We study how drug-related violence affects emigration from Central America, a region with rapidly rising migration to the United States. Using multiple data sources, we apply an instrumental variables strategy based on proximity to drug-trafficking routes and coca production in Colombia. We find...

As a post-Soviet, Muslim-majority, and secular state, Azerbaijan has historically stood at the intersection of European and Eastern influences. Among other geopolitical relations, this has affected the use, control, and production of psychoactive drugs, and eventually Azerbaijan's place in the...

The Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA) is in the south of Venezuela, a region rich in minerals and natural resources with a particular social, economic, and security dynamic. Due to its remoteness and difficult access, different actors have found a privileged space to conduct criminal activities....

We study how drug-related violence affects emigration from Central America, a region with rapidly rising migration to the United States. Using multiple data sources, we apply an instrumental variables strategy based on proximity to drug-trafficking routes and coca production in Colombia. We find...

EU Drug Market: MDMA describes the European MDMA market from production to trafficking, distribution and use. It details the materials, processes and players involved at different stages and levels of the market. The module takes a threat assessment approach, identifying key issues and defining...

International cocaine trafficking from South America has increased significantly over the past decade. Based on mixed-methods research, we hypothesize that this change has been driven primarily by the globalization of its logistics, which has led to relevant technical and political changes along...

Efficient and interconnected logistics networks, like postal services, provide powerful tools for criminal groups to organize cross-border drug trafficking by exploiting legitimate infrastructure. Despite postal services becoming inadvertent facilitators in smuggling, focused research on this...

The European Drug Report 2025: Trends and Developments presents the EUDA's latest analysis of the drug situation in Europe. Focusing on illicit drug use, related harms and drug supply, the report provides a comprehensive set of national data across these themes, as well as on specialist drug...

Honduras has been Central America’s focal point for drug trafficking towards the United States for years as the region’s main transit country. Recent court cases held in the United States have revealed the symbiotic relationship between state actors, business elites and drug trafficking...

The European Drug Report 2024: Trends and Developments presents the EMCDDA's latest analysis of the drug situation in Europe. Focusing on illicit drug use, related harms and drug supply, the report provides a comprehensive set of national data across these themes, as well as on specialist drug...

EU Drug Market: Heroin and other opioids describes the European opioids market from production and trafficking to distribution and use. It details the processes, materials and players involved at various stages and levels of the market. The module takes a threat assessment approach, identifying...

The illicit drug trade generates billions of dollars and sustains transnational criminal organisations. Drug markets can destabilise governance and undermine development. Data indicate increasing drug use in South Africa. However, information on the size and value of the drug market is limited....

This article reassesses the book Africa and the War on Drugs (2012) and a related special journal issue (2016) in the light of drug market and policy developments since 2012. As part of this reassessment, we question some of the assumptions made in the book and special issue. More specifically,...

The production, distribution, and consumption of drugs has long been seen as a threat to social and economic development. On the other hand, conditions of unemployment and poverty foster expansion of illegal drug markets. In this study, I offer a nuanced view of the drugs/development connection...

This study provides a dynamic analysis of illegal drug trafficking in the Italian region of Sardinia, using the Local Labour Systems (LLS, ISTAT) framework. Data from major regional newspapers (January 2017 - De-cember 2022) were validated through institutional reports. A multivariate biplot...

I analyze the demand side impacts of a supply side intervention into the market for illegal drugs in what has been described as America's largest open air drug market. Beginning in 2018, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office and the Philadelphia Police Department engaged in an ambitious...

One of the main inquiry topics within crime and conflict studies is how inequalities or poverty fosters or deters participation in organised violence. Since the late 1990s, the increase in violence in Latin America has boosted the use of Global North criminology and conflict studies to explain...

We show that legal opacity is a strong factor in drug trafficking. We develop a new framework that illustrates how legal opacity influences countries' seizure rates. Legal opacity reduces the detection of illicit flows and increases their volumes because it lowers trafficking costs. We use...

This article breaks new conceptual ground by questioning orthodox interpretations of nation state agency in the global drug wars. Specifically, it challenges the David vs. Goliath conception of Colombia as a passive, client state simply abiding to the United States' hegemonic war on drugs. It...

The Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA) is in the south of Venezuela, a region rich in minerals and natural resources with a particular social, economic, and security dynamic. Due to its remoteness and difficult access, different actors have found a privileged space to conduct criminal activities....

As a post-Soviet, Muslim-majority, and secular state, Azerbaijan has historically stood at the intersection of European and Eastern influences. Among other geopolitical relations, this has affected the use, control, and production of psychoactive drugs, and eventually Azerbaijan's place in the...

When does organized crime resort to assassinating politicians? In narcocracies, criminal groups co-opt political elites through bribery in exchange for protection to traffic illegal drugs. When criminal groups compete, they may also resort to political violence to influence which candidate wins...

When does organized crime resort to assassinating politicians? In narcocracies, criminal groups co-opt political elites through bribery in exchange for protection to traffic illegal drugs. When criminal groups compete, they may also resort to political violence to influence which candidate wins...

Which acquisitions lead to higher prices? We answer this question using a novel dataset of pharmaceutical acquisitions of branded, on-patent drugs from 2007–2019. Our results uncover two patterns. First, we exploit regulation that exempts low-value deals from being disclosed to antitrust...

Measures such as prohibitions, export licences and restrictions assist in risk management and the regulation of trade in controlled and sensitive goods. They are established pursuant to international agreements and conventions on protecting people and the environment, on controlling drugs and...

This article reviews the chapter of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report (WDR) 2023 on 'The Nexus Between Drugs and Crimes that Affect the Environment and Convergent Crime in the Amazon Basin'. The WDR 2023 gathers the evidence on the multiple impacts of a...

This commentary explores the contradictory forces behind Lebanon’s implementation of drug control policies: opportunistic responses to international pressures on one hand, and an attempt to extract benefits from the industry on the other. This article argues that this logic results in...

This article identifies the early dictatorship of former President Ferdinand Marcos as a significant moment in drug policy in the Philippines, as well as the wider Southeast Asian region. Using methods of critical discourse analysis and the notion of episodic history, it shows how the Marcos...

This paper examines the rise and fall of the Administrative Bureau of Prohibited Drugs in 1920s Shanghai. It identifies the factors associated with the endeavours of the central government to experiment with establishing a Bureau dedicated to regulating refined drugs and the reasons why the...

The shadows of a drug paddler may soon be invisible on the street corner as they have moved to online drug marketplaces called 'cryptomarkets'. The criminogenic attributes of drug trafficking on cryptomarkets have attracted organized crime groups (OCGs) to make use of technology to further its...

Postal service has become an important channel for drug trafficking worldwide. This paper examines the impact of the real-name mailing regulation on drug use in a Chinese province. Based on the universe of drug arrest, the difference-in-differences analysis shows that after the implementation of...

More than 564,000 Americans have died from an opioid-related overdose since 1999. In this paper, I estimate the impacts of enforcement actions taken against doctors on the supply of prescription opioids, black-market prices, and health outcomes. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the...

Drug trafficking has created many problems for the Central Asian republics and caused significanthuman and financial losses. The high profit and prosperity of this trade have caused terrorist and extremist religious groups in this region to move in this direction to consolidate their power and...

EU Drug Market: Amphetamine describes the European amphetamine market from production and trafficking, to distribution and use. It details the processes, materials and actors involved at different stages and levels of the market. Taking a threat assessment approach, the module identifies key...

A key message from the 2023 European Drug Report analysis is that the impact of the use of illicit drugs is now seen almost everywhere in our society. Almost everything with psychoactive properties has the potential to be used as a drug. This means that everyone, whether directly or indirectly,...