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Table of contents
EDITORIAL
Drugs, globalisation and social transformation
From the beginning of the 20th century, sovereign states
have increasingly committed themselves to cross border co-operation to
control the international flow of narcotics. The world’s drug problem has
not ceased to worsen since the mid-1970s, when an explosion in production,
trafficking and abuse of controlled substances triggered alarm in the international
community. At the end of the 1990s, the situation continued to worsen mainly
with the boom of synthetic drugs and the "black hole" in the international
financial system created by money laundering.
Responding to this concern UNDCP, MOST's partner for the project
Social and economic transformations connected with
the international drug problem, became the king-pin of the organization
of the twentieth United Nations General Assembly Special Session (New York,
8-10 June 1998) devoted to the struggle against production, sale, demand,
trafficking and illicit distribution of narcotics and psychotropic substances,
and connected activities. The Drugs Summit had the following motto:
everyone unite to end the drug problem in the 21st century.
The Summit proposed not only to have the General Assembly adopt a new international
plan of action against drugs presented by UNDCP, but also to bring together
for hearing a large number of actors, mainly NGOs, the press, the police,
customs and public health officials.
 The
round table themes chosen by UNDCP are central to the present drug problem
and concern most of the world’s States. Production and distribution of
drugs have today become a considerable source of revenue for meeting budget
deficiencies or enriching, on a personal basis, population groups, companies
or even countries. They also involve economically marginalized populations
such as agricultural worker-producers or small-time middle-men, criminal
organizations or certain segments of the private sector or state institutions.
Direct recycling of profits affects the economic heart of society at the
level of land patrimony, real estate and finance. Social transformations
that operate on the economic development of drugs reveal that illegal activities
are increasingly penetrating official sectors of society and are spreading
to other sectors of illegal gain. They implicate the law and elementary
norms and rules of economic and social organisation, and they seriously
modify the evolution of our societies. The in-depth study of these transformations
is therefore of real importance for decision-makers, for defining appropriate
instruments of public management in the short, medium and long term perspective.
Certainly, on a world-wide scale, cautious optimism is in order with
regard to the actual impact of the Summit. Results on certain less official
aspects of the problem treated within the MOST project and debated in the
informal atmosphere of round tables suggest progress in the fight against
illicit drugs.
The conspicuous absence of a round table devoted to research issues
is regrettable and shows that an extra effort is needed to communicate
its importance for comprehending the varied and complex aspects of the
drug phenomenon. Such an understanding should, theoretically, be made before
any further policy proposals. Nevertheless, despite this void, social science
research issues were presented in reports at various round tables organized
by UNDCP and NGOs. There has not been, as expected, a real opening up of
social science research guidelines since the Summit and this is a regrettable
shortfall. It is reasonable to hope, however, that since the Conference,
research on money laundering can now attract more financing and that official
actors involved in the struggle against drugs turn to research to assess
results of past actions and contribute to shaping new legislation and policy.
C.M. & Laurent Laniel
The round tables organized by the UNDCP during the Drug Summit addressed
the following themes:
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Children, young people and drug abuse (in collaboration with UNICEF, UNESCO
and UNFPA);
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Drugs and productivity (in collaboration with ILO);
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Drugs and development (with UNDP);
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Abuse of drugs and HIV/AIDS (with UNOAIDS and WHO);
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Attack the profits of crime: drugs, money and laundering;
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Cut off the flow on offer (UNDCP with Interpol and the World Customs Organization);
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Narrate and present drugs in the new multimedia environment (UNDCP with
UNDP and RAI).
Contact the MOST web site (http://www.unesco.org/most)
for more information on the Drug Summit and the detailed report on the
Drugs Economy and Social Development prepared by Laurent Laniel
(OGD, Paris), member of the MOST-Drug project network.
Production of Opium paste (Colombia)
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS
CONNECTED WITH THE INTERNATIONAL DRUG PROBLEM
Social Science in the Service of Development
With an annual turnover of $US400 billion (according to the latest UNDCP
estimate) the illegal drugs business, expanded greatly over the last decade,
now produces more revenue than many large industrial sectors. According
to the IMF, drug profits constitute one of the principle sources of the
$US500 billion of illegal money laundering each year.
Over the last twenty years, drug production, particularly drug distribution,
expanded geographically. Moving away from the traditional heroine producing
areas of the Gold Crescent and Triangle, and the cocaine production of
the Andes, a growing number of countries now experiment with new crops
and products, such as synthetic drugs, and supply international distribution
networks. Few countries, North or South, remain unaffected.
Attention has been focused for some time already on the development
of illegal crops in some agricultural regions where poor rates of exchange
resulting in revenue loss on traditional products encouraged farmers to
engage in illegal crop production to compensate for their losses. More
recently, studies have concentrated on the repercussions of the distribution
and use of drugs in large cities, first in the North, then in the South.
Progressively recognised is the role of drug trafficking in the development
of large criminal organisations, and in criminal activity in general, including
evidence of the drug trade in financing armed conflicts. Today, as research
emphasis is placed on drug money laundering, evidence of the interpenetration
of the illegal and official economies is surfacing, as is the involvement,
direct or indirect, of large sectors of the population, even within state
institutions.
Even if these realities are now accepted by governments and public opinion
alike, the lack of scientific work on this theme leaves the dissemination
of information to the media, or to specialised national and international
organizations. There are, however, specific problems associated with gathering
accurate information in this area. Without the kinds of officially sanctioned
figures available for the legal economy, data gathering in the illegal
sector demands extensive field-work capacity, and the ability to quantitatively
measure the observable reality, and use these observations as a basis for
macro-economic extrapolation. In addition, more specific qualitative socio-economic
research is needed than currently available, as survey methods traditionally
used to investigate socially legitimate phenomena are inappropriate for
examining illegal activities. For this reason, one of the central objectives
of the project Economic and Social Transformations
Connected with Drug Trafficking is to collaborate with specialised
research institutions to develop new methods of enquiry which will enable
a more accurate and realistic macro-economic evaluation than is currently
possible using existing statistics.
Such methodological development implies many large-scale surveys carried
out in varying geographical areas. Although an advanced level of research
has already been attained in the USA and in some European countries or
countries with a special interest in the problem - for example in the region
of the Andes, Golden Crescent and Golden Triangle - little progress has
been made in most major countries in Africa, Asia and South America, or
in the former Soviet Union. Yet in certain regions, sectors of society,
or institutions in these countries, drug trafficking constitutes an important
factor in current social, economic and even political transformations,
the effects of which may be felt at all levels - local, regional, national
and international.
Following its acceptance by the MOST Scientific Steering Committee,
this project was launched at UNESCO Headquarters on 4 and 5 April 1997,
which inaugurated collaboration between the United Nations International
Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and UNESCO with a view to reinforcing research
co-ordination in the field of drug trafficking and control. An essential
part of the co-operation between the two organizations consists in the
exchange of information. Access to UNDCP literature facilitates
the smooth progress of the research work, and research results from the
MOST networks provide an important contribution to UNDCP data gathering
in this field. In addition this co-operation creates the possibility of
co-financing activities of mutual interest to the organizations
and their Member States: UNDCP is currently funding MOST research activities
related to the international drug problem in China, India, Mexico, Brazil
and Nigeria. C.M.
 World
Production of Cannabis and its Derivates
 World
Cultivation of Coca Shrub and Poppy Plant
 African
Channels for Drug Exportation
MOST project on "Economic and Social Transformations connected
with Drug Trafficking": Professor Jack A. Blum lectured on "Controlling
Money Laundering: a Tool against Corruption and Drug Trafficking" at the
Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris on 2 February 1998. Mr.
Blum is a specialist in this field and has worked on numerous cases brought
before the United States Senate. To obtain a copy of this paper, please
contact the MOST Secretariat.
Institutions involved in the project:
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Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Groupement de Recherche
" Psychotropes, Politique et Société " (G 1106), France
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Institut de Recherche Scientifique et Technique pour le Développement
en Coopération (ORSTOM), France
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Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Centre de Sociologie
de la Défense, France
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Centre de Recherches et de Documentation sur la Chine Contemporaine, France
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International Drug Watch, France
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Universidade Estadual de Rio de Janeiro-UERJ, Instituto de Medicina Social,
Brazil
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Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro-UFRJ, Faculdade de Geografía,
Brazil
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Universidade de São Paulo - USP, Núcleo de Estudos sobre
a Violência-NEV, Brazil
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Museu Goeldi and Universidade Federal do Pará-UFP à Belém,
Brazil
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Chinese Institute of Social Science, Hong Kong, China
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Peoples' University of Beijing, China
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Tata Institute of Social Sciences, China
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National Addiction Research Centre, India
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Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training, Zaria (Nigeria)
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Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico
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Centro de Investigación y de Docencia Económicas, México
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