Policy Reform and
the Drug War

Info Packet

Briefs in Packet

Drug Policy: Failure at Home
By Eric Sterling, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
The U.S. war on drugs at home-like the drug war overseas-relies on coercion, has racist overtones, and targets disproportionately the poorest and lowest-level participants in the drug trade. Sterling argues that drug policy, which emphasizes law enforcement instead of effective demand-control measures, has not reduced deaths, drug abuse, drug availability, or the spread of disease in the United States.

Drug Trafficking & Money Laundering
By Bruce Zagaris, editor, International Enforcement Law Reporter and Scott Ehlers, Campaign for New Drug Policies
An estimated $100 billion in drug profits moves through U.S. banks and other financial institutions each year, and, despite U.S. and international laws, money launderers have devised an infinite number of schemes to hide illicit drug money.

Militarization of the U.S. Drug Control Program
By Gina Amatangelo, Washington Office on Latin America
The U.S. has enlisted Latin America's militaries as its pivotal partners in international drug control, yet militarization and increased U.S. funding have failed to stem the flow of narcotics to the United States.

Coca Eradication
By Phillip Coffin, New York Academy of Medicine, and Jeremy Bigwood, independent researcher
The authors argue for a halt to aerial spraying and other forced coca eradication programs because they have produced little effect on the price or availability of cocaine in the U.S., and have pushed growers deeper into the jungle and into other countries, causing significant environmental damage.

Drug Certification
By Bill Spencer and Gina Amatangelo, Washington Office on Latin America
Drug certification, the annual process whereby Washington imposes sanctions against major drug-producing and -trafficking countries, is deeply resented in Latin America as a unilateral, hypocritical, ineffective, and sometimes arbitrary exercise by the U.S., the world's largest consumer of illegal drugs. The authors argue it should be repealed.

U.S. Drug Policy & Intelligence Operations in the Andes
By Michael Evans, National Security Archive
This brief examines the increasingly broad range of U.S. intelligence operations in the Andean region in support of the drug war-including the use of intelligence assets to track and shoot down suspected drug planes in Peru and Colombia.

Colombia in Crisis
By Andrew Miller, Amnesty International, USA
While Colombia's violence and warfare are often blamed on the drug trade, their roots go back well over five decades-and are now being fed by a flow of U.S. arms and other military aid.

Colombia's Role in International Drug Industry
By Winifred Tate, Washington Office on Latin America
This brief traces Colombia's role in the international drug trade from a grower/exporter of marijuana in the 1970s, to a processor/shipper of cocaine in the 1980s, to a major grower/processor/transshipper of coca and heroin in the late 1990s.

Bolivia: Eradicating Democracy
By Linda Farthing, Andean Information Network and George Ann Porter, freelance writer in Bolivia
Although the U.S. holds up Bolivia's eradication program as a success, a broad and growing popular movement of traditional coca growers, trade unionists, teachers, and others is demanding an end to coca eradication program.

Militarization of U.S. Latin America Policy
By Adam Isacson, Center for International Policy
This brief documents how the U.S. military, led by the drug war as well as arms transfers, training programs, and other "miltary-to-military contact," is shaping overall policy toward Latin America.

Citizen Agendas

Citizen Agenda: Drug Policy Reform
http://www.fpif.org/cgaa/drug.html

Citizen Agenda: Stop U.S. Military Involvement in Colombia
http://www.fpif.org/cgaa/milcol.html

Other Sources Included in the Packet

Colombia/drug Speaker list

Select, Previewed Video list

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