Latin America / Amérique latine

Les frontières, fronts inefficaces de la lutte contre le trafic international de drogue

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2019 / Espace politique.

Au regard de l’évolution des productions illégales de drogue des dernières décennies, et même des dernières années, le bilan de la prohibition mondiale apparaît clairement négatif. L’échec des mesures de lutte contre le trafic de drogue est tout aussi évident, ainsi que le montre cet article à travers l’étude succincte des dimensions frontalières du trafic terrestre entre l’Afghanistan et l’Iran, du trafic aérien depuis l’Amérique andine, et du trafic maritime transatlantique. En effet, en dépit d’une débauche de moyens financiers, humains, matériels, technologiques, et malgré des taux d’interception parfois élevés, le trafic de drogue n’a jamais été sérieusement et durablement remis en cause. Après avoir constaté et expliqué l’inefficacité de la lutte contre le trafic de drogue aux frontières, cet article estime qu’une politique efficace de lutte contre les trafics doit d’autant plus éviter le tout répressif que son efficacité est aussi faible que son coût est élevé. In fine, les efforts d’interdiction ne devraient pas seulement viser à réaliser des saisies et à renforcer les contrôles aux frontières mais aussi à rendre l’espace et les sociétés moins propices aux trafics.

Illegal cannabis cultivation in the world, and as a subject in academic research

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2019 / EchoGéo.

Illegal cannabis cultivation as a worldwide phenomenon is the theme of this edition of EchoGéo. The authors who contributed to this edition have conducted research on a variety of countries and regions (by order of appearance: the world, the African continent, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Afghanistan, the United States of America, Europe).

Cannabis cultivation in the world: heritages, trends and challenges

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2019 / Echogéo.

Despite cannabis being the most common illegal drug crop in the world and its worldwide presence, very little is known about its production, trade, and consumption at the global scale. This is due mostly to over a century of global prohibition and the dangers associated to researching illegal drug crop production. Worse, the limited data available about cannabis cultivation is most often inaccurate, unreliable, and highly controversial. While this has always been problematic, in terms of sheer knowledge and informed policy-making, it has now become even more acute of an issue as global trends towards decriminalisation and legalisation are already provoking negative unintended consequences in poor producing countries. This article is an effort to present the state of the current knowledge and the present and future stakes of the fast-changing cannabis industry and legislation.

Territorial control and the scope and resilience of cannabis and other illegal drug crop cultivation

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2019 / EchoGéo.

As revealed by the examples of Morocco, northeast India, Afghanistan, Burma/Myanmar, and the United States of America, degrees of politico-territorial control or law-enforcement deficit by the state can explain, to some extent, the existence of large expanses of illegal drug cultivation. Causes of politico-territorial control deficit are many and non-exclusive. They include armed conflicts, corruption, loosely integrated territories, and lack of financial, human and material means of asserting state control. Large-scale illegal drug crop cultivation can take place according to three main scenarios: that of a full-fledged but inefficient war on drugs; that of toleration, for various motives, of illegal drug plant cultivation by the state (which can amount to negotiated but effective control); and that of the militarily-challenged state that cannot exert full control over its territory. The fact that total politico-territorial control by the state, no matter how powerful and resourceful, is deemed impossible, shows that the war on drugs is doomed to fail despite how many battles were won. Eventually, the very limits of the state’s politico-territorial control, when applied to counter-narcotics and law enforcement, implicitly question the illegality of a practice that is considered legitimate by many.

La guerre contre la drogue : bilan d’un échec

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2015 / La Vie des idées.

Lancée il y a plus d’un siècle, la guerre contre la drogue s’est soldée par un échec retentissant, multipliant les trafics, renforçant la production et la consommation tout en réprimant les paysans producteurs et les consommateurs. Il est temps de donner les moyens à un développement alternatif cohérent.

A Typology of the Unintended Consequences of Drug Crop Reduction

Piere-Arnaud Chouvy / 2013 /
Journal of Drug Issues.

Drug control policies and interventions, like any other policies and interventions, generate many unintended consequences. Most often, such consequences are mentioned without being defined or presented in a typology, and they are rarely explained in terms of causality. This article will stress how the existing work on the unintended consequences of drug control policies and interventions suffers from little or no definition and will then provide such a definition and a typology applied to three major interventions meant to achieve drug crop reduction—forced eradication, alternative development, and opium bans. In the end, it will explain how a typology of unintended consequences can help to better understand the failure and even the counterproductivity of some interventions. Differentiating between direct and collateral unintended consequences allows us to better attribute the occurring of unintended consequences to a specific intervention and/or to the intended consequence of the interventions.