NCJ Number
139160
Date Published
1991
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This analysis addresses the Bush administration's efforts to press the new government of Peru's President Alberto Fujimori to accept more U.S. military advisers and weaponry to back an escalated war against Peru's coca trade.
Abstract
Peruvians consistently identify the economy as their first concern and rank unemployment, poverty, terrorism, and the lack of housing and education as higher priorities than the drug trade. U.S. laws require certification of cooperation in anti-drug efforts which means Fujimori has few alternatives other than to make land titling in coca-growing regions contingent on crop substitution programs. Only drug legalization in the United States can make substitute crops economically viable in Peru and solve a variety of intractable problems in both nations. Short of full drug legalization, the United Staes should end the conscription of Peruvians into its futile drug war. 79 footnotes