War On Drugs: Guest Speaker Professor Eitmann

War On Drugs
Guest Speaker Professor Eitmann

Professor Eitmann gave insightful explanations as to why the drug business is prevalent today. The two hot spots where the “war on drugs” occurs are in Latin American and Afghanistan. Two things that America does are interdiction and eradication. Interdiction is when the drugs are stopped at the borders and eradication is when both the illegal and legitimate crops are killed.
The supply of cocaine reached its pike in the 80s and now has leveled off. People are still desperately in need of cocaine but at the same time, there have not been any new users per se.
In Latin America, the American coast guard and military are involved in trying to stop drugs. There have been a few practices in place as a result. The first one is crop substitution which does not seem to work. People in Latin American prefer to produce narcotics because it is easier to make money. Also inflation has caused legitimate things to be cut out of their national economies. Moreover, the demand for drugs is inelastic thus allowing more income to flow into these “poor” countries.
Some reasons as to why it is hard to eradicate drugs is because it could be a religious practice like smoking opium or because the coco leaves as used for medicine in Latin America for altitude sickness.

-Suveen Sahni and Arunna Raj

Discussion Question: Do you think the War On Drugs is stoppable or is it better to allow countries to produce these drugs?