Drug Trafficking: The Americas

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Course Objectives: To provide students with a historical, comparative and contemporary examination of the evolution of drug trafficking in Latin America and several important drug control policies to combat this trade. The course takes a multi-disciplinary, historical and comparative country and regional approach in focusing on Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Brazil and the regions of Central America and the Caribbean. The course will provide students with an understanding of the evolution of drug trafficking strategies, related agro-industry organization, smuggling routes, money laundering practices, illicit markets and the mix of criminal organizations. It will also enable the students to examine the interplay of the illegal drug industry (cocaine, heroin and marijuana) along with related public policy (such as illicit crop eradication, extradition, interdiction, alternative development, counterinsurgency and other law enforcement and security measures) with globalization, social movements, guerrilla and paramilitary organizations, arms trafficking, migration, indigenous and popular Latin American culture, national and geo-politics, corruption, democracy, and socio-economic development.