Your cocaine bump is killing South Americans

Joshua Hurn is a postgraduate student in MSc International Public Policy. He previously worked for the UK Civil Service and is volunteering for the UK NGO ReportOUT. (josh.hurn1@gmail.com / www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-hurn)

Introduction

A voracious Western appetite for the drug is fuelling an orgy of violence, killing, and despair across swathes of the world. Of the 10 countries in the OECD with the highest levels of cocaine use, just two (the United States and Croatia) fall outside of  Western Europe.[1] An acceleration of cocaine usage across recent decades shows no sign of abating, with seizures of the drug and cultivation of the coca plant reaching record highs in 2021.[2] Of the 220 tonnes of cocaine seized across Latin America and the Caribbean in 2023, 84% was bound for Europe. Even within the past 10 years, cocaine usage has continued to climb in the continent, with 1 in 40 (2.7%) of British adults now using the drug, an increase from 2.3% 10 years ago.[3]

In the EU, cocaine is now the second most common illicit drug after cannabis, despite strident regulations and legislation around the use and sale of the drug.[4] 2.5 % of EU citizens aged 15-34 used cocaine within the last year, with usage particularly high in the West.[5] 22 million Americans used the drug, along with 4.2% of the adult Australian population, within the past year. Despite being roughly 9% of the world’s population, Europeans account for 21% of global cocaine users.[6] The social costs of cocaine have exploded across the Western world; overdose deaths in the USA linked to cocaine increased by 73% from 2019-2022 alone, with no signs of abating.

A continuing crisis across South America

The cocaine trade is responsible for rampant destabilisation across many nations and regions in the world. None of these is a more pertinent example than Ecuador. With the rate of cocaine production exploding by one-third between 2020-2021, Ecuador has been transformed into a global distribution hub.[7] Once considered one of the most peaceful nations in Latin America, it now has the region’s highest murder rate.[8] Attempts to counteract the violent acts of the increasingly powerful gangs have been fruitless, with six Ecuadorian prosecutors being murdered in under two years.[9] The country’s destabilisation became internationally recognised after criminal gangs invaded a live news broadcast, and Fernando Villavicencio, one of the country’s presidential candidates, was shot dead.

This pattern has been repeated across the continent since the explosion in cartels and drug trafficking to fuel US citizens’ cocaine habits during the 1980s. The war on drugs between governments and these cartels has further fuelled violence; 170,000 Mexicans were killed between 2006 and 2016 as a result of these conflicts in the country.[10] Entrenched inequality across many Latin American nations has led thousands of people, particularly young men in poverty, to be drawn into gangs. Drug traffickers in Mexico are now the country’s fifth-largest employer, and there are no signs a recent change in government will do anything to reduce this.[11]

Cocaine in the Sahel

In the Sahel region, cocaine industries are contributing to severe political instability. The amount of cocaine seized in the area increased from 13kg per year from 2015-2020 to 1,466 kg in 2022, with gangs taking advantage of the area’s problems.[12] In Mauritania alone, 2.3 tonnes of cocaine had been seized between January and June 2023 alone, with real amounts trafficked likely to be “a lot higher”, according to experts.[13] The UN has warned that the trade is augmenting violence, political instability, and hindering development in a region already beset by many political issues. Various NGOs have warned of the escalating drug trafficking crisis, with the emergence of “narco-terrorism” bolstering the power of terrorist and trafficking groups in the region.[14] As the Atlantic Council warns, a “worst-case” scenario is one where groups like ISIS are financed and supported by the rapidly expanding drug market.[15]

Perhaps the most egregious development in this grisly tale is that of the increase in young children who have been swept into the cocaine trade. Often, vulnerable North African children and young people are recruited into the trade and are “small cogs” in Europe’s lucrative cocaine industry. According to NGOs, nobody seems to want to take responsibility for these children, and the issue appears to have been largely ignored. Children from Morocco and Algeria appear to be particularly at risk, with professionals decrying the abuse and trauma said children are facing across Europe.[16] Abuse and sexual violence make up normal aspects of these children’s lives, and as long as European appetites for cocaine continue to grow, so will the number of child drug traffickers being recruited. Whilst most acute in Belgium, trafficked children have also been found in London and Paris, hinting that the gangs have been able to expand their youth-recruiting operations.[17]

No matter how much Western governments seek to criminalise the illicit usage of cocaine or break up the gangs which import it, demand has continued to rise. In the US alone, over one trillion dollars has been spent fighting the so-called ‘war on drugs’, as has been repeated across most Western countries without success. As the usage of cocaine continues to become normalised across the West, the lives of thousands continue to be shattered by a ruthless global narcotics trade which will stop at nothing to fulfil the hunger for cocaine. Political crises across South America and the Sahel alone are being intensified by the trade of cocaine, leading to utter misery for their citizens and increasing global insecurity, abuses of human rights, and the potential for terrorist groups to increase their power.

Works Cited

[1] United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2023) ‘Global Report on Cocaine’, United Nations, p. 2

[2] Ibid., p. 12

[3] RehabsUK (2022) ‘What’s behind the recent rise in cocaine addiction in the UK?’

[4] European Union Drugs Agency ‘Cocaine – the current situation in Europe (European Drug Report 2024)’

[5] Ibid

[6] Kelly, A. (2024) ‘How big is Europe’s cocaine problem – and what is the human cost?’, The Guardian 

[7] Roura, A, Wittenberg, D, Moncada, B. (2024) ‘How Ecuador went from tourist haven to a nation in the grip of gangs’, BBC

[8] Ibid. 

[9] Ibid. 

[10] Hernández, I. (2024) ‘Knowledge, Soil, Politics, and Poverty: How Drug Trafficking Has Kept Its Hold on Latin America’, Harvard International Review

[11] Ibid

[12] United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2024) ‘Drug trafficking undermining stability and development in Sahel region, says new report from UNODC’

[13] Tripp, A. (2024) ‘The Sahel is now an epicenter of drug smuggling. That is terrible news for everyone’, Atlantic Council

[14] Ibid. 

[15] Ibid. 

[16] Townsend, M. (2024) ‘Beaten and tortured: the North African children paying a bloody price for Europe’s insatiable appetite for cocaine’, The Guardian

[17] Ibid.