NCJ Number
111462
Date Published
1986
Length
141 pages
Annotation
The Agency for International Development (AID) has played a significant role in the United States' effort to control the production and trade of illicit drugs.
Abstract
AID has inserted poppy/coca clauses into project agreements that deny assistance to areas growing these crops. It has launched both crop substitution and area development initiatives that provide agricultural services and inputs to farmers adversely affected by narcotic efforts and that improve the social and economic infrastructure to facilitate sustainable development. Finally, AID has initiated public education programs for elite and middle-class groups in source countries, focusing on the harmful effects of narcotics production on their societies. These efforts have faced problems as a result of the inability of host Governments to formulate long-term narcotics control policies and programs, the high profitability of narcotics crops, faltering national economies, local cultural acceptance of narcotics and their production, and the presence of powerful trafficking organizations. It is recommended that AID's efforts are both conceptually sound and grounded in experience and should be continued. Greater attention in these efforts should be given to sociocultural and socioeconomic factors. A flexible approach to projects should be adopted and midterm and terminal evaluations of projects should be conducted. Appendixes discuss poppy and coca cultivation in Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Peru, and Bolivia. 2 tables, 2 figures, 5 maps, and 114 references.