El Salvador

[Samson]

But the outcomes are radically different. Every country from Colombia on North has massive amounts of cocaine smuggling. El Salvador and to about half the extent, Honduras, were basically warzones in some cities. Not that "Chicago is a warzone" hype, but on a comparable magnitude to Syria during their civil war. I think San Salvador hit 200/100k, and Syria in 2013 hit 350/100k, but otherwise was less than San Salvador.

But the three countries between Colombia and Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua are all peaceful and full of cocaine smuggling. And Costa Rica, the marginally most violent of the three, is a fully functioning democracy. CR and Panama have loads of US support. Nicaragua, the marginally most peaceful, has an authoritarian government and is antagonized by the US government.

It's not obvious what makes the difference, but what is obvious is no matter how much the drive to violence comes foremost from USA drug laws, there is total agency within a society to produce a manageable level of crime and an out of control quasi civil war.


And that's the question. What can and should be done if such a war emerges as it did in Salvador? What are the options? What are the alternatives?

I agree, but I stand by my point.

Just because the countries in the south/central america all experience the drug war to different extents does not mean the the root cause, illegal and massively profitable drugs and free availability of automatic weapons, is different. The fact that El Salvador is worse than others should make it easier to implement radical solutions. If the country is willing to have such a large proportion of the population locked up without access to the legal system then surely they would be willing to try government sanctioned and protected cocaine production and supply.

 

[Hygro]

I agree, but I stand by my point.

Just because the countries in the south/central america all experience the drug war to different extents does not mean the the root cause, illegal and massively profitable drugs and free availability of automatic weapons, is different. The fact that El Salvador is worse than others should make it easier to implement radical solutions. If the country is willing to have such a large proportion of the population locked up without access to the legal system then surely they would be willing to try government sanctioned and protected cocaine production and supply.

I agree that's a sensible endeavor. Colombia's president recently entertained publicly the idea of making Colombia the Amsterdam of Cocaine. However, I don't agree people would surely be willing to try that. If they were, they would have. They aren't and, while I think it could be worth considering, there's good reason the voters there might not agree.

Our drug war doesn't end at our borders. These countries with small internal markets basically have to play by international rules or they are cut out of international trade. Sponsoring drugs risks sanctions, not as an idea but as designed by existing laws. The foreign aid threat isn't huge relative to the upside (loss of $100 million for much greater gains), but there's a history of USA invading narco-states.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

the problem with government sanctioned drugs is to whom you're selling. if it's not legal in target country, then you're openly selling products into a country which bans them, which creates some annoying political pressure. it also makes the physical process of running them into the country banning them look very similar to now. if you don't want to get stopped by border patrol, confiscated, and out $$$, you have to successfully evade the authority of the target country. doing that at scale while sanctioned by a legitimate government makes for a "casus belli". heck, it would a lot less flimsy of one than stuff the usa has actually attempted to claim before sending troops in the past few decades.

 

[EnglishEdward]

On the that logic, Iran may justly nuke the west on the grounds that we produce alcoholic drinks !

 

[Senethro]

I think its bad to create circumstances that encourage malignant parallel state-like/law enforcement structures in neighbouring countries that cause huge amounts of collateral damage when they challenge their competitors.

 

[Samson]

the problem with government sanctioned drugs is to whom you're selling. if it's not legal in target country, then you're openly selling products into a country which bans them, which creates some annoying political pressure. it also makes the physical process of running them into the country banning them look very similar to now. if you don't want to get stopped by border patrol, confiscated, and out $$$, you have to successfully evade the authority of the target country. doing that at scale while sanctioned by a legitimate government makes for a "casus belli". heck, it would a lot less flimsy of one than stuff the usa has actually attempted to claim before sending troops in the past few decades.

The US manages to do it with guns, and they are much more dangerous.

 

[Hygro]

the problem with government sanctioned drugs is to whom you're selling. if it's not legal in target country, then you're openly selling products into a country which bans them, which creates some annoying political pressure. it also makes the physical process of running them into the country banning them look very similar to now. if you don't want to get stopped by border patrol, confiscated, and out $$$, you have to successfully evade the authority of the target country. doing that at scale while sanctioned by a legitimate government makes for a "casus belli". heck, it would a lot less flimsy of one than stuff the usa has actually attempted to claim before sending troops in the past few decades.

Hence Colombia's discussion of making it a tourist attraction rather than a literal export. It could only grow out from an internal market or what you say is the end of the discussion, for any party smaller than the parties they want to export to. As you are saying it's not really up to another country to legalize drugs for export, unless they're a juggernaut but even then the pushback is real (look at present day East Asia's criminality of drugs as a consequence of British 19th century drug exports).

On the that logic, Iran may justly nuke the west on the grounds that we produce alcoholic drinks !

Assuming Iran is like its neighbors, there's some legality of alcohol in Iran if you're not Muslim. But still, is the USA particularly exporting to Iran to their black market? Or do we basically just not bother?

I think its bad to create circumstances that encourage malignant parallel state-like/law enforcement structures in neighbouring countries that cause huge amounts of collateral damage when they challenge their competitors.

Agreed, we should stop incentivizing organized crime.

But what should countries like El Salvador, Honduras and to a lesser extent Mexico, Colombia, much of the Caribbean, Guatemala, etc do in the meantime? Having a drug trade to the USA has basically a 20x range of crime rate. And it seems that range is controllable domestically. With its echoing effects, that range is the difference between being a theoretical artifact of the news to being your everyday life in a battlefield. Huge range.

 

[Samson]

But still, is the USA particularly exporting to Iran to their black market? Or do we basically just not bother?

The UK does, but because of the taxes a bottle of Scottish Johnny Walker is more expensive in Edinburgh than Tehran.

 

[NovaKart]

From what I’ve heard, drugs is a much bigger problem in Iran.