Published: 17 October 2025 Neo-colonialism and financing for the war on drugs: a review of current policy and recommendations for countries in the global north | Cannabis Law Report | Where to order Skittles Moonrock online

From the criminalisation of sex work and same-sex relations to oppressive drug control, colonisation left behind punitive laws and policies which are still causing harm in countries which were formerly colonised. Contemporary drug policy acts as an arena for colonial power relations to continue articulating themselves, as recognised in the growing body of research and commentary on the imperative to decolonise drug policy. “The colonisation of drug control refers to the use of drug control by states in Europe and America to advance and sustain the systematic exploitation of people, land and resources, as well as racialized hierarchies, which were established under colonial control and continue to dominate today.”[[4].

A number of scholars have documented the emergence of the United States (US) as the primary architect of the war on drugs—shaping early international treaties on drug control and introducing the rhetoric of ‘evil’ when describing drugs[[5,6,7]. The US has retained immense influence in the international drug control arena, and is therefore the focus of a large proportion of literature analysing the global drug policy landscape.

Maintaining US influence on global drug policy has considerable budget implications. In 2021, more than USD $1.1 billion was spent on drug control internationally through various US government departments and agencies. That year, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) budget was USD $464 million and the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) agency had a budget of USD $425 million. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) also spent USD $53.5 million on drug control that year[[8, 9].

Specifically, US drug enforcement has become globalised[[3]over the course of the twentieth century, with the DEA increasingly focusing on foreign operations[[10]. Today, the DEA has 93 offices in 70 countries, and US drug police or their trainees exist on every continent bar Antarctica[[11]. The report Aid for the War on Drugs [[8]found that 10% of the DEA’s special agents work on collaborating with local law enforcement and on coordinated counter-narcotics intelligence gathering, implementing training programmes for police and prosecutors, and supporting “the advancement and development of host country drug law enforcement institutions.” The extensive and profound influence of the DEA on anti-drug policies and institutions in South and Central America is well documented[[12, 13]. Looking at the field of transnational policing, the DEA trains Brazilian Federal Police to deal with drug policing in line with the US approach[[13]. Villela concludes that the training, financing, and regular interactions between the Brazilian Federal Police and the DEA (over decades) allowed the DEA to exercise considerable influence over drug policy in Brazil[[13]. The Brazilian Federal Police has begun to reproduce and emulate practices deemed as advanced or efficient, even outside of direct DEA influence. This partnership between the DEA and the Brazilian Federal Police enables the DEA to continue operating in the country regardless of changes in government[[13].

The US exerts control in the region through several key international strategies and projects. Perhaps the best known of these is the Merida Initiative, which involved the US spending USD $2.4 billion worth of bilateral assistance in Mexico from 2008 to 2014 in the form of technical resources and equipment, as well as training for different ranks of law enforcement to combat drug trafficking. Almost 46% of all overseas aid and development provided to Mexico from the US between 2000 and 2004 was for narcotics control[[8, 14].

As part of the US-Colombia Strategic Development Initiative, the US also funnelled USD $8 billion into security and development assistance in Colombia between 2000 and 2011, including military counter-drug efforts. Plan Colombia, launched in 1999, has seen the U.S. government invest over $10 billion in counternarcotics efforts[[15]. It is a US strategy which aims to diminish armed confrontation and control drug trafficking in Colombia; however, 74% of the resources invested have been allocated to strengthening military capability through the acquisition of weapons, equipment, and military technical assistance[[16]. The complex interaction between the US and Colombia in the field of drug control has been termed by some as ‘Narco-colonialism.’[[17].

Significantly, the relationship between the Global North and South in the field of drug policy is seen as one-dimensional[[18], as Latin American countries are not simply subjects of imposed US drug policy, but themselves significant actors in the field. Colombia, for example, invests about 1.2% of its annual GDP in its war against drug trafficking[[19]and is consistently near the top of the list of donors funding the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)[[20].

The war on drugs in the Philippines, initiated under President Rodrigo Duterte, resulted in the deaths of more than 27,000 people. This war on drugs has been advanced by past US and European Union (EU) funding for training to the Philippine National Police[[21]. The extensive aid which resulted in such a repressive system of drug control has problematic echoes of the US empire[[22]. Similar to the way apartheid-era tools were repatriated to enforce drug laws in South Africa[[23], the tools of authoritarianism in the Philippines, including martial law, the police force, and violent anti-narcotics campaigns, are products of US imperialism in the country.

While much of the literature pertains to the US and its international projects, other global actors such as the EU have taken similar routes when intervening in the war on drugs in low– and middle-income countries. In 2017, a Council of Europe (CoE) report found that most of the drug-related expenditure in 16 European countries, ranging up to 0.5% of GDP, focused on reducing the supply of drugs[[8, 24].

Since the mid-2000 s, there has been a stronger emphasis on drug control in West Africa as concerns about so-called ‘narco-states’ were raised by the US and the EU. This resulted in countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Mali seeing an increase in the number of foreign law enforcers from Europe and UNODC, who significantly expanded their work[[25]. A brief by the Global Drug Policy Observatory[[26]shows how global actors are constructing the narrative around the ‘drug problem’ in West Africa and its potential impacts on policy and interventions. They note that drug policy in this region is intertwined with anti-terrorism efforts.

West African countries have been depicted as countries vulnerable to drug traffickers, necessitating the need for large-scale anti-drug ‘assistance’ from outside to come to the rescue. The use of this selective narrative in the region—relying on questionable data—is influencing laws and policies related to drug control without learning the lessons from other regions such as Latin America[[26].

Focusing on the advances of radical terrorist groups accelerates the military cooperation between EU actors and West African governments, and therefore the involvement of EU actors in local crime control policy-making landscapes. The influence of non-Western powers such as China and Russia on international drug policy is also growing. Anti-drug cooperation with Latin American countries affords major economic benefits to Russia due to soaring arms sales to the region for militarised anti-drug efforts[[27, 28]. In 2013, Russian military advisors worked with the Nicaraguan Navy and Air Force to advise and assist in their fight against transnational drug trafficking and organised crime. Russia has also funded a military training centre in the country for the same purpose[[28].

Russia has also sought influence in the drug policy of African countries, in part via the Russia-Africa Anti-Drug Dialogue (RAADD)—a partnership that aims to develop a “common position” promoting a prohibitionist and punitive approach to combatting drug use amongst signatories of the African Union. In his review of the proposed policy in the South African context, Shelley[[29]highlights the glaring inconsistency of South Africa’s drug policy being influenced by Russia, a country whose uber-punitive and coercive anti-drug policies violate the rights of its citizens and have significant implications for public health and the prevalence of HIV in the country. The RAADD also defies the Common African Position for the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the World Drug Problem which, whilst flawed, paid considerable attention to public health and harm reduction measures[[30].

The South African post-apartheid government inherited policies influenced by international prohibitionist drug policy frameworks, and failed to critically examine or rethink them, effectively ensuring that South Africa remained entrenched in a system of international moral conservatism that privileged Western drug control agendas[[31]. Only a few years earlier, a more critical attitude towards Western agendas was noticeable amongst South African authorities. The DEA still engages with South African police through extensive training programmes. Shelley and Howell write that “despite the calls for holistic and ‘community driven’ approaches to drug use and the treatment thereof… both national and specific metropolitan police services have received training by the [DEA].”[[32].

In addition to direct influence of drug policy and enforcement law and practice in low- and middle-income countries, the systematic and inbuilt nature of Western hegemony in the field of drug control is visible when looking at the international treaties and laws that lay the groundwork for all drug prohibition practices. The international moral ‘consensus’ around drug use and prohibition is inherently Western. The US and Western European countries have been prominent in the development of international law and policy, allowing them to promote punitive norms and practices and encourage aggressively punitive interpretation of the international treaties.

Upholding colonial power: state financing of oppressive drug control

The funding and resourcing of oppressive and discriminatory drug regimes by wealthy Western states upholds and institutionalises colonial power imbalances. Some of the mechanisms through which oppressive drug regimes are maintained are explored below, namely: financial and material aid, technical assistance and capacity building, and education and awareness campaigns[[32, 33].

Financial aid

Wealthy countries pour millions of dollars every year into drug control regimes and related law enforcement. This can take the form of bilateral aid or grants via international organisations like the UNODC.

A 2023 report[[8]found that aid donors spent USD $974 million between 2012 and 2021 on narcotics control around the world. Donors—led by the US, EU, Japan, and the UK—spent at least USD $68 million in countries that have the death penalty for drug-related offences[[34]. Activities under this item include in-country and customs controls, including training of the police and educational programmes and awareness campaigns to restrict narcotics traffic and in-country distribution.

The US is the largest donor in international drug control, providing financial aid to an expansive list of countries for their counter-narcotics programmes via the US Department of State. A look at the budget for FY 2020[[35]reveals that over USD $432 million was spent on foreign counter-narcotics assistance. Of this, USD $263 million was funnelled into South and Central American projects, mostly in Colombia. USD $44 million went to South and Central Asia, mostly Afghanistan, and USD $2.3 million was allocated to Africa. East Asia and the Pacific received USD $3 million, which mostly went to Myanmar and Indonesia[[35]. While the exact numbers vary, this annual funding has consistently increased since 2016, but continues to be regionally allocated in a proportionally similar manner.

Liberia was the largest recipient of US drug control funding in Africa in 2020, receiving USD $1.3 million for reducing local demand for drugs and increasing institutional and judicial capacity to prosecute narcotics trafficking in the country from the State Department’s Counternarcotics Program Area[[35]. On top of this, the US is also funding a USD $2.5 million project via the UNODC to strengthen Liberian law enforcement capabilities to counter drug trafficking. This is despite the INL admission[[36]that Liberia is neither a significant transit nor producer country for illegal narcotics, and no reliable data on current drug use amongst the public actually exists. In this context, millions of dollars are funnelled into increasing the capacity for anti-drug operations in the country.

Colombia was, and continues to be, the highest funded country for counter-narcotics efforts by the US. In 2020, US aid to Colombia was USD $448 million, 40.01% or USD $180 million of which was for counternarcotics and law enforcement[[37]. A further USD $39 million was for military financing and another USD $1.3 million for military education and training[[37].

The US regulates the aid that certain countries receive through their classification of ‘drug majors’—i.e., major illicit drug transit or producer countries. This classification is directly tied to the aid that a country receives. In 2021, the 22 drug majors’ were all low- and middle-income countries and were mostly in Central or South America, along with Afghanistan, India, and Laos[[35].

If the US deems a country to have failed to undertake substantial counter-narcotics efforts, it could result in a stalling of foreign assistance[[38]. This threat of restriction of funds means that countries are under pressure to prioritise drug control at the risk of broader resources being revoked.

Material aid

Financial aid is often accompanied by material assistance for law enforcement agencies in low- and middle-income countries, which may entail the provision of specialised equipment, surveillance and intelligence systems, advanced digital technologies, routine logistical support, and more.

In the Dominican Republic, for example, the INL provides the national drug agency, Dirección Nacional de Control de Drogas, with vehicles, radios, and bulletproof vests; improves its IT and communication systems; and strengthens its canine academy, all in the name of countering drug trafficking[[39]. In Kazakhstan, the US supplied border security forces with scanning equipment and kennels for their canine unit to enhance their border interdiction abilities[[35]. In Tajikistan in 2020, the US pledged USD $813,000 to set up a new training academy for the country’s drug control agency, on top of a grant of USD $211,000 for drug control[[35]. The US also funded UNODC to expand the Ghanaian Police Service’s Drug Law Enforcement Unit (DLEU), establishing four new offices in big cities, increasing police presence in certain regions, and increasing their capacity via the provision of vehicles and support for a canine unit for narcotics detection. The US-led West African Cooperation and Security Initiative (WACSI) established a regional training centre in Ghana to provide criminal justice training for law enforcement and “promote cross border cooperation.”[[40].

These inflows of funds and equipment boost local and national police forces in their counter-drug operations, and also act as incentives to prioritise the punitive policing of drugs.

Technical assistance and capacity building

Countries in the Global North work directly to enhance the capacity of law enforcement in low- and middle-income countries to target and prosecute drug-related crime via training programmes, development of specialised units, and other measures to generally increase their influence and effectiveness.

The counter-narcotics training of law enforcement personnel of low- and middle-income countries by Global North countries is a particularly deep-rooted and widespread form of influence. Officials from law enforcement and prosecutorial and judicial sectors in low- and middle-income countries are increasingly being trained by foreign ‘experts’ utilising the punitive counter-narcotics frameworks of Global North countries. These programmes cover different aspects of policing, port and maritime control, customs, information and intelligence sharing practices, and border security.

In 2021, the DEA had a budget of USD $3.28 billion, representing a USD $360 million increase from 2016. USD $464.3 million of this was allocated to international operations[[41]. The DEA is set up to implement training programmes for host countries’ national police and prosecutorial agencies and support the development of their drug control institutions. The International Training Section (TRI) of the DEA conducts regional training courses for law enforcement personnel via International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEAs) situated in Thailand, El Salvador, Botswana, Hungary, and Mexico[[35]. In 2020, over 2,500 foreign law enforcement officials attended counter-narcotics training in ILEAs run by US law enforcement ‘experts.’[[35].

Other US state institutions such as the INL and the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) similarly command significant influence when it comes to enhancing the counter narcotics capabilities for law enforcement authorities across the world. In 2020, the INL undertook a wide-scale training of law enforcement officials in Pakistan, training over 2,000 prosecutors, judges, courtroom administrators, and investigators, as well 314 prison officials[[41].

Similarly, in Bangladesh, ICITAP trained over 19,000 law enforcement officials in 2020[[42], and by 2022, it was found that 60% of people in Bangladeshi prisons were there due to drug offences[[43]. The INL greatly expanded Haiti’s police force in 2020 and continues to support police recruitment and training for new cadets and senior officers[[44].

In 2020, the INL, DEA, US Department of Defense (DOD), UNODC, and the British National Crime Agency (NCA), partnered to bolster Nigeria’s drug law enforcement capabilities, supporting the development of numerous vetted units in Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency[[45]. The INL supported the Colombian National Police in 2020 in their quest to expand and hold a permanent presence in rural and under-governed areas by establishing police bases and stations in these areas[[46]. In Belize, the INL provided funding for programmes focusing on improving police professionalism, criminal justice procedures, border security, statistical analysis, information sharing (internally and regionally), and forensic investigations[[41].

One prominent and controversial aspect of Colombia’s counter-narcotics regime, bolstered by this capacity building, is crop eradication[[47]. Coca growing farmers occupy already marginalised positions in society and are subject to a rhetoric of villainization by the State. Crop eradication is frequently violent, as the state deploys brutal force against coca growers who are forced to physically defend their source of livelihood from these attacks. Anti-narcotics police, armed soldiers, and anti-riot forces have attacked farmers using gases and firearms, often with lethal consequences[[48].

Punitive law enforcement approaches such as cooperation with and training for law enforcement personnel can result in violent responses which cause harm to individuals and their communities. The export of these tactics is done while ignoring the associated human rights violations. For instance, despite reports that police brutality in Vietnam is ‘systematic and widespread’, occurring at an alarming rate across the country without any repercussions for officers, in 2020, the US trained 182 Vietnamese police officers in counter-narcotics measures[[35]. In Colombia, another country which experiences widespread police violence, the US supports police presence in more rural communities. Only as late as 2020 did the US stipulate that a certain proportion of funding—and a very small one at that—ould be withheld if the notorious Colombian riot police were not held accountable for their human rights violations[[49].

Russia has conducted significant training and capacity building programmes for police forces in Central Asia over the past decade, specifically in Afghanistan. Starting in 2015, Russia, in partnership with UNODC, has been implementing counter-narcotics training for police in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Training is conducted at the All-Russian Advanced Training Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (‘Domodedovo Training Centre’) and the Siberian Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. This cooperation recently expanded further, with the introduction of a specialised counter-narcotics canine unit in Afghanistan in 2018[[50].

The EU has also trained more than 3,600 law enforcement officials in so-called ‘modern’ drug investigation techniques, as part of a four year project implemented by UNODC aiming to enhance the operational capacities of the Nigerian Police, Customs and Immigration authorities, and the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency in drug interdiction efforts. The project was funded by the EU at EUR €34.5 million[[51]. In Bolivia, studies into coca yield per hectare and on determining coca leaf-to-cocaine yield are being conducted by UNODC with EU funding. In 2023, the EU also launched a Roadmap to Fight Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime, with the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) becoming the new EU Drugs Agency in July 2024. This roadmap will enhance cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean, build the capacity of state institutions and regional organisations in West Africa to tackle drug trafficking at sea, and implement two regional security programmes to tackle risks associated with drugs crime in Central Asia[[52].

Capacity building can also take the form of highly trained special units that are specifically developed to target drug offences. The Australian Federal Police, for instance, have partnered with law enforcement in East Asia to establish ‘taskforces’ as part of their strategy to disrupt the transnational supply of crystal methamphetamines. Taskforce Storm in Thailand, Strike Force Dragon in Cambodia, and Taskforce Blaze in China act as joint operational agreements between the Australian Federal Police and national police and border forces in the three countries, conducting joint investigations and sharing intelligence for counter-narcotics projects[[53].

These operations contribute to increased drug-related arrests and seizures in the countries in which they operate. In Thailand, drug control authorities arrested 330,000 suspects and seized 6.5 billion baht worth of drugs and related assets in FY 2020[[54].

Similarly, the US DEA has established Sensitive Investigation Units (SIUs) and Vetted Units (VUs) in host countries with the mission of forming, training, and equipping specialised units within the police forces of host nations. This is done to share counter-drug intelligence information and dismantle transnational drug trafficking organisations. These SIUs and VUs are funded either by the DEA, the DOD, or the US Department of State. As of 2019, there were SIUs or VUs in 18 countries, clustered mostly in South and Central America, West Africa, and Central Asia. An independent audit of the SIU and VU system conducted by the US Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General in August of 2021[[55]found that the DEA has not adequately managed these foreign units, many of which operated outside of the formal structures of the SIU programme and were therefore not subject to adequate oversight. Even after serious incidents, such as when a VU in Honduras conducted a drug interdiction mission which led to the deaths of four civilians and two suspects, the DEA failed to implement strategies to mitigate such risks or systematically review the organisational structures that led to them[[55].

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) plan funded by the EU established Transnational Crime Units (TCUs) in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire, and Guinea, supported by Interpol and UNODC. These inter-agency units aim to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of local and national law enforcement operations and have resulted in an increase in drug-related prosecutions and convictions in the region[[56].

Education and awareness campaigns

Anti-drug projects orchestrated and financed by the EU and US often entail awareness campaigns or educational programmes disseminated amongst the public. These initiatives extend foreign influence past law enforcement, influencing public attitudes towards drugs in line with the prohibitionist international moral consensus.

In the Philippines, the INL sponsored the creation of the Association of Anti-Drug Abuse Coalitions of the Philippines (AADAC PHL)[[57], an umbrella organisation composed of coordinators from 27 anti-drug community coalitions who receive training from the Community of Anti-Drug Coalition of the Americas (CACDA). Advocating for drug-free communities, AADAC PHL follows avowedly prohibitionist and abstinence-oriented principles[[35, 58, 59].

In Nigeria, the EU-funded UNODC project involved a wide-ranging anti-drug and alcohol use programme in schools around the country. Training hundreds of Nigerian teachers in a European curriculum known as the ‘Unplugged’ programme’,[[51]the initiative aims to discourage youths from partaking in drug use, stressing its risks[[60]. This curriculum denies any mention of Indigenous, traditional, or cultural drug use practices and promotes an abstinence-based framework that lacks any discussion of harm reduction. In 2019, the Unplugged programme was launched in schools in Palestine, enabled by funding from the Government of Sweden. The programme is designed to promote positive health behaviour and substance abuse prevention[[61].

With support from the US Government, CACDA is piloting a community based anti-drug programme in four regions of Kazakhstan. The Ministry of Internal Affairs also collaborated with UNODC to continue a pilot prevention programme aimed at children aged 10 to 14 years[[35].

Private sector funding interacts with and serves the neocolonial war on drugs project via privatisation in areas previously the primary domain of governments. Two clear examples of this are prisons and land and resource grabbing in conflict and post-conflict contexts.

The prison industrial complex

The Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is a term explained by abolitionist organisation Critical Resistance as the “overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.”[[62]The exponential growth of the world prison population over the past three decades has been significantly driven by the war on drugs. Globally, there are now 11.5 million people in prison, more than ever before, with an estimated 2.2 million people in prison for drug offences, 22% of whom for drug possession for personal use[[63]. In recent years, there has also been a disproportionate impact of imposing pre-trial detention and prison sentences for low-level drug offences on women. In 2020, there was a ninefold increase in the number of women in prison in Cambodia, where 73% of all women in prison were detained for drug-related offences. Similarly, since 2000, there has been a 7.5 times increase of the number of women in prison in Indonesia and four times in Brazil[[63]. Enforcement of drug policy disproportionately impacted women in these countries.

The US holds almost 20% of the global prison population and has the world’s highest incarceration rate, despite representing under 5% of the global population[[64]. Prisons cost around USD $81 billion annually, but when other costs such as legal proceedings and telephone calls are included, this figure is estimated to be around USD $182 billion[[65, 66]. Convictions for drug offences make up 44.4% of incarceration rates in the US[[67]. People of colour are incarcerated at disproportionately higher rates than white people, with Black men being admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate that is more than 13 times higher than white men[[68, 69]. The US prison system is sustained by a combination of public and private sector bodies, and both continue to profit from mass incarceration[[70]. Prisons have privatised services such as medical care and phone calls and pushed these costs onto those incarcerated and their families. Private companies receive contracts to operate prison food and health services, prison and jail telecom, and commissary functions[[70, 71]. Though the 13 th Amendment to the US Constitution is known as the amendment which abolished slavery, there is an exception: as punishment for a crime of which one is “duly convicted”, slavery and involuntary servitude are permitted[[72]. Prison labour in the US is mandatory and if people refuse to work, they face disciplinary action. On average, incarcerated people earn between USD $0.86 and $3.45 per day and in at least five states, they receive no pay at all[[73]. There is little regulation or oversight and incarcerated workers have few rights or protections[[70, 74].

Thailand has the largest prison population in South-East Asia[[75]. In 2022, 79% of prisoners were incarcerated for drug-related offences[[76]. Money is being made on the backs of prisoners in many countries around the world, with a clear case in Thailand. A 2021 Reuters Foundation investigation revealed that Thai prisoners are being forced to make fishing nets for private companies under threat of punishment, including beatings and delayed release. At least 54 prisons have contracts with companies or individuals to produce fishing nets, some for US export. Most of the prisons that disclosed contracts in response to a Reuters Foundation freedom of information request redacted the names of companies and individuals, but the list does include Thailand’s biggest net manufacturer, Khon Kaen Fishing Net Factory, who sold 2,364 tonnes of fishing nets worth about USD $12 million to the US in 2020 alone[[77].

Government funding of prisons is also skyrocketing. The UK has the largest number of people in prisons in Western Europe. From 2022 to 2023, the UK spent approximately GBP £6.09 billion[[78]on the prison system which has become increasingly privatised and run for profit since 1992. Since privatisation, prison sentences have grown, policing in prison has increased, and surveillance has become harsher. The number of prisoners serving immediate custodial sentences for drug offences has increased by 5% over the past year to 10,775 on 30 June 2022[[79]. In 2016, the UK government announced the GBP £1.2 billion Prison Estate Transformation Programme, with plans to build nine new mega-prisons which are meant to mimic the supermax prisons introduced by the Clinton administration in the US during the 1990 s. In 2017, private company Mace partnered with the Prison Expansion Programme and revealed new plans to build ten private prisons, on course to open by 2027, including children’s prisons and more juvenile facilities[[80].

In 2021–2022, Australia spent AUD $21 billion on the criminal justice system, the highest it has ever been. The construction and maintenance of prisons cost over AUD $6 billion in 2022—an increase of AUD $2 billion over the past five years[[81]. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has put Australia as one of the fastest growing incarcerators in the world at a rate of 205 per 100,000 of the adult population[[81]. In 2022, 13.6% of the prison population in Australia was incarcerated for drug offences[[82].

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rates increased by 5% from 2,330 prisoners per 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult population in June 2022 to 2,442 in June 2023 and accounted for 33% of all prisoners in Australia, despite making up just 3.8% of the general population[[83, 84].

Land and resource grabbing

Research in Latin America and South-East Asia has shown that peace agreements have not produced anticipated results such as improved livelihoods for Indigenous and other local groups in some countries[[85, 86]. Complex post-conflict politics and power dynamics are compounded by illicit markets and crop production. In Colombia, Peru, Myanmar, and Laos, people who gave up coca and poppy subsistence as part of the peace process have been displaced from their lands, in many instances by government policies favouring big corporate agri-business[[87]. In rural Colombia, the cultivation of illicit crops was a means of subsistence for many people who faced social, economic, and political disadvantages. A peace agreement in 2016 between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) saw a slew of plans and projects to facilitate rural reform and transformation. In regions such as Northern Cumaribo, Colombia, the process of ‘coca cleaning’ has affected the Sikuani Indigenous communities where strategies to reform previously contested areas has led to substantial shifts in property ownership. In regions such as Santa Rosalía, La Primavera, and Cumaribo, where resources are valuable, attempts to substitute legal crops for coca has done little to improve the livelihoods of remote and marginalised farmer communities. Instead, it has led to neo-liberal agricultural and forestry projects benefiting corporations and political/economic elites at the expense of Indigenous, Afro-Latina, and other ethnic minority people[[16, 88].

The granting of public lands to corporations can be been seen in Maya Forest and Peten Lowlands in Guatemala; Uraba, the High Plains in Colombia; and the Inca region in Peru. In South-East Asia, a similar experience called ‘corporate peace greening’ is seen in Myanmar and Laos where trans-Asian conglomerates have taken over thousands of hectares to boost post-war economic development[[89, 90].

Peacebuilding has prioritised profits instead of access to land by Indigenous groups and traditional owners. Contradicting the transition from illicit agriculture to legal commodities has meant that farmers, Indigenous, and Afro-Colombian communities, for example, are experiencing new conflicts for land. Conversely, UN data indicates that producer countries are now experiencing their highest levels of cultivation of coca and opium, more than at any time during their internal conflicts[[91, 92].

The global war on drugs entrenches power imbalances and reproduces mechanisms of racial control and subordination. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on drug control annually and yet punitive drug laws result in human rights violations, the spread of infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis, and the avoidable loss of life. Public health and social programmes that prioritise community and justice are effective and save public funds. Yet governments and donors around the world continue to waste vast amounts of money on funding punitive responses to drugs, with little transparency or accountability.

Harm reduction services such as opioid agonist therapy (OAT), needle and syringe programs (NSPs), the provision of naloxone and drug consuptions rooms (DCRS) are all effective in reducing the transmission of diseases such as HIV, hepatitis C, opioid-related deaths and criminal activity.^{Footnote1Footnote2}

NSPs work and reviews have concluded that they are safe, cost-effective and effective. Studies on NSPs show significant reductions in needle sharing and reuse, overdoses, injecting/discarding needles in public places and reduced fatalities due to overdose.^{Footnote3Footnote4Footnote5}

In 2024, 18 countries had legal and operational DCRs where injection drug users can inject their own drugs using clean equipment in the presence of medically trained personnel.^Footnote6 Systematic reviews have generated a large, consistent body of evidence indicating that DCRsreduce overdose-related morbidity and mortality; support adoption of safer drug use practices and reduce risk of infectious disease transmission;facilitate uptake of addiction treatment and other services reduce public disorder concerns associated with drug use; do not increase crime; and are cost –effective.^Footnote7

The effectiveness of harm reduction programs can be seen in the scale up of services globally. In 2024, 93 countries provided at least one needle and syringe programme (NSP). Opioid agonist therapy (OAT) programmes are now in 94 countries, compared to 88 in 2022. Take-home naloxone programmes are now available in 34 countries.^Footnote8

Harm Reduction International research^Footnote9 found that harm reduction services are cost-effective with NSPs being one of the most cost-effective public health interventions in existence. In Scotland, researchers estimated long-term cost-savings of up to 250% of the original investment. A study in Vietnam found voluntary community-based methadone maintenance therapy was more cost-effective than centre-based compulsory rehabilitation, saving an estimated US$2,545 per person over three years.^Footnote10

The peer distribution of naloxone is highly cost-effective with a study from the United States finding high distribution of naloxone among peers prevented 21% more overdose deaths compared with minimum distribution. DCRs provide a high return on investment with a study estimating that establishing a DCR in Seattle, USA would save US$4.22 in associated healthcare costs for every dollar spent on operational costs.^Footnote11

$100 billion is spent on global drug law enforcement every year, but just $151 million was spent on harm reduction in 2022. This means that we spend more than 750 times the amount on punitive responses than we do on life-saving services for people who use drugs.

Not only are punitive responses ineffective at reducing drug use and sale, but they also drive the stigmatisation of people who use drugs, leading to discrimination and poor health outcomes for individuals and communities.

Punitive drug policy continues to include the imprisonment of people who use drugs, judicial corporal punishment, compulsory detention, mass incarceration, and the stigmatisation and marginalisation of people who use drugs. Criminalizing drugs does not decrease their use or supply. Instead, it drives the trade underground, increases the harms of using drugs and fuels organized crime, corruption and violence.

The World Drug Report 2023^Footnote12 found that drug use has been increasing over the past decade. With an estimated 292 million (or 5.6% of the population aged 15 to 64) using drugs in 2022, 20% more than in 2014. The report also showed that global cocaine supply reached a record high in 2022, with more than 2,700 tons of cocaine produced. This was a 20% increase over 2022. The report also indicated that there are 566 different new psychoactive substances (NPS) available on the global market. Punitive approaches have failed to achieve any of the goals set by the war on drugs strategy.

Punitive drug policies are not cost-effective. In 2019, harm reduction funding in Thailand was reported to be USD 3.8 million, with around one-third coming from domestic sources. In contrast, the Thai Government’s allocation for drug law enforcement activities is around 1,500 times its highest contribution to harm reduction. Thailand has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and the highest proportion of women in prison globally at 14%. Prisons in Thailand are hugely overcrowded and in 2020, 80% of people in Thai prisons were incarcerated for drug offences.^Footnote13

In Indonesia, USD 3.4 million was spent on harm reduction in 2019 while USD250 million was spent on drug law enforcement. Prisons are severely overcrowded, with some reported to be 800% over capacity. As of June 2021, an estimated 55% of people in prisons were serving drug-related sentences and 14% were imprisoned for drug use. Decriminalising drug use and personal possession of drugs could save the Government of Indonesia USD 31 million per year in prison-related costs, double the amount required to fully fund harm reduction. Decriminalising personal possession of small amounts of drugs in Indonesia would reduce the spending on prisons and other closed settings by 40%.^Footnote14

To begin to decolonise drug policy, the financial and material basis of these mechanisms must be illuminated and dismantled. Global North countries must:

1. 1.Divest from oppressive drug control institutions in low- and middle-income countries, which fail to improve community health and safety but succeed in reproducing cycles of violence, marginalisation, and carceral systems. Financial aid must not be leveraged as an incentive for increasing counter-drug efforts.
2. 2.Should stop technical and material aid, technical assistance, and capacity building that enhances punitive drug law enforcement, increases the use of police violence, or results in more people in detention for drug offences, which disproportionately impacts communities of colour and Indigenous peoples.
3. 3.Put an end to campaigns that privilege an abstinence-based framework; promote the prohibitionist international moral consensus; omit mention of Indigenous, traditional, or cultural drug use practices; and increase stigmatisation of people who use drugs and their communities.
4. 4.Invest funding and technical assistance towards evidence- and rights-based public health and harm reduction measures that hold the potential to change the drug policy landscape and undo its racist and colonial legacies.