Policy analysis
Drugs and development: The global impact of drug use and trafficking on social and economic development

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Abstract

Locating development efforts within the context of globalism and global drug capitalism, this article examines the significant health and social impact both legal and illegal drugs have on international development efforts. The paper takes on an issue that is generally overlooked in the development debate and is not much addressed in the current international development standard, the Millennium Development Goals, and yet is one that places serious constraints on the ability of underdeveloped nations to achieve improvement. The relationship between psychotropic or “mind/mood altering” drugs and sustainable development is rooted in the contribution that the legal and illegal drug trade makes to a set of barriers to development, including: (1) interpersonal crime and community violence; (2) the corruption of public servants and the disintegration of social institutions; (3) the emergence of new or enhanced health problems; (4) the lowering of worker productivity; (5) the ensnarement of youth in drug distribution and away from productive education or employment; (6) the skewing of economies to drug production and money laundering. The paper emphasizes the need for new approaches for diminishing the burden placed by drugs on development.

Section snippets

An understudied barrier to the eradication of poverty and social inequality

The birth of the development movement can be traced to the 1955 conference of Asian and African nations at Bandung, Indonesia that led to the established of the Nonaligned Movement block. As conceived there and afterwards, development is a tripartite project of modernization involving national changes in the economy, social organization, and governance. Since its inception, the international development program has both been driven and hindered by the fact that we live at a time in which large

Challenges of the millennium development goals

There has been a steady rise in aid from developed countries in recent years, reaching over $100 billion in 2005, ostensibly intended to achieve the MDGs. Closer examination, however, reveals that more than half is debt relief on the billions of dollars owed by poor countries which does not tend to increase the amount of money spent on the achievement of the MDGs. Additionally, a large part of the remaining aid money goes into disaster relief, such as aid following the devastating Indian Ocean

Global drug capitalism and the distribution of drug commodities

Emergent patterns of drug use in the contemporary world reflect the social disruptions of the second or contemporary wave of globalisation, including “structural adjustment” strategies promoted by developed nations ostensibly intended to modernize developing nations, and the neoliberal shift from government ownership and direction to the privatization of state industries and a reliance on market forces to control economic development (Appadurai, 2001, Goroux, 2004). One goal of neoliberal

Legal drug use trends

Products manufactured and distributed internationally by the global tobacco and alcohol industries have caused significant health problems in developing nations. The greatest harm is associated with tobacco products and, thus, it is the tobacco industry that will be the primary focus here. As Barnett and Cavanagh (1994, p. 184) aptly observe, “The cigarette is the most widely distributed global consumer product on earth, the most profitable, and the most deadly.” Philip Morris International,

Impacts of drugs on development

Drugs have both direct and indirect impacts on development, across populations, age groups, institutions, and spheres of life. Moreover, because involvement in their production and sale may provide income for poor individuals and families with limited access to alternative employment, drugs pose a paradox for development initiatives. Opium, for example, is the biggest employer in Afghanistan (Barker, 2006). Similarly, in South America, the cocaine trade attracted thousands of families fleeing

Conclusions: establishing millennial ameliorative goals for the appeals of drug use

As Mesquita (2006, p. 66), based on the experience of Brazil, has stressed, “The developing world is extremely affected by the health and social impacts of the illicit drug market.” As argued here, the legal drug market, as well as illicit activities among legal drug corporations and the diversion of pharmaceutical products to the illicit trade, also contribute to significant health and social problems that undermine development efforts. Stressing that both arms of the dual drug market, legal

Acknowledgement

This paper grew out of a speaking tour on global drug patterns sponsored by the School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Melbourne. The author thanks Nick Crofts, Director of Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre in Melbourne, for providing materials that were useful in stimulating the development of this paper, Richard Needle, of the Global AIDS Program, for inviting participation in drugs and HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives in Brazil and Vietnam, Pamela

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