UNESCO Social and Human Sciences
 
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COMPLETED MOST PROJECT
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH PROJECT ON 
THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS 
CONNECTED WITH THE INTERNATIONAL DRUG PROBLEM

Local and world relations and international drug trafficking
 

Globalisation,Drugs and Criminalisation
Final Research Report on Brazil, China, India and Mexico
Scientific coordination: Christian Geffray, Guilhem Fabre and Michel Schiray
© by UNESCO, Guilhem Fabre and Michel Schiray, 2002

Click here to visit the CD-ROM presentation of the Final Report of the project (document in PDF format, not recommended for the purpose of printing)

Printer-friendly version of the Final Report (in PDF format):

Click here to read UNESCO's Press release about the report
(also available in French, Spanish and Arabic)
 
The aims of the project
Design & methodology Expected scientific results Expected institutional results
Evaluation of existing policies Timetable for the project Transfer & dissemination of results

  Drug production and drug dealing have today become a substantial source of revenue, whether for making up budget deficits or for the enrichment of certain individuals, population groups, firms or even whole countries. Drugs also involve economically marginalized sectors of the population, such as peasant producers or some small-scale drug dealers, criminal organizations or certain closely-knit sectors of society in the world of business or State institutions. In sum, the recycling of profits is central to the economy and society in terms of land, real estate and financial assets in that it directly involves businesses and financial institutions.

  The social transformations stemming from the development of the drug economy reveal a growth in the sectors of illegal activity and their interpenetration with the official sectors of society. They involve the law and the norms and elementary rules of economic and social organization, and they seem to be causing a far-reaching shift in the pattern of development of our societies. The in-depth study of these transformations therefore has essential

future implications for decision-makers and for the definition of appropriate public management tools in the short, medium and long term.

  These issues, which now concern all parts of the world, take different shape from one region and location to another. Considerable variations exist with respect to both production and distribution of drugs. Hence it appears necessary to build up more case-studies which concentrate on specific national and local features, so as to compare the sectors and sections of the population most affected in different societies.

 

  The aims of the project

  To generate fresh knowledge by compiling and processing hitherto largely unpublished data on the situation in different countries. Indeed, owing to the specific nature of the question and the fact that it is new to many regions, there is a considerable shortage of basic knowledge on the subject, except in a few countries (such as the United States or the Andean countries, in particular).
  To engage in the comparative analysis of countries and regions studied, so as to identify more clearly the different historical, cultural, social, economic, legal and political aspects of the development of drug trafficking and the social transformations connected with it.
  To set up a network of research institutions and researchers in the world’s major regions - Asia, North and South America, the Middle East, and Western and Eastern Europe. The existing basic network (Mexico, Brazil, India, China and Nigeria) will be broadened and stabilized, with care being taken to identify, involve and associate new teams, especially in regions where research is most lacking.
  To contribute to the transfer of knowledge produced within the project to decision-makers (both government officials in the various countries and international and regional institutions, as well as the media and different sectors of civil society).

DRUG-RELATED SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS 

 

  The theme of the illegal supply of drugs and of the social transformations that go with it has been largely ignored by social science research, which is not yet capable of keeping pace with public decision-making and action. 
  It is now acknowledged that the drugs trade and the resulting capital movements have taken on a macro-economic dimension of prime importance which needs, however, to be better evaluated. More precisely, a wide variety of characteristic phenomena can be observed at four levels: production; trafficking and distribution; consumption; and recycling of profits. The latter phenomena include:

  • the fact that the farming population cultivates raw materials (coca leaf, poppies, cannabis), which is usually bound up with economic survival strategies; 

  • the fact that the farming population cultivates raw materials (coca leaf, poppies, cannabis), which is usually bound up with economic survival strategies; 

  • the formation of groups of traffickers in disadvantaged metropolitan areas for reasons both of survival and of a rapid upward mobility; 

  • the emergence of urban areas partly or even wholly organized or controlled by the drugs trade and traffickers;

  • the partial or total reconversion of some segments of the economic and social élites, whether their origins are rural, land-owning, mercantile, industrial or financial, to the drugs trade and the recycling of its profits; 

  • the involvement of political circles or some politicians in the trafficking and the management of its profits.

 

  One transverse issue concerns the formation, development and action of criminal organizations in trafficking and their role in the social transformations associated with it. We find, on the one hand, a new influx of energy-mobilizing long-established, traditionally diversified, criminal organizations and, on the other, the formation of new networks and new organizations centered on the more specialized trade. 
  Another more specific issue concerns the place occupied by the drugs trade in armed conflicts and the new world geopolitical scheme of things. It is now acknowledged in specialized circles that most regional conflicts are largely financed by the drugs trade.
 

Photo   © Central Bureau of Narcotics, Ministry of Finance, Government of India    

 

  Design and methodology
  The project is based on networking among research institutions which are recognized for their high scientific standards and are of a deliberately multidisciplinary character in the social science field.
  It gives prominence to the research conducted in five geographical areas centered around five large countries: Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Nigeria. All these regions are economically complex and diversified and are all, to a sharply increasing extent, involved in the drugs trade. The project will support the formation of teams in these regions and will concentrate a large proportion of the research effort on them.
  The project will associate research teams from countries with more advanced knowledge of the subject, such as, in the South, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand and, in the North, North America and Europe.
  Research will be mainly organized around an annual seminar, which will be attended by representatives of all the research teams engaged in the project.
__The research methodology will be clearly multidisciplinary and comparative, counting upon the participation of sociologists, economists, political scientists, and anthropologists.

 

  Expected scientific results

  The generation of fresh knowledge in several of the five main regions given precedence and its comparison with the information available in the neighbouring small countries that are familiar with drug problem.
  A better theoretical understanding of the conditions governing the development of the drugs traffic and of the economic and social transformations connected with them.
  The regular production of analyses on the status of the question at both the global level and the regional and subregional levels.

 

  Expected institutional results

  The creation of a stabilized international network of researchers involving all regions of the world, centered on a hitherto unexplored body of problems of importance to the future of the planet.
  The organization of a analytical tools to provide assistance in public decision-making at the national and international levels.

 

  Evaluation of existing policies and relevance of the research to policy-making
  No matter how legitimate the international drug prohibition system may be for containing the risks of a disproportionate upsurge in drug addiction, it perhaps underestimates the social, economic and political implications of the creation of a very highly internationalized and widely accessible illegal market, in spite of the measures taken to repress it. The project accordingly aims at contributing to better understanding and gauging the social transformations at different international, national and local levels, especially in major urban centers, and also in rural areas.
  Its findings should make it possible to build up a new set of arguments based on the economic, social and political consequences of international and national drug control measures. This set of arguments is likely to counterbalance those constructed on the basis of public health and policing, which, in our opinion, are too narrow a foundation for these policies.

 

  Timetable for the project
  The project is planned to last for four years, with a preliminary year to complete the organization of the network.
  The preliminary year (1996/1997) was spent chiefly on broadening the basis of national collaboration, particularly in regions where contacts are not yet firmly established, and on strengthening links among the different participants centered on the project problem area. At the end of this year, it was possible to present a final list of participants and a draft outline of national projects. On this basis, the project will obviously maintain an open structure, and fresh participants and additional research will be incorporated throughout the period covered by it.
__The basic organizing principle for co-operation among members of the network will be the holding of annual seminars, at which direct contact and exchanges can take place among the project participants. The work plan will keep pace with these seminars and will follow the progress made by the research according to the following sequence:

 

  Contact seminar: discussion of the project problem area and presentation of national projects (UNESCO/Paris, April 1997);
    First seminar for evaluation and comparison of the initial results (Rio de Janeiro, October 1998);
    First synoptic seminar, with a partial redefinition of the problem area and of the research objectives: reformulation of ongoing national projects (1999);
    Conference for the presentation and discussion of final results, with the participation of government officials and representatives of civil society (2000).
  These itinerant seminars are organized every year in one of the five countries targeted by the project, under the responsibility of the national teams of those countries, each of which is in turn in charge of co-ordination of the work.

 

  Transfer and dissemination of results
  The results will be transferred and disseminated via four main channels:

  Permanent briefing of specialist scientific circles through the Internet networks and a regular newsletter produced by the project (the Clearing House of the MOST program is the medium for this activity);
  Publication of articles in scientific reviews in the various regions, throughout the duration of the project, and the issue of a final publication at the end of the work;
  Direct action among government officials and representatives of civil society in the framework of seminars or working groups at the national level (Ministries, junior ministers’ offices, etc.) and the regional level (Commissions, Committees, etc.).
  Organization and elaboration of pedogogical tools to be used in training activities of decision-makers.