Politicians and the drugs trade

Recent months have seen a wave of politicians arrested throughout the world with varying degrees of involvement in the global drugs trade. Mario Villaneuva, the former mayor of Cancun, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Mexico has been extradited to the United states by the DEA for allegedly pocketing millions of dollars in bribes in order to help one of the notorious Mexican drug cartels ship 200 tons of cocaine across the border.

A few days later, a similar story of political corruption within the highest echelon of the Nigerian political elite has also emerged. Although corruption is commonplace throughout all sections of society in Nigeria, political involvement in the drugs trade is far less common. Nevertheless, with the country being a major transit route for drugs from South America and Asia destined for the lucrative European markets, the nature of this arrest is surprising. Eme Zuru Ayortor who was running for a regional House of Assembly seat was found in Lagos airport with nearly 2 kilograms of cocaine in his stomach. Having swallowed the drugs in plastic wrapped parcels, he claimed he went to such lengths in order to fund his election campaign after his last election campaign in 2007 almost bankrupted him. Despite this being his first arrest, police chiefs suspect it is common for politicians in Nigeria to go to such lengths in order to fund expensive election campaigns which often involve the candidates funding vast private armies in order to intimidate opponents.

Political involvement in the drugs trade is also a recurring problem in Asia, with recent reports linking a politician from Goa, a region on the west coast of India to an ongoing narcotics investigation. The Goan police force itself has been accused of covering up and sabotaging a number of important drug-related investigations linked to the local political elites, further suggesting an ingrained culture of drug-linked corruption. India is not alone in experiencing this phenomenon in Asia. The Philippines has also seen the arrest of a number of what has been called “narco-politicians” in recent months. Similar cases have been reported in Thailand, China and Cambodia with high-ranking political officials being investigated for links for drug-trafficking. However, it is important to highlight that this problem is not solely an issue in the developing world. A German politician, Andreas Zwickl was charged last year with dealing heroin after being found with 80 grams and substantial amounts of cash in his apartment. Political corruption in other countries like Afghanistan and Mexico is also so widespread and heavily reported that they don’t need to be repeated here.

These cases have serious implications, not just for the internal political dynamics of developing countries where corruption permeates every strata of society from the traffic policeman to high-ranking politicians, but for the whole notion that a successful crackdown on the drugs trade can operate in conjunction with such levels of corruption. The fact that these cases are not anomalies from particular regions but occur globally, not just in Asia, Latin America and Africa but in the United States and Europe as well appears to suggest that such political corruption is an endemic consequence of the “war of drugs” and leads one to conclude that the whole process through which the “war on drugs” operates is fundamentally flawed. 

The reasons for the inevitability of rampant bureaucratic and political corruption stems from the fundamental reason why drug trafficking is so commonplace despite the extraordinary lengths governments have sought to try and tackle it. The profit to be made through the prohibition of drugs is the ultimate reason for the systematic corruption that occurs in all drug-producing countries and countries along the drug trafficking routes.

When one considers the numbers involved in the largest unregulated free-market in the world, such levels of institutionalised bureaucratic corruption come as no surprise. The global drug industry, worth a staggering $320 billion now accounts 1% of all global commerce. In the United States alone, $49 billion has been spent since 1970 on protecting its borders against an influx of drugs. Yet 25 million Americans will smoke, snort and inject drugs this year, 10 million more than in 1970. $33 billion has been spent on anti-drugs campaigns since the 1970’s with little tangible effect. This suggests that demand will remain relatively constant despite the lengths that the authorities have gone to counter this demand. While the demand is there, recent history suggests that the supply will always be there, with extreme profit margins that outweigh almost any legal enterprise on the planet. 

This is why political involvement in drug trafficking comes as no surprise and can be assumed to be inevitable. Politicians in these cases are no different to the petty-drug dealers on street corners; they operate in the same world. It is just that when we hear of political involvement in this murky underworld, especially from those within the top strata of society, we are somewhat shocked. These disclosures of elite involvement in the drugs trade shouldn’t surprise anyone, what is more surprising however, is that they are reported in the first place.