Almost one million Americans have died of drug overdoses this century. It made no dent in the number of Americans using illegal drugs or misusing prescription drugs, which now stands at more than one in five of the population aged over 12. Spending increased by over a 1,000 per cent in real terms between 19 – without counting the vastly greater financial and social cost of mass incarceration for drug use. The US alone has spent over $1 trillion on the war on drugs since it was launched by Richard Nixon in 1971. No amount of money or resources poured into law enforcement changes these mechanisms. There has never, anywhere, been a dearth of eager replacements for jailed or murdered drug bosses. In this larger sense, law enforcement functions as a kind of animal husbandry, keeping the stock of dominant gangsters young and tough and ruthless. Taking down the “drug lords” is in reality a culling of those of who have become weak and self-indulgent, clearing the way for their leaner and hungrier successors, who will themselves in turn be taken down and replaced. The Darwinian mechanisms are familiar too. And the drug trade prices the cost of these losses into those purchases. If more is being intercepted, it’s because more is being shipped and, ultimately, purchased. The percentage of illegal drugs seized on the way to markets is reasonably constant – hence the volume of seizures is a measure of failure, not of success. The economic mechanisms are wearily familiar by now. They enact and represent goodness and decency and lawfulness and safety. Everybody knows that even the most spectacular successes by law enforcement agencies against drug cartels are moral fables. Gardaí and their international allies have an absolute duty to go after these criminals.īut, as we pan out at the end of this movie, does the wide shot reveal any reality different to what followed after El Chapo’s arrest? Or, indeed, does anyone at all expect it to?Įverybody has moved way past any such expectation. The upholding of law, the proof that there is no impunity, the demonstration to the families of victims that their losses are taken seriously by the State – all good and necessary things. Maybe some general sense of satisfaction that evil is not rewarded in the end.ĭon’t get me wrong – these are desirable outcomes. Maybe some specific justice for some families who have lost loved ones. What’s the result? A fantastic news story. So let’s suppose the DEA is ultimately as successful in hunting down Daniel Kinahan as it was with El Chapo. His Sinaloa cartel is still top dog in the Mexican drug trade: Guzmán was simply replaced by smarter and more lowkey operators. Murders in Mexico, most of them drug-related, rose by 15 per cent in the year after El Chapo’s arrest. The production of the Colombian cocaine that El Chapo shipped to the US also reached a record high in 2017. The DEA itself estimated that, in 2017, Mexican heroin production increased by 37 per cent. Can a Netflix series be far behind?īut how did capturing El Chapo work out for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that is, according to these reports, now targeting Kinahan?Įl Chapo (Joaquín Guzmán Loera) was captured in 2016. It is a satisfying drama of the triumph over evil – but one that demands a willing suspension of disbelief.Ĭonsider the tabloid headlines last week typified by the Irish Sun’s front page: “Major blow for Daniel Kinahan as US cops who captured Mexican drug lord ‘El Chapo’ leading hunt for cartel leaders”.Įxciting stuff: being linked with El Chapo places one of our own in the Champions League of drug-related crime, Crumlin United up there with the Sinaloa Slashers. Hence the aura of strangeness that surrounds the story.
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