Sarah Tosto<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the global demand for drugs by United States increased, who is now the number one consumer of drugs with 50% consumption of the $150 billion of the world drug supply, came the declaration of the War on Drugs in the 1980\u2019s as drugs became a \u201cnational security threat.\u201d Conveniently for the U.S. during this time period, most Latin American countries had been under severe economic stress and were in desperate need of debt relief. In addition to economic stress, these Latin American countries showed similar political instability and lack of government protection from the drug cartels. This failure of government led to the rise of leftist guerilla groups and paramilitaries. From here on out, the United States implemented drug policies that economically incentivized the crack down of drug production in Latin America and helped Latin American countries fight opposition groups. This supply-side approach to drug eradication, however, resulted in failure due to the idiosyncratic nature of the drug economy in that demand never falters. These policies ended up highly militarizing the War on Drugs<\/a> in Latin American, bringing unprecedented levels of violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mexico and Colombia are two\ncountries that have become increasingly violent after the United States\u2019\nforeign policy and aid. The article The\nU.S.- Mexico War on Narcotics: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,<\/em> discusses\nthe introduction of the Merida Initiative in 2007 in which the United States\nprovided over $2.5 billion to the Mexican government for narcotics detection resources, training of\njustice sector personnel, crop eradication efforts, and other anti-narcotic strategies\n(Logia, 2017). Between 2008 and 2010 they received over $300 million in foreign\nmilitary assistance which only moved through the corrupt government into the\nhands of the cartels (Logia, 2017). In response to this corruption,\nparamilitaries emerged and acted as a task force to protect citizens from\ncartel violence. This created a new wave of violence in Mexico after 2007 and\nhas led to the deaths of over 200,000 since the help of the U.S. and the militarization of the\ndrug war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Colombia, we see the Andean Initiative taking on a similar role in supply-side policy approach without the acknowledgement of paramilitary groups. The article Andean Regional Initiative: A Policy Fated to Fail <\/em>discusses the 35-year history of internal conflict from leftist groups (the FARC) and guerilla groups (paramilitaries). The FARC came to power in the 1960\u2019s during times of poverty, political exclusion of the masses, lack of confidence in the state, and violence towards the rural population. They protected the rural population against the government\u2019s eradication efforts. In efforts to fight the FARC, the Colombian military, with the aid of the United States, allowed paramilitaries to escalate the violence and human rights abuses in order to comply with the drug eradication effort. The increased militarization, with the help of the U.S., has led to the doubling of politically motivated homicide between 1998 and 2000\u2014to almost 20 murders per day (Amatangelo, 2005). In 2000, almost 85% of these murders were attributed to state agents and paramilitary groups, with the remaining 15% attributed to guerrilla groups (Amatangelo, 2005).<\/p>\n\n\n\n