies against drugs. 

At the same time, people with substance use disorders should be seen first and foremost as people who deserve appropriate medical and psychological care. Many civil society actors have worked in this area for a long time; they deserve better financing. All too often, people struggling with addiction receive no care at all: even in wealthy Europe, less than a fourth of them are in treatment. In Africa, that number is well below five percent.

Cooperating internationally to fight cartels, identifying better opportunities for everyone involved in the drug business and providing appropriate help to people with substance use disorders might attract less attention in the short term than blowing up a boat. But these approaches are certainly more sustainable.

Jörg Döbereiner is managing editor of D+C.
euz.editor@dandc.eu