Drug Policies and the Politics of Drugs in the Americas This Is a FM Blank Page Beatriz Caiuby Labate • Clancy Cavnar • Thiago Rodrigues Editors

Drug Policies and the Politics of Drugs in the Americas ThiS is a FM Blank Page Beatriz Caiuby Labate • Clancy Cavnar • Thiago Rodrigues Editors

Drug Policies and the Politics of Drugs in the Americas Editors Beatriz Caiuby Labate Clancy Cavnar CIDE Center for Economic Research San Francisco, California and Education USA Aguascalientes Mexico

Thiago Rodrigues Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

ISBN 978-3-319-29080-5 ISBN 978-3-319-29082-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29082-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948206

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

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This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland Foreword: From Drug Prohibition to Reform

The publication of Drug Policies and the Politics of Drugs in the Americas could not be timelier, as it coincides with an unprecedented debate on drug policy reform across the hemisphere. The book also fills a void in the literature, as scant academic work has been published in recent years on drug policy in the region. To my knowledge, it is also the first book in English to focus on both the evolution of the drug policy debate and the reform processes underway in some Latin American and Caribbean countries. The April 2012 Cartagena summit, in which the regions’ presidents tasked the Organization of American States (OAS) with analyzing present drug control policies and exploring alternative approaches, launched a regional discussion of a topic long considered taboo. While the hemisphere remains divided on many drug policy- related issues, a consensus is emerging around the need to treat drug use as a public health—not criminal—issue; the urgent need to address the regions’ prison crisis by reducing the numbers of those incarcerated on low-level drug offenses; and the importance of giving countries the flexibility to experiment with policies most suited to their own national realities. The regional debate has spilled onto the world stage. As a result of a proposal by the governments of Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, a special session of the UN General Assembly (UNGASS) on “the world drug problem” will be held in April 2016, providing an opportunity for the highest-level debate on the international drug control system in recent history. In short, Latin America is at the vanguard of the international drug policy debate. How it got there is due to a convergence of factors. The US government has long flexed its political, military, and economic muscle to dictate regional—if not global—drug policies, with a particularly strong impact on countries of historic US domination and those dependent on US economic support (Central America and the Andes). Even today, the Associated Press reports that an estimated 4,000 US troops are on the ground and agents from at least 10 US agencies are involved in drug control efforts across Latin America. And, while paling in comparison to the billions of dollars spent on Plan Colombia, a US government counter-drug aid package launched in that country in 1999, the Obama administration has asked the US Congress to fund a one billion dollar aid package for Central America to help v vi Foreword: From Drug Prohibition to Reform address the root causes of violence, drug trafficking, and the flow of migrants north. Yet, for the most part, Washington is no longer calling the shots when it comes to national and regional drug policies. This is due in part to the emergence in recent years of left-wing governments that have challenged US hegemony in its “backyard.” At the same time, sharply declining levels of US economic assistance and US policymakers’ preoccupation with foreign policy crisis in other parts of the world have contributed to declining US influence in the region. President Obama himself recognized this new reality at the April 2015 summit of hemispheric leaders in Panama, stating: “The days in which our agenda in this hemisphere so often presumed that the United States could meddle with impunity, those days are past.” Of course, with regard to drug policy, the US government also has a serious credibility problem. With four US states having implemented or in the process of implementing legal, regulated cannabis markets, the United States is now clearly out of compliance with the very international drug control conventions that it so carefully crafted. Another factor spurring the debate is that some countries—most notably, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Ecuador—have been willing to experiment with innovative, if not radical, reforms. Boldly challenging the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, Bolivia is the first country to denounce and return to the convention with a reservation allowing for licit coca use in that country. In his chapter on Bolivia, Thomas Grisaffi describes how “coca leaf has been used for millennia by indigenous peoples in the Andean countries” and has social and cultural uses that, while rejected by the international drug control conventions, are now enshrined in the Bolivian constitution. Not long after Bolivia’s historic step, Uruguay became the first country in the world to create a legal, regulated cannabis market. Guillermo Garat describes the debate within Uruguay, the challenges in creating such a market, and the opportunity it offers, if implemented successfully, to present an alternative approach to regulating the world’s most consumed “illicit” substance. After several years of internal debate, Ecuador ultimately implemented a sweep- ing penal code reform that creates far greater proportionality in sentencing for drug offenses and attempts to clearly distinguish between consumers and traffickers. Jaćome and Alvarez Velasco explain how the “principle of favorability,” enshrined in the Ecuadorian justice system, allows for the new penal code to be applied retroactively. As a result, between August 2014, when the new penal code went into effect, and March 2015, more than 2300 people convicted on drug offenses were released from prison. The new Ecuadorian penal code provides a model for other countries seeking to reduce the incarceration rates of low-level drug offenders. Finally, a fundamental factor driving the regional drug policy debate is the high cost paid by Latin American countries for implementing policies dictated, at least initially, by Washington. Indeed, the region is significantly worse off than when US President Richard Nixon launched the “War on Drugs” over 40 years ago. Drug trafficking routes that used to be confined to strategic corridors now proliferate across the region, crisscrossing in every direction. With them come organized crime, corruption, and the erosion of democratic institutions. Of particular concern Foreword: From Drug Prohibition to Reform vii are the unacceptably high levels of violence in some countries. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), while Latin America holds 8 % of the world’s population, 42 % of the world’s homicides take place there. And, as the drug trade has expanded, so have drug markets and problematic drug use in countries with scant resources to invest in health care, let alone drug treatment programs. Punitive drug policies are the driving force behind the regions’ prison crisis. Excessively harsh sentencing policies, the adoption of mandatory minimums, and the expansion of conducts considered to be drug crimes have led to an explosion of people in jail on low-level drug offenses. As documented by the Collective for the Study of Drugs and the Law (Colectivo de Estudios Drogas y Derecho, CEDD), in many countries, the penalties for committing any drug-related crime are higher than for rape or murder. In Ecuador, prior to the adoption of its new penal code, the mandatory sentence for drug crimes was 12–25 years, while the maximum sentence for killing someone was 16 years. Hence, it was not uncommon to find low-level drug traffickers incarcerated with longer sentences than murderers. Numerous chapters of the book document how it is the most vulnerable sectors of society that bear the brunt of the punitive approach to drug control, in other words, how drug laws and policies contribute to the criminalization of poverty. In the case of Jamaica, for example, police routinely target, arrest, and even kill those smoking or possessing “ganja” in poor, marginalized communities. In Brazil, the possession of drugs for personal use was de-penalized, but police have the discre- tion to determine whether possession is for personal use or sale. Application of the law has taken on a distinctly racial tone, as White people are far more likely to be charged with possession than people of color. Of particular concern, as noted in the case of Argentina, is the increasing number of women imprisoned for drug offenses: nearly 70 % in some prisons, often single mothers or caregivers; the consequences of their incarceration for their children, elderly parents, families, and communities can be devastating. Similarly, Grisaffi describes how coca eradication impacts poor farmers, driving them deeper into poverty and generating human rights violations and social conflict. These policies have also come at another high cost: the resources that could have been invested in economic development in poor urban and rural communities, in health care, in evidence-based treatment programs, and the like. US-backed drug policies have also sometimes worked at cross-purposes, aiding the very forces that are the alleged targets of the Drug War. One of the most interesting examples provided in the book is the case of Mexico, where Benjamin T. Smith explains how two parallel drug policies functioned side by side. On the one hand, there was the hard-line approach based on the international drug treaties and collaboration with the US government. On the other, there was what he refers to as the “gray zone,” where collusion between criminal organizations and institutions of the state takes place. Perhaps the most compelling example of “aiding the enemy” comes after the period covered by the chapter ends, when a special counter-drug unit funded by the US government changed sides and became the notorious “Zetas” drug cartel. viii Foreword: From Drug Prohibition to Reform

While often overlooked in the Latin America reform discourse, the citizens of the United States have also paid a high cost for implementing punitive drug policies. Nowhere is this more evident than in the nation’s prisons. The United States makes up 5 % of the world’s population, yet has 25 % of the world’s prison population—and 33 % of the world’s female prison population. As in Latin America, the primary factor driving the significant increase in the number of both state and federal prisoners is harsh sentencing policies for drug-related crimes, in particular mandatory minimums. Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, brought unprecedented public attention to the racial dimensions of how the War on Drugs is waged in the United States. More than 40 years after the so-called Drug War was launched, and billions of dollars later, there is no doubt that it has failed to come even remotely close to achieving the US government’s own stated goals of reducing the production and consumption of drugs deemed to be illicit. Why the US government remains wedded to policies that have failed is one of the harder questions to answer, as the present US drug policy in so many ways defies logic. Steve Rolles does a good job of addressing the question in his chapter on the United States. After explaining the tendency—in the United States as well as internationally—to conflate the harms caused by prohibition with the harms caused by drugs themselves, he points to four overlapping explanations: an entrenched bureaucracy, including enforcement agencies, that depends on policy continuity; politicians’ aversions to being seen as “soft on drugs”; the “widely held view that using illegal drugs is intrinsically immoral”; and the use of the drug issue as a vehicle for other foreign policy objectives, including direct and indirect military intervention. Similarly, in their introductory chapter, Thiago Rodrigues and Beatriz Labate provide an interesting view on how multiple and interconnected factors are the driving forces behind prohibition, including moral and social views and public security and international security concerns. Yet, the US drug policy is on a slow path to reform. The Obama administration long ago dropped the use of “Drug War” terminology and has placed far greater emphasis on addressing demand for illegal drugs. Obama’s signature healthcare reform incorporates provision of treatment for drug dependency, greatly expanding access to treatment services. In response to the cannabis legalization efforts at the state level, the administration has responded cautiously, announcing that it would not intervene in the implementation of legal, regulated cannabis markets, while laying out a series of conditions which, if not met, could result in federal action. Where President Obama has spoken out most forcefully is on the need to end mass incarceration in the United States. While significant reductions in the US prison population ultimately depend on the US Congress enacting legislative reforms, the US Department of Justice has implemented numerous regulatory changes that could reduce the number of federal prisoners. As a result, for the first time since 1980, the US federal prison population declined between 2012 and 2013. Reforms are progressing slowly in Latin America as well. While bold initiatives have been undertaken in Bolivia, Uruguay, and Ecuador, as described above, the Foreword: From Drug Prohibition to Reform ix drug policy debate in other countries has failed to translate into substantive reforms. This is particularly true in the case of the three countries that have led the push for broadening the debate at the international level: Guatemala, Colombia, and Mexico. In the case of Guatemala, it is now clear that, for all of his rhetoric and calls for debating legalization, President Otto Pe´rez Molina will likely leave office without having implemented a single drug policy reform in his own country. Amanda Feilding and Juan Fernańdez Ochoa point to a number of factors that have led to this disappointing outcome, including (and perhaps most significantly) the deep- rooted nexus between organized crime, intelligence and security forces, and government officials. In the case of Colombia, a new drug law was drafted that could result in significant reforms, but officials from that country have made clear that no such reforms will be implemented until peace negotiations with the FARC guer- rillas have concluded. One accord already reached in those negotiations would result in a shift from forced eradication to a focus on economic development in some coca and poppy growing regions of the country that, if implemented, would mark a dramatic departure from past policies. Finally, in the case of Mexico, a clear disconnect exists between the positions advocated by Mexican officials on the international stage and policy change domestically. While local analysts and activists lament the lack of a domestic drug policy reform agenda, Mexico is playing an extremely significant role in pushing for a wide-ranging, inclusive, and transparent debate at the UNGASS on drugs, to take place in 2016. Ironically, some of the countries most opposed to having that debate are among the more left-wing governments in the region. Venezuela, along with Nicaragua and Cuba, which are not included in the book, tends to most vociferously defend the status quo; indeed, today they behave far more like drug warriors than the United States. The chapter on Venezuela provides a compelling explanation of why the Chavez and now Maduro governments have challenged US hegemony in the region, while at the same time continuing to wage its Drug War. That explanation is rooted in both ideology and the perceived need to respond to Washington’s repeated accusations that drug-related corruption is allowing the trade to flourish in that country. In short, despite the drug policy debate underway across the hemisphere and its international implications, Latin American and the Caribbean countries remain divided on the way forward. Moreover, for the most part, public opinion strongly favors mano dura or hard-line approaches. Though the link between drugs and crime is not clearly established in many cases, as discussed in the Venezuela chapter, popular perceptions tend to equate drug policy reforms with increased drug use and crime. In contrast to the United States, where cannabis legalization efforts are being driven by popular support at the state level, the Uruguayan government implemented its legalization effort despite public opinion, which has remained opposed to the initiative. An innovative educational campaign carried out by local NGOs at the time the legislation was being debated in congress only moved public opinion by a few percentage points; however, it was successful in improving the quality of the debate and bringing key civil society sectors on board. The government believes that the ultimate results of its approach will convince the x Foreword: From Drug Prohibition to Reform country’s citizens that it is a more effective way of regulating cannabis cultivation and use. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in one of the most cutting-edge debates in the hemisphere today. It provides an in-depth review of the history of the Drug War in key Latin American countries, a sound critique of the way those policies have been designed and implemented, and the costs that have been incurred by countries across the region as a result. The authors offer a review of the debates presently underway and the reforms being implemented. While clearly laying out the realities in each of the countries presented, including obstacles and challenges to reform efforts, a cautious optimism seeps through. Perhaps the so-called War on Drugs—a war waged on some of the most marginalized and vulnerable sectors of society—is finally coming to an end. We can only hope that more humane and effective policies will take its place.

Coletta A. Youngers Contents

1 Introduction: Drugs and Politics in the Americas: A Laboratory for Analysis ...... 1 Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Clancy Cavnar, and Thiago Rodrigues 2 Prohibition and the War on Drugs in the Americas: An Analytical Approach ...... 11 Thiago Rodrigues and Beatriz Caiuby Labate 3 Public Drug Policy and Grey Zone Pacts in Mexico, 1920–1980 ... 33 Benjamin T. Smith 4 Drug Policy in Guatemala: Constraints and Opportunities ...... 53 Amanda Feilding and Juan Fernańdez Ochoa 5 Ecuador: The Evolution of Drug Policies in the Middle of the World ...... 71 Ana Isabel Jaćome and Carla Alvarez Velasco 6 Seeking Alternatives to Repression: Drug Policies and the Rule of Law in Colombia ...... 87 Rodrigo Uprimny and Diana Esther Guzmań 7 Revolution and Counter-Reform: The Paradoxes of Drug Policy in Bolivarian Venezuela ...... 105 Andre´s Antillano, Veronica Zubillaga, and Keymer A´ vila 8 From Freedom to Repression and Violence: The Evolution of Drug Policy in Peru ...... 123 Aldo F. Ponce 9 Social Control in Bolivia: A Humane Alternative to the Forced Eradication of Coca Crops ...... 149 Thomas Grisaffi

xi xii Contents

10 History and Changes of the Drug Policy in Argentina ...... 167 R. Alejandro Corda and Diana Rossi 11 Brazilian Drug Policy: Tension Between Repression and Alternatives ...... 187 Thiago Rodrigues and Beatriz Caiuby Labate 12 Uruguay: A Way to Regulate the Cannabis Market ...... 209 Guillermo Garat 13 Ganja Terrorism and the Healing of the Nation ...... 227 Jahlani A.H. Niaah 14 From Drug War to Policy Reform: Implications of US Drug Strategy for Latin America ...... 245 Steve Rolles

Index ...... 263 List of Contributors

Editors

Clancy Cavnar has a doctorate in clinical psychology (PsyD) from John F. Kennedy University. She currently works at a dual diagnosis residential drug treatment center in San Francisco and is a research associate of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP). She combines an eclectic array of interests and activities as clinical psychologist, artist, and researcher. She has an undergraduate degree in liberal arts from the New College of the University of South Florida, a master of ﬁne arts in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, a master’s in counseling from San Francisco State University, and a certiﬁcate in substance abuse counseling from the extension program of the University of California at Berkeley. Her art is inspired by her experience with psychedelics, especially with the Santo Daime religious tradition. She is author and co-author of articles in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs and the International Journal for Drug Policy, among others. She is co-editor, with Beatriz Caiuby Labate, of four books: The Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca (Springer, 2014); Prohibition, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights: Regulating Traditional Drug Use (Springer, 2014) Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2014); and Peyote: History, Tradition, Politics and Conservation (ABC-Clio/Praeger, 2016). Clancy’s art and academic work has been presented both in the USA and abroad. For more information see: http://www.neip.info/index.php/content/view/ 1438.html and http://www.clancycavnar.com. Beatriz Caiuby Labate has a PhD in social anthropology from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of psychoactive substances, drug policy, shamanism, ritual, and religion. She is Professor at the Center for Research and Post Graduate Studies in Social Anthro- pology (CIESAS), in Guadalajara, and Visiting Professor at the Drug Policy Program of the Center for Economic Research and Education (CIDE), in Aguas- calientes, Mexico. She is also co-founder of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary

xiii xiv List of Contributors

Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP), and editor of NEIP’s website (http://www.neip. info). She is author, co-author, and co-editor of 13 books, one special-edition journal, and several peer-reviewed articles. For more information, see: http:// bialabate.net/. Thiago Rodrigues is Full Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Strategic Studies of the Fluminense Federal University, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has a PhD in international relations from the Pontifical Catholic University of S~ao Paulo, Brazil, with a research partnership at the Institut des Hautes E´ tudes de l’Ame´rique Latine of the Sorbonne University, Paris. He is a researcher and member of the Nućleo de Sociabilidade Liberta´ria (Nu-Sol/PUC-SP) and associate researcher of the Regional Coordinator of Economic and Social Research (CRIES), Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rodrigues is one of the founders of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP), Brazil. He has published the books: Polı´tica e drogas nas Ame´ricas [Politics and Drugs in the Americas] (2004); Guerra e Polı´tica nas Relaço˜es Internacionais [War and Politics in International Relations] (2010) and Narcotrafico: Uma Guerra na Guerra [Drug Trafficking: A War into a War] (2012), among other titles. His fields of interest are: drug trafficking and security; Latin American security; non-state actors and global security; and post-structuralist international relations (IR) theory.

Authors

Andre´s Antillano is professor and researcher at the Institute of Penal Sciences, at the Universidad Central de Venezuela UCV. He is a social psychologist and criminologist. He studied at Central University of Venezuela (UCV), and Barcelona University (UB, Spain), and University of Middlesex (UK). His research focuses on crime transformations and on the penal field. He has published several papers and book chapters about security, drugs, and policing. For more than a decade Professor Antillano has combined academia with public advocacy in the domain of police reform; social violence, specifically engaged in arms control and disarmament policy. He is a researcher engaged in the domain of human and social rights and vulnerable populations. Keymer A´ vila is a lawyer magna cum laude from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and has a master’s in criminology from the Barcelona University (UB, Spain). He is a researcher at the Institute of Penal Sciences of the UCV, and professor of criminology at the Andre´s Bello Catholic University. He is member of the academic committee of the specialization in criminology and criminal sciences of the UCV and collaborator of the Observatory of the Penal System and Human Rights, UB. He has published in Capı´tulo Criminologico; Espacio Abierto; Crı´tica Penal y Poder, among others. The focus of his research is the penal system in its dynamic dimension (security, mass media, criminal policy, police, criminal List of Contributors xv investigation, criminal law) and its static dimension (theories, ideologies, and punitive rationalities). Rau´l Alejandro Corda received a law degree from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) in 1998. He is now a teacher and researcher at the UBA. Since 1993, he has worked in the national judiciary and has been a court secretary in the Federal Criminal Jurisdiction since 2001. Corda is a member of Intercambios Asociacion Civil, an NGO that works on drug policy issues (http://www.intercambios.org.ar/), and the Colectivo de Estudios Drogas y Derecho (CEDD, http://drogasyderecho. org) that includes researchers from the region. He has also written several articles about drug policy. He also has worked for the program “Legislation on Drugs in the Americas” from the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Organization of the Americas State (OAS). Amanda Feilding is the director of the Beckley Foundation, a UK-based think-tank at the forefront of global drug policy reform. She studied comparative religions and mysticism at Oxford, and later did extensive research into psychology, physiology, and altered states of consciousness. When she founded the Beckley Foundation in 1998, drug policy was not informed by scientific evidence and her aim was to help create that evidence in order to develop policies based on health, harm-reduction, cost-effectiveness and human rights. Over the last 15 years, the Beckley has organized a series of influential international drug policy seminars entitled Drugs and Society: A Rational Perspective, mainly held at the House of Lords in London. The Foundation has produced over 40 books, reports, and briefing papers, including the influential Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate and the Beckley Public Letter, a document signed by distinguished world-figures, including nine Presi- dents. The Foundation also set up both the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP) and the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), now both independent bodies. Amanda was invited by President Otto Pe´rez Molina to set up a Latin America chapter in Guatemala to advise the president and his government on drug policy reform, including preparing a report on the regulation of coca, cocaine, and its derivatives to open up the debate on this taboo issue. Guillermo Garat has a degree in journalism from Universidad de la Repu´blica in Uruguay. He is a journalist who began his writing career in 1998. He has written for several newspapers and magazines in Uruguay. He also contributed to publications in other countries, such as Spain, Argentina, Germany, Norway, and Chile. He has contributed to publications such as Le Monde Diplomatique, EFE News Agency, and Deutsche Welle. In 2012, he published Marihuana y otras yerbas: prohibicion, regulacion y uso de drogas en Uruguay [Marijuana and Other Herbs: Prohibition, Regulation and Use of Drugs in Uruguay], a deconstruction of drug policies in Uruguay and their effects on Uruguayan society. Thomas Grisaffi is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the Institute of the Americas at University College London (UCL). Thomas is also a Research Fellow at the Andean Information Network in Cochabamba. Before moving to UCL Thomas was a postdoctoral fellow on the SSRC/Open Society Foundation’s Drugs, xvi List of Contributors

Security and Democracy program. Prior to that he worked as an assistant professor for 3 years in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. He received his PhD in social anthropology from the University of Manchester in 2009. Thomas’s main research focus is the political ascent of the Chapare coca growers union in Bolivia. His thematic interests include democracy, citizenship, drug control policy, social movements, and community radio. Thomas is the author of numerous academic articles and blogs. He is currently working on a book manuscript with the working title “Long Live Coca, Death To Yankees!”. Diana Esther Guzmań is a JSD candidate at Stanford University and a professor at National University (Colombia). She holds a JSM from Stanford University, as well as an LLM, an advanced degree in Constitutional Law, and a JD from the National University (Colombia). Her work focuses on the sociology of law and human rights, historical and political sociology, and gender issues, with a focus on Latin America. Her current research concentrates on the role of the law in transitional processes and its capacity to achieve transformative effects, focusing on the Colombian land restitution program. She was a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Law, Justice, and Society (Dejusticia) in Bogota, Colombia, and a lecturer at Rosario University. Ana Jaćome is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist, currently working on her PhD research project: an ethnographic approach to drug addiction treatment in Ecuador. Aside from her private practice as a clinical psychologist, and her involvement with the legal system as a forensic psychology expert, Ana has participated in several research projects related to drugs and drug policy in Ecuador. The topics she has worked on include drug use and narratives in high school teachers in Quito, private drug addiction rehabilitation clinics in Ecuador, and democracy and the debate on drug policy, among others. As a consultant, Ana is constantly involved in research and in workshops that deal with issues related to human rights, mental health, violence, and, specifically, gender-based violence. Her current research focuses on face-to-face interactions in addiction treatment. Jahlani Niaah is an active member of the Rastafari community and holds an MA in modern international studies from University of Leeds and the PhD in cultural studies from the University of the West Indies. Currently he is located in the Office of the Principal at Mona where he coordinates the Rastafari Studies Unit as well as the recently established Center for Ganja/Cannabis Research at the University of the West Indies. His research interests include indigenous knowledge systems; African Diaspora praxes; Rastafari cosmology and cannabis and popular leader- ship. Niaah has also been actively engaged with working on the issues of reparation for African slavery and the phenomenon of Rastafari repatriation to Ethiopia. Niaah has published book chapters and journal articles in leading publications in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean, and is the coeditor of the 2013 volume: “Let us start with Africa”: Honouring Rastafari Scholarship. Juan Fernandez Ochoa is Team Assistant at the International Drug Policy Con- sortium. Before joining IDPC, he was Policy Officer at the Beckley Foundation, List of Contributors xvii where he carried out research and oversaw the development of two major reports on drug policy and regulation. He holds a double master’s degree in European studies from the London School of Economics (LSE) and Sciences Po. His academic interests focus on issues related to drug policy; in particular, the “War on Drugs” and its consequences as social phenomena increasingly structuring international relations. He previously coordinated the workgroup “[Re]thinking Drug Policy” during his master’s studies, and worked for the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, now DrugScience, providing support in communications. Aldo F. Ponce is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies at the Center for Economic Research and Education (CIDE) in Aguascalientes, Mexico. He earned his PhD in political science from the University of Houston. His research focuses on legislatures and political parties. His work has appeared in Studies in Comparative International Development, Latin American Politics and Society, the Journal of Politics in Latin America, West European Politics, and other journals. Diana Rossi is a social worker and specialist in youngsters’ social problems from Buenos Aires University. Currently, she is professor and researcher of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. She is also a member of the board of directors and research coordinator of Intercambios Civil Association, an Argentinean non-governmental organization that does research and prevention concerning drug users and other people at high HIV risk. She collaborates with other national and international organizations, governmental and non-governmental agencies, and universities. She is currently a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Drug Policy. She is author of many papers, books, and book chapters in national and international publications. Benjamin T. Smith is an associate professor at the University of Warwick. He is a historian of Mexican nineteenth- and twentieth-century grassroots politics and has done most of his research in the archives, villages, churches, and markets of the predominantly indigenous state of Oaxaca. His first book attempted to capture the diversity of post-revolutionary politics and looked at regional bosses, female-led social movements, violence, and agrarian reform from the 1920s through to the 1950s. His second project looked at landownership, priest–parishioner relations, religious rituals, and politics in the Mixteca Baja from the late colonial period to the 1960s. Beyond these broad research interests, he has also published articles on indigenous and grassroots responses to indigenismo, indigenous militarism, the PAN, taxation, state healthcare, local elections, and the drug trade. He is currently working on two projects. The first, supported by the British Academy, looks at politics, the press, and the reading public in Mexico from 1940 to 1980, and examines national and local newspapers, internal PRI rags, corridos and occasional flysheets. The second, in conjunction with Wil Pansters (University of Utrecht) and Peter Watt (University of Sheffield), is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It is a history of the drug trade in Mexico from the early twentieth century to the present day. xviii List of Contributors

Carla Alvarez Velasco has a master’s in international relations and is a PhD candidate in political studies at FLACSO—Ecuador. She is currently a professor at the Institute of High National Studies and teaching in the areas of International Relations Theory and Security Theory. Her specialties include issues of international politics, foreign policy, and small arms trafficking, as well as the problems of the Ecuadorian Northern Border and its relationship to international drug trafficking and international development cooperation. Additionally, she has worked as a research partner at the International Drug Policy Consortium of Canada (IDPC) for the past 3 years, tracking the South American Council on the World Drug Problem of UNASUR and the Ecuadorian drug policy. Rodrigo Uprimny Yepes is a lawyer and holds a doctorate in political economy from the University de Amiens Picar die, with a DSU (master’s) in legal sociology from the University of Paris II and a DEA (master’s) in social economy of development from the University of Paris I (IEDES). He is currently the director of Dejusticia (Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad), and professor of the master’s and PhD programs at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He has an extensive bibliography, including books and articles about constitutional law, transitional justice, human rights, and drug policy. Veronica Zubillaga is a professor at the Universidad Simon Bolı´var in Caracas. Her publications include the books El nuevo malestar en la cultura, together with Hugo Jose´ Sua´rez and Guy Bajoit (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Me´xico; Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, 2013), and Violencia Armada y Acuerdos de Convivencia en una Comunidad Caraquena~ , with Manuel Llorens, Gilda Nuńez,~ and John Souto (Editorial Equinoccio, 2015). Her research interests include: urban violence in Latin America; youth gang violence in Caracas; masculinities and qualitative methods. She has published in Current Sociology; Revista Mexicana de Sociologıá; and Nueva Sociedad, among others. In 2014 she was the Craig M. Cogut Visiting Professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University, and in 2012, a Fulbright Research Scholar.