By: Staff Writer
March 14, 2025
The International Crisis Group, conflict monitoring group, said that better policing and better economic alternatives are part solutions to stemming the violence from the drug trade.
In a report titled, “Curbing Violence in Latin America’s Drug Trafficking Hotspots,” the ICG said: “Over half a century on from the declaration of a “war on drugs”, Latin America is struggling to manage the eruption of violence tied to the narcotics trade. Though drug-related organised crime has brought notorious peaks of violence in the past, above all in Colombia and Mexico, never has it spread so wide, and rarely has it penetrated so deeply into states and communities.
“Criminal groups have splintered, multiplied and diversified, adding lethal synthetics like fentanyl to the traditional plant-based supply of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, as well as moving into new rackets like extortion.
“Where communities are poor and unprotected, criminal groups act as employers and overlords; where state officials are present, they coerce and corrupt them. With Washington pushing for a fresh military-led crackdown on drug cartels, perhaps involving U.S. forces, Latin American leaders face difficult decisions.
“Despite the pressure to comply, experience suggests that a balance of improved policing, alternative livelihoods, gun control and, under specific conditions, negotiations would be more effective in reducing violence.”
The report continued: “Understanding how this rolling crime wave came about is fundamental to arresting it. Drug-related organised crime has adapted to the threat posed by law enforcement by becoming more flexible and resilient.
“In place of hierarchical syndicates that could be dismantled once their leaders were identified, the trade increasingly functions through networks of providers who subcontract each step of the route to lower tiers of operators.
“High-level financiers engage sophisticated international traffickers, who oversee drug exports to user markets. These in turn partner with national and local crime groups to meet the orders.
“National groups manage production or ensure safe passage of the drug along a particular trafficking corridor. At the local level, urban gangs are contracted by larger criminal allies for small-scale logistical services like smuggling drugs through ports.”
The report also noted: “There is no one remedy for Latin America’s sprawling criminal ecosystem, though experience offers evidence of what has not worked. Military crackdowns and high-level captures provide short-term victories, but time and again fuel new waves of violence and generate reconfigurations of the drug business that are more resistant to law enforcement.
“Latin American states, which have long followed Washington’s lead in the “war on drugs”, will need to rethink these conventional tools to limit drug supply with an eye to which approaches reduce – rather than exacerbate – harm to civilians.
“The right policy is likely a mix of interventions. These include strengthening investigations, protecting security forces from corruption, improving community policing and reforming prisons. States must also address the acute social distress that criminal groups prey upon to recruit.
“In specific cases, governments may also consider talks with criminal groups to stem the worst violence and peel off young members who want a fresh start.”