By: Arianna Amato
Drugs are widely regarded as a dangerous and dividing threat to society. For over fifty years, the infamous War on Drugs has had far-reaching and long lasting-political, economic, and cultural impacts in order to alleviate that threat. Nations large and small actively participate in a worldwide effort to be tough on drugs through stiff legislation and intense military action, meant to tackle drug trafficking and drug addiction. In recent years, many of those same nations have begun to reevaluate these methods in the face of studies that the war so staunchly pursued is perhaps unwinnable. Different strategies have come to the forefront, but Latin American countries like El Salvador and Ecuador refuse to embrace these new strategies. Instead, they choose to employ toxic strategies from the past, and in doing so, they commit repeated human rights violations under the mantle of the War on Drugs.
Although President Nixon officially declared the start of the War on Drugs in June 1971, its roots had been secured years prior. Initial pushes against drug sales and use within the United States manifested in grassroots activism and state legislation in the early 1950s. Parents and politicians alike campaigned the federal government to protect white, suburban teenagers from marijuana by way of targeting Black and Mexican American “pushers,” resulting in the first federal mandatory-minimum law for drug offenses. With this law in place, the federal government used law enforcement to locate, arrest, and convict what were deemed as evil suppliers of evil drugs that were making their way onto not-so-evil streets.
Drug consumption continued to rise throughout the next two decades, and concerns began to amass about what that could mean. Almost immediately, narratives spread like wildfire concerning connections between narcotics, crime, and the counterculture movement. As a result, The War on Drugs was a project undertaken by the United States government with the goal of limiting drug availability, ideally leading to a decrease in drug use and drug-related violence. These issues, however, only increased in severity. Throughout the 1980s, Colombian cartels created cocaine production and distribution networks, leaving corruption and violence in their wake. Gangs in other Latin American countries later assumed this playbook, and even added some tactics of their own, to expand upon an already flourishing market. The U.S. was not the only player in the game, though, as Latin American countries like Mexico have received significant American aid in the forms of cash, equipment, and training to combat the War on Drugs on the ground in their home nations. Even the United Nations and its policymakers outlined a goal of a “drug-free world” in the late 1990s, demonstrating that the War on Drugs was in fact a global war.
Upon reflection, the implications of vast international efforts against drug trafficking and consumption appear to have been in vain. Not only is the War on Drugs unbelievably expensive, at over $1 trillion and counting, but the war’s true cost has been the human cost. According to the federal government, drug use has actually risen 10 percent since the inception of the War on Drugs. Drug arrests and convictions have skyrocketed, as well, to the point where on any given day, nearly 140,000 people sit in prison specifically for drug offenses. Violence in drug-trafficking hotspots like Central and South America, even with military operations supported by the U.S. Drug and Enforcement Administration, has also increased significantly, with 34 percent of homicides in the world during 2021 happening in this region. Countless civilians have been slaughtered, families torn apart, governments dismantled, all in the name of the War on Drugs and its objectives that now appear too far out of reach.
Because of its lack of success, experts have opined that the War on Drugs, and the methodologies that popularized it decades ago, is beginning to slow down as global leaders call for alternate strategies to deal with the harsh realities the war continues to leave behind. With the hope of reducing drug-related violence, multiple governments have quietly sought truce agreements with drug cartels in order to have one leave the other alone, and vice versa. Active traffickers in Mexico, for example, have spoken about quid-pro-quo agreements with army commanders, in which traffickers provide locations of labs and receive information about planned military action. Data acquired by Reuters from the Mexican Defense Ministry (SEDENA) support this assertion and show that only 24 of the 527 labs raided by Mexico’s army in the first half of 2023 were “active” labs. Several countries are advocating for a multi-pronged approach in which efforts are less focused on militarized operations, like previous “kingpin” strategies, and more focused on addressing public health. For instance, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, a country once at the forefront of drug production, trafficking, and violence, has repeatedly spoken out against what he calls the “irrational” War on Drugs. Instead, his plans for drug policy include negotiating with cartels, limiting penalties on impoverished coca farmers, and creating settings where Colombians can safely consume drugs for medical use. Efforts to fight in the War on Drugs in countries like Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela are half-hearted at best in order to not disturb an established and tolerable equilibrium. But simply because multiple Latin American governments are quiet quitting the War on Drugs in their own countries does not mean that the war has not already unfortunately spread to their neighbors.
Once promoted as one of the safest countries in Latin America with one of the lowest murder rates in the region, Ecuador is the one the latest nations to fall victim to dangerous drug violence. Situated between the world’s largest cocaine producers in Colombia and Peru, Ecuador managed to keep cartels outside of its borders for decades. But this historic absence of drug traffickers from the nation has led to an insufficient infrastructure for dealing with them now that they have arrived; particularly as offshoots from Mexico’s two main drug cartels. Along with Ecuador’s convenient geographic location, neighboring heavy drug producers along the Pacific coast, and its position as a top exporter of goods packaged in large containers like bananas, members of drug gangs have recently found Ecuador to be an attractive prospect in furthering their illegal business. As a result, Ecuador has seen shocking spikes of armed conflict running rampant. For example, the country’s murder rate has jumped from 6.9 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019 to 26.7 in 2022.
If statistics were not enough, though, Ecuadorian citizens have seen the violence play out before their very eyes. Gunman believed to be aligned with the Mexican Jalisco New Generation cartel took over a television station during a live broadcast, taking hostages and brandishing explosives, as its nationwide audience sat and watched in horror. Affiliates of the rival Sinaloa cartel are even believed to be behind a number of threats against an Ecuadorian presidential candidate who was later assassinated. President Daniel Noboa has struggled to deal with his nation in turmoil and has attempted to keep the peace by declaring a 60-day countrywide state of “internal armed conflict” that designated over 20 narco-gangs as terrorist groups. The president and his people recognize that this is not a permanent solution, and have looked to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele’s (seemingly) successful strategy to curb the effects of the War on Drugs as a part of a landmark referendum set for April 21.
President Bukele has become an international household name as a leader who gets the job done. He was elected to his post in 2019 on the back of a campaign that promised to end drug-related violence in a country that once had the highest murder rate in the world. The efforts of his administration include mass arrests and strong military action that have characterized an almost complete stand still of violence in the country. Although President Bukele’s crackdown on drug gangs in El Salvador have rendered gang as ineffective, experts say this is nothing more than a “false illusion” that he has found “the magic formula to solve the very complex problems of violence and criminality in a seemingly simple way.” This seemingly simple method of attempting to keep El Salvador safe is by violating human rights constantly and consistently.
First, President Bukele’s government has imprisoned over 65,000 of the country’s 6.3 million inhabitants, or 2% of the adult population, often without due process. What’s more, Salvadorans are packed into what’s been called a “mega-prison” to face cells so crowded they cannot sit down or use the restroom as well as to face torture chambers where prisoners’ human rights are violated without a second thought. More than 1,000 of these prisoners are as young as 12 years old, and the government has even confirmed that at least 90 prisoners have died while in custody. Most prisoners were arrested on grounds as vague as looking “suspicious” or “nervous” during a police search, as officers were given orders to arrest a certain number of people, whether they were “gangsters or not.” Salvadorans arrested and detained are also universally handed lifelong sentences, which the administration explains are meant to permanently rid El Salvador of drug gangs. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as other press and non-government organizations, took notice and expressed concern about President Bukele’s methods to solve drug-related violence, but mass detention and due process violations have yet to slow down.
Second, President Bukele’s government has used the mantle of the War on Drugs to suspend constitutional rights to a free press. The administration has enacted legislation that penalizes media outlets deemed to spread messages of drug gangs. They have also suppressed journalists and other critics of the President to control perceptions and communications about the government’s abhorrent approach to violence in the region. In fact, the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES) reported over 400 “press freedom violations” that included physical attacks, digital harassment, and restrictions on journalists’ work and access to public information. Checks and balances in the Salvadoran government are unlikely to grant reprieve, either, as state institutions bend to the President’s will of allegedly fighting the War on Drugs.
Some deem President Bukele’s trade off of democracy to be a valid price to pay for safety and security in El Salvador, but all signs point to his strategies acting as a relentless power grab for dictatorial control over the government and its people. All in all, human rights groups have reported over 2,900 cases of human rights violations at the hands of President Bukele and his government. These violations, and ignorance of them, set a low bar to prevent casualties to civilians and their rights.
History demonstrates that the War on Drugs is not winnable, as declared by the Global Commission on Drug Policy in 2011. Futile and narrow attempts to rid the world of drug production, trafficking, and consumption have only led to more of what the war meant to prevent, with civilians carrying the burden of poor government decisions. Extreme practices that violate human rights in the most repugnant of ways, like those used by President Bukele and aspired to by President Noboa, only fight fire with fire and create more problems than they solve. Although some Latin American countries have developed plans that have breathed new air into combatting the harmful effects of drugs, the War on Drugs remains a forever war.
