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Latin American women play a key role in the international cocaine business as couriers or mules. Beginning from theoretical perspectives that explain the relationship between criminality and gender, we analyze why women without a criminal background become criminals, how they become involved in trafficking, their positions and functions in the criminal organization, and the risks and benefits of their participation. Qualitative fieldwork was carried out based on in-depth interviews with fifty-one female inmates and twenty members of prison staff from nine Spanish prisons. A thematic analysis has been carried out based on this data. The results reveal that the prevalent profile among Latin women traffickers is that of heads of household. There is a relationship between their social and geographical contexts of origin and cocaine trafficking, which determines their criminal behavior. They occupy the most exposed and lowest-paid positions in the criminal structure. We found through their discourses, how they are recruited, how they transport cocaine and the money they obtain. We conclude that cocaine trafficking is a resource that women use to escape situations of exclusion and that allows them to avoid other options, such as prostitution and migration. Despite the risks of trafficking, the economic benefits they obtain from it leads them to commit the crime. Keywords: Latin American women inmates, Mules, Criminal behavior, Drug trafficking, Introduction and Background Women's criminology is an underdeveloped field compared to male criminology (Campbell 2008). Starting in the 1970s and taking place mainly in the 1980s, new approaches on female [...]

In this paper we approach a current issue related to the so-called concept of narcoculture. Several works in Latin America and the United States have addressed this matter and not only accept the term narcoculture, but also stress both the symbolic and aesthetic perspectives. In order to rethink the concept of narcoculture from different angles, we appeal to Juri Lotman and Boris Uspensky's proposals regarding the concepts of culture, non-culture and anticulture. Rather than accept and reproduce the concept of narcoculture, by means of linking Lotman and Uspensky's approach with the standpoint of complexity thinking and transdisciplinarity, we propose the treatment of drug trafficking as a semiosphere of anticulture. We emphasize the contradictions inherent in the actors dwelling in this semiosphere, incorporating reflections from chaotic and barbaric processes designed to wreak havoc in Mexican society. The common acceptance of the concept of narcoculture does not acknowledge the current devastation and bloodshed produced by narco-traffickers and others in cahoots with the Mexican government and its militarized drug war strategy. During the last few decades, drug trafficking has inspired organized crime and their actors, spurring the representation of everyday societal features such as music, fashion, architecture, or traffickers' social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: Street-involved youth are highly vulnerable to violence. While involvement in income-generating activities within illicit drug scenes is recognized as shaping youths' vulnerability to violence, the relative contributions of different income-generating activities remain understudied. We sought to examine the independent effects of drug dealing and sex work on experiencing violence among street-involved youth. METHODS: Data were derived from a prospective cohort of street-involved youth aged 14-26 who used drugs in Vancouver, British Columbia, between September 2005 and May 2014. Multivariable generalized estimating equations were used to examine the impact of involvement in drug dealing and sex work on experiencing violence. RESULTS: Among 1,152 participants, including 364 (31.6%) women, 740 (64.2%) reported having experienced violence at some point during the study period. In multivariable analysis, involvement in drug dealing but not sex work remained independently associated with experiencing violence among females (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 1.43; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.08-1.90) and males (AOR: 1.50; 95% CI: 1.25- 1.80), while involvement in sex work only was not associated with violence among females (AOR: 1.15; 95% CI: 0.76-1.74) or males (AOR: 1.42; 95% CI: 0.81-2.48). CONCLUSION: Findings indicate that involvement in drug dealing is a major factor associated with experiencing violence among our sample. In addition to conventional interventions, such as addiction treatment, novel approaches are needed to reduce the risk of violence for drug-using youth who are actively engaged in drug dealing. The potential for low-threshold employment and decriminalization of drug use to mitigate violence warrants further study. KEY WORDS: Drug abuse; drug trafficking; sex workers; violence; homeless youth OBJECTIFS : Les jeunes de la rue sont tres vulnerables a la violence. On reconnait que la participation a des activites generatrices de revenus dans le monde de la drogue influence la vulnerabilite des jeunes a la violence, mais la contribution relative de diverses activites generatrices de revenus demeure sous-etudiee. Nous avons voulu examiner les effets independants du trafic de stupefiants et du travail du sexe sur l'experience de la violence chez les jeunes de la rue. METHODE : Nos donnees ont ete obtenues aupres d'une cohorte prospective de jeunes de la rue de 14 a 26 ans consommant de la drogue a Vancouver (Colombie-Britannique) entre septembre 2005 et mai 2014. Des equations d'estimation generalisees multivariees ont servi a examiner l'impact de la participation au trafic de stupefiants et au travail du sexe sur l'experience de la violence. RESULTATS : Sur les 1 152 participants, dont 364 femmes (31,6%), 740 (64,2%) ont declare avoir connu la violence durant la periode de l'etude. Selon l'analyse multivariee, la participation au trafic de stupefiants mais non au travail du sexe restait independamment associee a l'experience de la violence chez les femmes (rapport de cotes ajuste [RCa] : 1,43; intervalle de confiance de 95% [IC] : 1,08-1,90) et les hommes (RCa : 1,50; IC de 95% : 1,25-1,80), tandis que la participation au travail du sexe seulement n'etait associee a la violence ni chez les femmes (RCa : 1,15; IC de 95% : 0,76-1,74), ni chez les hommes (RCa : 1,42; IC de 95% : 0,81-2,48). CONCLUSION : Ces constatations indiquent que la participation au trafic de stupefiants est un important facteur associe a l'experience de la violence dans notre echantillon. En plus d'interventions classiques comme le traitement des toxicomanies, il faudrait des approches novatrices pour reduire le risque de violence chez les jeunes qui consomment de la drogue et qui sont activement impliques dans le trafic des stupefiants. La possibilite que les emplois faiblement qualifies et la decriminalisation de la consommation de drogue attenuent la violence meriterait d'etre etudiee davantage. MOTS CLES : abus de drogue; trafic de stupefiants; travailleuses ou travailleurs du sexe; violence; jeunes sans abri La traduction du resume se trouve a la fin de l'article. Can J Public Health 2016;107(1):e88-e93 doi: 10.17269/CJPH.107.5219, Typically unstably housed, street-involved youth are vulnerable to an array of health-related harms, including violence and the associated adverse health consequences. (1) The number of street-involved youth in Canada has [...]

Mexico has undergone major changes over the past two decades, as its political system shifted from one dominated by a single official party to a highly competitive democracy, and its [...]

A dramatic increase in criminal violence in Mexico since 2007 has resulted in an estimated 60,000–70,000 “additional” homicides, often of an especially brutal form, related to drug trafficking and other organized-crime activities. This violence has been accompanied by a steep increase in rates of kidnapping and extortion and has targeted participants in the narcotics trade as well as government officials, journalists, and civil society activists. Despite the magnitude of the violence and enormous public concern about it, scholarly literature on this topic has been scant. This issue offers some of the most promising analyses conducted thus far on the trends in violence and their causes, focusing largely, though not exclusively, on the role Mexico’s government has played in the business of illegal drugs and the violence that accompanies it. In this introduction, we discuss the challenge of deriving reliable statistics on drug-related violence, its spatial and temporal patterns, prevailing explanations, its relationship to organized crime in general, and differences between this violence and substate political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some territories ravaged by intense levels of criminal violence while others are relatively peaceful? This research contributes to an understanding of the escalation and diffusion of drug violence in Mexico from 2000 to 2010 by formalizing the interactions between the state and organized criminals and by relying on a large database of event data containing more than 1.6 million observations. Results based on spatial econometrics provide evidence of the spatial diffusion of violence. In congruence with the theoretical expectations, the results show that the disruptive effect of law enforcement is an important catalyst for the intensification of violence between criminal organizations, especially when deployed in areas hosting a high concentration of criminal groups. This relationship holds for a broad menu of violent and nonviolent law enforcement tactics. The analysis also reveals that other broadly held factors (international, geographic, and socioeconomic characteristics) have a modest effect on the dynamics of drug-related violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence is commonly viewed as an inherent attribute of the drug trade. Yet, there is dramatic variation in drug violence within countries afflicted by drug trafficking. This article advances a novel framework that explains how the interaction between two critical variables, the cohesion of the state security apparatus, and the competition in the illegal market determines traffickers’ incentives to employ violence. The analysis introduces a generally overlooked dimension of violence, its visibility. Visibility refers to whether traffickers publicly expose their use of violence or claim responsibility for their attacks. Drawing on fieldwork in five cities in Colombia and Mexico (Cali, Medellin, Ciudad Juárez, Culiacán, and Tijuana), 175 interviews, and a new data set on drug violence, I argue that violence becomes visible and frequent when trafficking organizations compete and the state security apparatus is fragmented. By contrast, violence becomes less visible and less frequent when the criminal market is monopolized and the state security apparatus is cohesive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, Rio de Janeiro was one of the most violent cities on the planet. Many of Rio's hundreds of shanty towns were controlled by heavily armed drug gangs taking advantage of the absence of the state. However, since 2008, a policy of pacifying some of the city's most strategically important and violent shanty towns through community policing overseen by so-called 'Unidades Policicias Pacificadoras' (Pacifying Police Units, UPPs) has led to a significant reduction in violence. This article argues that this success is down to the fact that this policy treats the issue of violent crime as Complex Adaptive Systems. As a consequence, it seeks to facilitate a process of self-organization balanced between order, flexibility, rules and freedom. The article will show how Complexity has been applied, what benefits it has brought, what problems remain and what broader lessons can be learned from this experience for public policy-makers elsewhere., Introduction Brazil has the unenviable reputation of being one of the most violent countries in the world. Between 2003 and 2007 more than 240,000 people were murdered in the country, [...]

Transnational organized crime is often manifested by prevalent territorial disputes between rival criminal factions at local levels. Rio de Janeiro--considered one of the most violent of Brazilian cities--has linked lack [...]

THE OPENING CHAPTER OF ULISES CRIOLLO (1935), the first of Mexican intellectual Jose Vasconcelos's autobiographical works, takes place when the author was a child, in the year 1885, in the [...]

This article seeks to build on prior research and knowledge about young female drug sellers' social power by answering the following research question: What are the behavioral manifestations of young female drug sellers' social power as these young women move through their native environments and social institutions? How do these behavioral manifestations influence their perception of the professionals with whom these young women interact in treatment and alternative education programs? The results indicate that young women develop requisite skills for surviving on the streets of their neighborhoods and that some bring these skills into the social institutions they enter for education or treatment. Moreover, the transfer of street-based skills into social institutions influences how young women respond to staff in these social institutions. Keywords drug selling, female adolescents, identity, power

"Given the rising tide of violence and the mounting evidence of drug-related corruption at all levels of government, it is probably fair to say that, so far, the cartels have managed to take the lead in a psychological war against the Mexican state."

Women's involvement in drug trafficking in recent years has expanded dramatically. Yet there are few studies of female drug smugglers, the causes of female involvement in smuggling, and the impact of smuggling on women's lives specifically. In this article, I provide in-depth ethnographic interviews and observations of a broad spectrum of female drug smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border. Moving beyond stereotypes, I examine how drug trafficking affects women's relationships with men and their position in society. Economic and cultural factors strongly shape women's involvement in drug smuggling and the effects of smuggling on their lives, but these/actors and effects vary significantly, depending on women's social class position and place within drug organizations. High-level female drug smugglers may be attracted to the power and mystique of drug trafficking and may achieve a relative independence from male dominance. Middle-level women in smuggling organizations obtain less freedom vis-a-vis men but may manipulate gender stereotypes to their advantage in the smuggling world. Low-level mules also perform (or subvert) traditional gender roles as a smuggling strategy, but receive less economic benefit and less power, though in some cases some independence from male domestic control. A fourth category of women do not smuggle drugs but are negatively impacted by the male smugglers with whom they are associated. I argue that drug smuggling frequently leads to female victimization, especially at the lowest and middle levels of drug trafficking organizations. However, it is also, in the case of high-level and some low-level and middle-level smugglers, a vehicle for female empowerment. [Keywords: female drug smugglers, Cartel de Juarez, U.S-Mexico border, victimization, empowerment], Introduction Rosa Maria had never seen marijuana before. She only picked up the package of 'green fibers' from the El Paso motel because her sister said the police were coming [...]

The article presents an analysis of the theatrical production "Crawling with Monsters," which is a multimedia work created by seventeen artists from the University of Texas Pan American, located in Edinburg, Texas, is presented. Topics addressed include the impact of violence in children who live in the U.S.-Mexico border region as the main subject of the production, the social consequences of illegal drug trade, and the lack of Hispanic American or Latino themes in college theater.

The issue of the social supply of illicit drugs is an important one because it delineates a separate category of 'dealing, 'whereby friends supply or facilitate supply to other friends. Supply of this nature has been argued to be sufficiently different to 'dealing proper' to justify a different criminal justice approach in relation to it. This has been argued to be particularly true regarding social supply among young people who use substances such as cannabis. This research involved interviews with 192 cannabis users in six (three rural, three urban) locations in England. Most were exclusively cannabis users. Nearly half (45%) had been involved in some form of supply, and 78% reported sharing their cannabis with others. Nearly all supply events were between friends within a close age range. The findings suggest that there is little contact by young cannabis users to the wider drug market and that it may be better to understand this activity as taking place in an 'arena of transaction' rather than seeing it as an extension of the normally conceived drug market. We argue that there is sufficient difference within this arena of transaction from the wider drug market for most activity there to be dealt with less punitively by the criminal justice system.

We present analyses based on selected findings from a NIDA-funded project entitled, 'An Exploratory Study of Ecstasy Distribution' (2003-2006). We conducted in-depth interviews with 120 men and women in the San Francisco Bay area who had sold five or more doses five or more times in the six months prior to the interview. The research focused on the motivations and circumstances surrounding the decision to initiate sales, sales settings, the characteristics of both sellers and buyers and their relationships. It also focused on negotiated order and social identities. We describe the ways in which a sample of educated, housed, and employed Ecstasy dealers' attitudes and practices compared with more marginalized groups from other drug market studies. These findings suggest attention to social class, that is, the social characteristics of sellers and the availability of types of sales settings (public vs. private) is critical to developing a sociological understanding of drug markets.

Research on drug trafficking has not been able to discern the exact nature of illegal drug markets and the relationship between their individual and group participants. This article delineates the role of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-American participants involved in the stratified drug market of South Texas. This article synthesizes ethnographic materials drawn from two previous National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) studies in order identify the different types of drug distribution behaviors that occur within the groups, the differentiated roles of individuals, the organizational framework, and most significantly, the processes that link market participants to others outside of the drug market. This illegal behavior can be interpreted as an adaptive mechanism that is a direct response to the marginal economic status imposed by macro socio-economical background factors. As well, we conclude that the specific foreground factors of the opportunities offered by the context, culture, and proximity of the U.S./Mexico border and invitational edges explain this behavior. There are both parallels and particular differences between the South Texas case and the structuring and functioning of informal legal and illegal markets that are characteristic of other economically disadvantaged communities.

This paper analyzes illicit drug markets in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina and access to drug markets following evacuation at many locations and in Houston. Among New Orleans arrestees pre-Katrina, rates of crack and heroin use and market participation was comparable to New York and higher than in other southern cities. Both cities have vigorous outdoor drug markets. Over 100 New Orleans evacuees provide rich accounts describing the illicit markets in New Orleans and elsewhere. The flooding of New Orleans disrupted the city's flourishing drug markets, both during and immediately after the storm. Drug supplies, though limited, were never completely unavailable. Subjects reported that alcohol or drugs were not being used in the Houston Astrodome, and it was a supportive environment. Outside the Astrodome, they were often approached by or could easily locate middlemen and drug sellers. Evacuees could typically access illegal drug markets wherever they went. This paper analyzes the impact of a major disaster upon users of illegal drugs and the illegal drug markets in New Orleans and among the diaspora of New Orleans evacuees following Hurricane Katrina. This analysis includes data from criminal justice sources that specify what the drug markets were like before this disaster occurred. This analysis also includes some comparison cities where no disaster occurred, but which help inform the similarities and differences in drug markets in other cities. The data presented also include an initial analysis of ethnographic interview data from over 100 New Orleans Evacuees recruited in New Orleans and Houston.

Based on ethnographic observation of the changes in drug markets and violence in New York City over the past 20 years, this paper compares and contrasts three distinct types of drug markets and the types of systemic violence that are characteristic of each and argues that knowing which kinds of markets and contexts are associated with what kinds of violence can be valuable for policy makers and professionals. Further, evolving drug markets and different forms of violence associated with particular market types are, in part, responses to law enforcement interventions intended to eliminate drug markets. Police interventions after the character of drug markets--either for better or for worse--as they adapt, and these interventions can produce markedly different outcomes with regard to violence and crime. Comparatively brief interventions of limited scope can effectively control violence and reconfigure markets by 'training' them to act in ways less likely to produce violence and social disorder.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tajikistan has experienced an extraordinary and devastating expansion of opiate trafficking and consumption. While heroin was virtually unknown in the country up to the mid-1990s and opium was produced and consumed locally only to a modest degree, in less than a decade Tajikistan has become a key transit country for Afghan opiates bound north- and westwards, at the same time as it has witnessed a rapid growth of domestic heroin use. Tajikistan now rivals Afghanistan for the unenviable title of the country most dependent on the illicit drug industry, with the opiate industry adding at least 30% to the recorded gross domestic product. The opiate trade is so important economically that it corrupts the whole political system. This article therefore argues that since the mid-1990s Tajikistan has become a narco-state, in which leaders of the most powerful trafficking groups occupy high-ranking government positions and misuse state structures for their own illicit businesses.

This article examines research on upper level drug traffickers in the U.S., the UK, Canada, and the Netherlands. Included is an analysis and critique of typologies of drug traffickers and theoretical models of organized crime as they apply to upper level drug networks. Studies of higher level drug trafficking indicate that drug market represent informal and loosely organized associations of relatively small syndicates or crews of independent drug entrepreneurs. They compete for market share and deal primarily or exclusively with trusted associates chosen from ethnic, kinship, and friendship networks. Most dealers are highly cautious, eschew the use of violence, typically make huge profits, attempt to maintain a low profile, rationalize their conduct as business activity, and operate within geographically niche markets.

Three models--hierarchies, markets, and networks--are used to explore the organization of drug distribution and the place of ethnicity/race in that. These models are well established as conceptual approaches to the coordination of social life. Each of them is employed in the analysis of drug distribution, though not always clearly. This paper aims to elucidate their key features as they bear on questions of ethnicity/race. In doing so, it problematizes the way that ethnicity/race is employed in research and policy circles and challenges naive assumptions about ethnic sameness and ethnicity/race as bases for organizing drug distribution. Ethnicity may be a useful resource for criminal and legitimate enterprises but both comparisons between the two and details of what is specifically ethnic are generally lacking. Some avenues for future research and simple principles to guide such research are proposed.

This article draws on ethnographic research and theories of ideology to explore the cultural and rhetorical context of Brazilian proibidao funk, or prohibited rap music, and the usage of this [...]

The article is based on ethnographic research in Frankfurt am Main/Germany with young male migrants who are involved in drug dealing. The aim is to give an account of the mechanisms, values, and self-constructions that influence the dealers, e.g., in their choice of substances dealt, their display of violence, how they neutralize contradicting values, etc. Moreover, changes in the studied milieu that have occurred over time will be examined. Most interesting seems the fact that the subjects' cultural background has a greater impact on their business than economic rationality, the 'seductions of crime' or the 'search of respect.' Their distinct concept of purity and impurity, honor and dishonor, and their morality regarding the choice of substances seem particularly interesting and influence their behavior in the market.

Armed conflict strengthens the capacity of insurgent movements while weakening that of the state and the involvement of the drug industry in crimes creates an economic function of war where vested interests work towards the continuation of armed conflict. The link between narcotics and conflict is supported by studies of nine major narcotics-producing areas and strategies need to be worked out to resolve armed conflict arising out of the production and trafficking of illicit drugs.

Little ethnographic research has been conducted on how the illegal drug trade has affected and transformed rural communities in Mexico and the rest of Mesoamerica. It is a topic that is difficult and potentially dangerous to explore, at least directly; thus it is not surprising that relatively few researchers have openly studied it. For those of us working on rural development problems, it means that our analyses are silent on a critical dimension of the local economy. This paper describes the effects of drug trafficking on a small, rural town in Mexico's central highlands in which a highly interpenetrated legal-illegal economy has emerged. A series of ethnographic vignettes provide the entry point for exploring how the narcoeconomy manifested itself both materially and in the imaginations of local people. An ordinary town, in fact, had extraordinary inequalities: opulent houses; the subversion of traditional forms of leisure; a new urban-oriented consumer culture; and new farmer entrepreneurs. All were underwritten by narco-activities. The paper closes by considering the broader implications of the narcoeconomy by expanding on themes of globalization and poverty, migration, gender, and violence that run through the descriptive vignettes. Key words: drug trafficking, narcoeconomy, globalization, inequality, culture change, Mexico

Drug entrepreneurs are frequently portrayed as being violent, secretive, and only willing to work with trusted 'equals.' However, these images often contrast with the social reality of drug dealing and dealers, which is more mundane, consensual, and public than imagined. Moreover, Colombian drug traffickers are either pushed to perform in accordance with such perceptions or simply to exploit their violent or secretive reputations. In addition to the actual use of violence, secrecy, and trust, drug entrepreneurs often use these resources strategically as a form of manipulation to either defend themselves, to gain power, or to construct their social or ethnic identities. While these resources serve as essential tools for business performance, they also constitute obstacles for success. The time is past for guns and killings and massacres. We have to be cunning like the business people, there's more money in it and it's better for our children and grandchildren. Marie Puzo, The Godfather

Illegal drugs threaten the Mexican governance because of the corruption they generate. The Mexican government has been fighting this threat for years in a context of institutional weakness and strong pressures from the United States. The fact that Mexico is a natural supplier of illegal drugs to the biggest market in the world, the United States, puts the Mexican government in a very complex situation with no alternatives other than to continue fighting drugs with very limited institutional and human resources. In this process, Mexico has no margin for maneuver to change the parameters of the war on drugs.

This article examines the impact of illegal drugs on black youths in the inner cities. The author maintains the proliferation of illegal drugs in the inner cities has created war zones in which rival gangs fight for control over the drug market and many black youths die of drug addiction.

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Copyright of Monatsschrift fuer Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines the relations among illicit drugs, violence, and the state, focusing on why certain drugs are prohibited whereas others are not. The moral concerns underlying prohibition and the stereotyping of drug users along racial and class lines historically and in the present are reviewed. One conclusion is that modern states use drug prohibition as a way of defining the moral and social boundaries of exclusion and inclusion. In this definition, medical treatment and public health considerations play an auxiliary role. Other conclusions are the inflexibility of the international drug control regime and the need to consider experiments in drug legalization. Inflexibility, economic globalization, and worldwide drug trafficking have perverse consequences, which vary with the institutional capacity of states. The rise of incarceration and other forms of violence are particularly evident in economically and socially marginal communities and where the authority of states is weakened by internal corruption and external conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the network mechanisms of drug distribution by examining the the career of Howard Marks, aka Donald Nice, an international cannabis smuggler. Topics include entrepreneurial behavior, resource pooling, organization and brokerage.

This article examines the benefits of strong African American family ties and communication for youth. The authors argue that inner-city African American children are less likely to become involved with drug trafficking when their families are a strong presence in their life, whereas African American youth who are involved in drug trafficking often come from broken homes.

The author examines popular music as a source of social rebellion or reaction against established institutes, and as a tool for unity in a struggle. The article focuses on the Mexican American folk ballads, narcocorridos, a form of popular music with drug trafficking as its main content, which thrive in Los Angeles, California, an area known for music, commercialism, and criminal activity.

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Copyright of Salud Mental is the property of Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatria Ramon de la Fuente and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

José Libardo Porras's novel Hijos de la Nieve (2000) is a narco-novel that explores how drug trafficking has transformed the way Colombian society views traditional values such as labor and education by creating a new scale of values in which consumerism and “easy money” direct the lives of a growing number of individuals. The novel employs different narrative strategies that subvert a single view of the phenomenon and point out the different interpellations that drug trafficking generates in different characters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia is responsible for 60% of the world's heroin supply. Production of the illegal drug affects many aspects of society, yet many governments still need to implement effective drug policies to reduce the social effects of the heroin trade.

The content of the study includes phenomena as traffic and illegal consuming of drugs producing traumatisms no matter the affiliation to a group, race, sex or age. Shock induced can affect draminatically life of even destroy it. Abuse and illegal traffic of drugs are simmilar to a disease destroying society's mental and moral health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Places in which there is a strong spatial connection between violence and drug activity can often evoke particular stereotypes. They are believed to be places marked by high levels of social disorganisation, unemployment, disorder and racial heterogeneity. Yet scholars have argued that the spatial relationship between drug market activity and violence is more complicated and that other factors may explain this geographical connection. In the first article of this two-part series, different types of spatial analysis were employed to describe crime concentrations of drugs and violence. Evidence was found that challenges the notion that places with drug activity are inevitably more violent. This second paper examines what factors predict these variations in drug–violence spatial patterns in Seattle when derived using different spatial methods. The findings indicate that racial composition, disorder and unemployment may not be as salient as once believed in predicting places that are violent drug markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]