New Report

Via Mexidata, the Strategic Studies Institute has published a monograph on the Mérida Initiative and US drug policy in general by a PhD student named Hal Brands. Here's the summary, which can take you to the full report. I've not yet red the entire piece, but the point seems to be that the Mérida Initiative is another example of the US's disproportionate focus on supply-side enforcement. I agree!

The only part of the complete report that I have read is the section titled Economic and Social Development, reprinted in its entirety below: 

Over the long term, the success of counternarcotics in Mexico will hinge in no small part on the government’s ability to address the economic grievances and social alienation that often inform criminal activity. The security threats that the United States confronts in the Western Hemisphere, Admiral Stavridis has recently written, “are symptoms of the deeper endemic problems of poverty and inequality.”141

The idea that Mexico's drug problem is driven by poverty and inequality was at the heart of the Peñalosa piece from Este País that I wrote about yesterday. There's certainly a kernel of truth to that; on an individual level, people who have a reasonable and visible path toward toward a comfortable life without risking jail or an early death tend to avoid lifestyles that lead to jail terms and early deaths. The problem is that since 1996, Mexico has become less poor and has basically stagnated in terms of equality, yet crime has gotten worse and worse. The drug gangs have gotten more and more violent. Clearly, there are more complex phenomena at work. 

Later: 

The need will be for small-scale, precisely targeted projects that alleviate the endemic poverty that has long afflicted much of the country and provide economic and social alternatives to criminal activity for populations at risk. Micro-finance and vocational training programs provide good examples of such initiatives, which have already been used for counternarcotics and antiorganized crime purposes in Central America. A pilot program in El Salvador recently reintegrated roughly 300 former gang members into society by offering training in carpentry, screen-printing, and other such activities, and the Inter-American Development Bank has approved a $32 million loan to Honduras for a micro-entrepreneurship program aimed at vulnerable youths.142 These programs should be replicated on a broader scale in Mexico, along with sustained and sufficiently funded alternative development projects that will provide economic incentives for marijuana farmers to switch to legal crops. 

That sounds logical, although a more thorough exploration of whether or not such plans have been successful in Central America is warranted. Furthermore, I may be wrong, but my understanding is that paying people to not grow drugs has never been terribly successful. Whatever the case, these are the kinds of concrete ideas Peñalosa should have included in his piece.