Ecuador’s Violence: One More Clear Reason To End The War On Drugs

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — The crisis of violent crime in Ecuador is both painful and complex. As I argued in another column, this is due to both internal factors for which Ecuadorians are responsible, and international factors over which Ecuador and its governments have little control. In this column, I’ll comment on the external factors, which are further evidence of the terrible cost that drug prohibition imposes on many countries, especially in Latin America.

Analysts agree, though perhaps not with the same emphasis, that the explosion of crime in Ecuador is due to the increased involvement of local gangs in the international drugs trade. In 2020, the country’s homicide rate was seven per 100,000 inhabitants. That rose to 45 in 2023.

Fiercer rivalries among gangs and the intensification of their fight with the state are driving up this rate. Reconfigurations in the international drug trade allowed gangs working with major cartels to use local ports to export cocaine on a massive scale, expanding their involvement abroad. The European Union is one of the leading markets.

A spike in extreme violence due to the presence of powerful cartels is not unusual in this region — think of Colombia in the late 1980s or Mexico since 2007. Other countries nearby have seen similar evolutions, with differences in their intensity and mechanics.

Of course, drug trafficking is not the only illegal trade in the region. As sociologist Marcel Bergman shows in El negocio del crimen (The Business of Crime), the illegal economy has flourished in many ways (car and phone thefts, extortion, etc.), all of which contribute to increased violence in Latin America. But drugs are the most powerful criminal business, mobilizing a range of groups and giving them the means to strike and destabilize societies.

We can imagine that if drug trafficking ended in the region, gangs and cartels would lose their most profitable activity. Violence and crime would not end outright, but it would certainly shrink and become manageable.

Reconsidering regulation of drug use

This big business exists essentially because of the ban on drugs. Ending this interdiction would help create a regulated market for a range of substances, which in turn would end or reduce trafficking. The evidence is clear, as several analysts in Colombia have found, that prohibition policies have failed to prevent the abuse of narcotic drugs, such as marijuana and cocaine, and done little to curb demand.

Rather, prohibition has harmed public health and fueled trafficking with the resulting corruption and violence. Regulating drug use (as opposed to permitting unregulated consumption) is the best way to protect public health as well as curb the extreme violence and corruption associated with trafficking. Quite simply, it would end an extremely lucrative and illegal market.

Without denying the share of responsibility of each country, and especially their leaders, in the violence of drug trafficking, the crisis in Ecuador is a another example of the injustice of prohibition. Faced with this, Latin America countries should unite to demand the end of this ban. They can do so at the next meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, scheduled for March in Vienna.

* Uprimny is a jurist and a professor at Colombia’s National University.