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Since a 2007 United Nations report cited West Africa as the new front for cocaine trafficking by South American Drug Barons, media reports have linked several governments to the trade. Some analysts linked political instability in a few West African countries to the cocaine trade. The Proliferation of banks and the flow of excess capital from unknown horizons sounded the alarm on trafficking in drugs as fundamental driving mechanisms. In spite of regional and international efforts to confront the trade, seizures of large amounts of cocaine in Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau brought to light compelling realities of the drug trade as West Africa's newest peripheral vulnerability. The paper provides theoretical and practical inferences on challenges of the drug trade to governance, sustainable economic development and the threats of transnational terrorism. A prescriptive policy framework is provided for regional governments and international partners for the effective containment of the illicit trade.
Since a 2007 United Nations report cited West Africa as the new front for cocaine trafficking by South American Drug Barons, media reports have linked several governments to the trade. Some analysts linked political instability in a few West African countries to the cocaine trade as root causes. Proliferation of banks and the flow of excess capital from unknown horizons sounded the alarm on trafficking in drugs as fundamental driving mechanisms.In spite of regional efforts confronting the trade, seizures of large amounts of cocaine in Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Ghana, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau brought to light compelling realities of the drug trade as West Africa's newest peripheral vulnerability.The book distinctly argues that infiltration of the region by drug syndicates poses a real challenge to democracy and the rule of law, governance and progressive economic sustainability, fabrics of West African communities and plight of the West African Youth. It also theorizes the linkages of the trade to Transnational Terrorism. Policy measures provided should therefore help West African governments to work in partnerships with international partners in confronting the drug trade.
Nigerian drug lords in UK prisons, khat-chewing Somali pirates hijacking Western ships, crystal meth-smoking gangs controlling South Africa's streets, and narco-traffickers corrupting the state in Guinea-Bissau: these are some of the vivid images surrounding drugs in Africa which have alarmed policymakers, academics and the general public in recent years. In this revealing and original book, the authors weave these aspects into a provocative argument about Africa's role in the global trade and control of drugs. In doing so, they show how foreign-inspired policies have failed to help African drug users but have strengthened the role of corrupt and brutal law enforcement officers, who are tasked with halting the export of heroin and cocaine to European and American consumer markets. A vital book on an overlooked front of the so-called war on drugs.
The West African sub-region has increasingly become a consumer and a final destination market for all types of drugs of abuse attributed to regional drug trafficking that has caused a supply-driven increase of narcotic drugs. This paper therefore reviewed the impact of narcotic drug use on human security of states in the West African sub-region and adopted the theory of rational addiction as theoretical framework for analysis. The paper also employed a desk-review research approach with the reports and evaluations obtained from secondary sources of data analyzed through content analysis. The paper found that narcotic drug use is associated with several drug problems that include biological, environmental, behavioral, cognitive and emotional risk factors. The study concluded that narcotic drug use has negative impact on the human security of West African states and recommended that ECOWAS Commission and member states should address the structural, political and socio-economic weaknesses facing states in the region by adopting policy measures aimed at improving human security. Furthermore, drug supply reduction strategies which primarily focus on interdiction actions should be complemented with harm reduction policies that will address public health and developmental challenges.
"At a high-level conference on drug trafficking as a security threat to West Africa in Praia, Cape Verde, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, warned that "West Africa is at risk of becoming an epicentre for drug trafficking and the crime and corruption associated with it". A report by UNODC, launched at the meeting, shows that at least 50 tons of cocaine from the Andean countries are transiting West Africa every year, heading north where they are worth almost $2 billion on the streets of European cities. Most cocaine entering Africa from South America makes landfall around Guinea-Bissau in the north and Ghana in the south. Much of the drugs are shipped to Europe by drug mules on commercial flights. According to seizure data, the majority of air couriers seem to be coming from Guinea (Conakry), Mali, Nigeria and Senegal destined for France, Spain and the United Kingdom. Upon arrival, the cocaine is predominantly distributed by West African criminal networks throughout Europe. The problem is getting worse. Cocaine seizures have doubled every year for the past three years: from 1,323 kilograms in 2005, to 3,161 in 2006, to 6,458 in 2007. Major seizures have been made in 2008, including 600 kilos of cocaine found in a plane (with fake Red Cross markings) at the airport in Freetown, Sierra Leone this summer. Most seizures occur by accident - "this is probably just the tip of the cocaine iceberg", said Mr. Costa. Local police are ill-equipped to deal with the threat, and "prosecutors and judges lack the evidence or the will to bring to justice powerful criminals with powerful friends", observed the UN's top crime-fighting official. Time is running out", warned Mr. Costa. "The threat is spreading throughout the region, turning the Gold Coast into the Coke Coast". Narco-trafficking, through a vulnerable region that has never previously faced a drugs problem, is perverting weak economies - evident by the unusual appreciation of currencies and inflows of foreign direct investment. It is also corrupting senior officials, and poisoning the youth by spreading addiction and criminality. "This is more than a drugs problem - it is a threat to public health and security in West Africa", said the head of UNODC. Mr. Costa underlined the importance of promoting development and strengthening the rule of law in order to reduce vulnerability to drugs and crime. He called on governments of the region to strengthen integrity and criminal justice to "stop the corruption that is enabling criminals to infiltrate your countries". He urged the international community to provide the assistance needed to help the countries under attack to regain control of their coasts and airspace, and train special police forces to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking. Because organized crime is a trans-national problem, regional cooperation is crucial. The head of UNODC proposed the creation of a West Africa intelligence-sharing centre. But he warned that "there will be no success in combating this regional problem if individual countries fail to stamp out the problem in their midst - criminals will exploit the weakest links and the whole chain will break". At the Praia meeting, Ministers of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) agreed to a Political Declaration on Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime in West Africa and an ECOWAS Regional Response Plan. Mr. Costa urged the Ministers to follow up these words with robust deeds "to drive the traffickers from the shores of West Africa.'"--Publisher description.
Human trafficking and smuggling of migrants: Four of the 12 illicit flows reviewed in this report involve human beings. The first two concern movement between the countries of the region, one for general labour and one for sexual exploitation. The third concerns the smuggling of migrants from the region to the rich countries of the West, and the last focuses on migrants smuggled through the region from the poor and conflicted countries of South and Southwest Asia. Drug trafficking: The production and use of opiates has a long history in the region, but the main opiate problem in the 21st century involves the more refined form of the drug: heroin. In addition, methamphetamine has been a threat in parts of East Asia for decades (in the form of yaba tablets), but crystal methamphetamine has recently grown greatly in popularity. Virtually every country in the region has some crystal methamphetamine users, and some populations consume at very high levels.Resources: Resource-related crimes include those related to both extractive industries, such as the illegal harvesting of wildlife and timber, and other crimes that have a negative impact on the environment, such as the dumping of e-waste and the trade in ozone-depleting substances. In all cases, the threat goes beyond borders, jeopardizing the global environmental heritage. These are therefore crimes of inherent international significance, though they are frequently dealt with lightly under local legislation.Counterfeit goods: The trade in counterfeit goods is often perceived as a "soft" form of crime, but can have dangerous consequences for public health and safety. Fraudulent medicines in particular pose a threat to public health, and their use can foster the growth of treatment resistant pathogens.
Few people realize that prescription drugs have become a leading cause of death, disease, and disability. Adverse reactions to widely used drugs, such as psychotropics and birth control pills, as well as biologicals, result in FDA warnings against adverse reactions. The Risks of Prescription Drugs describes how most drugs approved by the FDA are under-tested for adverse drug reactions, yet offer few new benefits. Drugs cause more than 2.2 million hospitalizations and 110,000 hospital-based deaths a year. Serious drug reactions at home or in nursing homes would significantly raise the total. Women, older people, and people with disabilities are least used in clinical trials and most affected. Health policy experts Donald Light, Howard Brody, Peter Conrad, Allan Horwitz, and Cheryl Stults describe how current regulations reward drug companies to expand clinical risks and create new diseases so millions of patients are exposed to unnecessary risks, especially women and the elderly. They reward developing marginally better drugs rather than discovering breakthrough, life-saving drugs. The Risks of Prescription Drugs tackles critical questions about the pharmaceutical industry and the privatization of risk. To what extent does the FDA protect the public from serious side effects and disasters? What is the effect of giving the private sector and markets a greater role and reducing public oversight? This volume considers whether current rules and incentives put patients' health at greater risk, the effect of the expansion of disease categories, the industry's justification of high U.S. prices, and the underlying shifts in the burden of risk borne by individuals in the world of pharmaceuticals. Chapters cover risks of statins for high cholesterol, SSRI drugs for depression and anxiety, and hormone replacement therapy for menopause. A final chapter outlines six changes to make drugs safer and more effective. Suitable for courses on health and aging, gender, disability, and minority studies, this book identifies the Risk Proliferation Syndrome that maximizes the number of people exposed to these risks. Additional Columbia / SSRC books on the privatization of risk and its implications for Americans: Bailouts: Public Money, Private ProfitEdited by Robert E. Wright Disaster and the Politics of InterventionEdited by Andrew Lakoff Health at Risk: America's Ailing Health System-and How to Heal ItEdited by Jacob S. Hacker Laid Off, Laid Low: Political and Economic Consequences of Employment InsecurityEdited by Katherine S. Newman Pensions, Social Security, and the Privatization of RiskEdited by Mitchell A. Orenstein
Mental, neurological, and substance use disorders are common, highly disabling, and associated with significant premature mortality. The impact of these disorders on the social and economic well-being of individuals, families, and societies is large, growing, and underestimated. Despite this burden, these disorders have been systematically neglected, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, with pitifully small contributions to scaling up cost-effective prevention and treatment strategies. Systematically compiling the substantial existing knowledge to address this inequity is the central goal of this volume. This evidence-base can help policy makers in resource-constrained settings as they prioritize programs and interventions to address these disorders.
The most recent Ebola epidemic that began in late 2013 alerted the entire world to the gaps in infectious disease emergency preparedness and response. The regional outbreak that progressed to a significant public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in a matter of months killed 11,310 and infected more than 28,616. While this outbreak bears some unique distinctions to past outbreaks, many characteristics remain the same and contributed to tragic loss of human life and unnecessary expenditure of capital: insufficient knowledge of the disease, its reservoirs, and its transmission; delayed prevention efforts and treatment; poor control of the disease in hospital settings; and inadequate community and international responses. Recognizing the opportunity to learn from the countless lessons of this epidemic, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop in March 2015 to discuss the challenges to successful outbreak responses at the scientific, clinical, and global health levels. Workshop participants explored the epidemic from multiple perspectives, identified important questions about Ebola that remained unanswered, and sought to apply this understanding to the broad challenges posed by Ebola and other emerging pathogens, to prevent the international community from being taken by surprise once again in the face of these threats. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
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