NARCOPOLITICS - APRIL ARTICLE ABSTRACTS

Title: America's Drug Problem and Its Policy of Denial Author: Mathea Falco
"For too long, United States drug policy has been driven by the need to
appear 'tough' on drugs, regardless of results. The United States should
leave behind the distinction between 'tough' and 'soft' approaches to drug
abuse and concentrate its attention, research, and resources on determining
what actually works."

Title: A Drug Trade Primer for the Late 1990s Author: Geopolitical Drug
Watch "As with the effective marketing of any product at the end of the
twentieth century, the drug system involves strategies and tactics that
bring radically different civilizations, attitudes, and principles into
contact. . . [Yet] the system of producing and marketing drugs is. . .very
different from that of any other product, whether legal or not. Everything
connected with drugs is at the same time 'modern' and 'traditional,'
'international' and 'local.' In short, drugs are the barely distorted
reflection of the problems involved in managing the world at the dawn of
the third millennium."

Title: The Nature of Drug-Trafficking Networks Author: Phil Williams Can
governments and law enforcement agencies learn something from drug
traffickers to beat them at their own game? Phil Williams argues that both
"have to think and act much more in network terms" to create informal
transnational law enforcement networks based on trust. "While this approach
does not guarantee success, it does at least conform to the first precept
of effective strategy, which is to know your enemy and adjust your actions
accordingly."

Title: The Political Economy of Narco-Corruption in Mexico Author: Peter
Andreas "As long as America's seemingly insatiable appetite for imported
psychoactive substances persists, Mexico's close proximity to the United
States market assures that the logic of narco-corruption will remain
entrenched" in the country's political system.

Title: The Militarization of the Drug Warin Latin America Author: Peter
Zirnite "Although United States international narcotics control efforts
have borne little fruit to date, Congress and the Clinton administration
have dramatically increased security assistance to Latin America in the
last two years in the name of fighting the war on drugs. . . The costs to
democratization and human rights throughout the region will no doubt
continue to be high."

Title: Asia's Drug Menaceand the Poverty of Diplomacy Author: James Shinn
The United States and the countries of Asia "have been curiously slow in
adding narcotics to the diplomatic agenda, unable to move beyond pious
expressions of concern to tackle the problem together. What happened to the
anticipated Golden Age of multilateral cooperation that was to have
unfolded in Asia in the post-cold war era?"

Title: Global Reach: Drug Money in the Asia Pacific Author: Bertil Lintner
"Whether it is obscure banks in Burma and Cambodia, or more respectable
financial institutions elsewhere, the essence of money laundering is the
same: to convert ill-gotten cash, usually in small denominations, into a
solid deposit-and then hide the origin of the funds in order to use them
for legitimate purposes." Bertil Lintner examines how this is done in East
Asia, and why it is so difficult to eradicate.

Title: New Drugs, New Responses: Lessons from Europe Author: Elizabeth
Joyce "The drug war as a moral call to arms has always lacked resonance in
Europe. Expectations about what drug policy can do are lower than in the
United States; the possibility of victory over drugs-the elimination of
drug abuse-is seldom raised, even rhetorically. Nor is drug policy
conflated with military goals and security. . . In Europe, drug control
remains a civilian affair."