Institute of Development Studies

Dangerous Ideas in Development 'Beyond Toxic Shock: Narcotics as a Development Resource?'

• Dates: 8 July 2009
• Time: 18.00 - 19.00
• Location: Committee Room 17, Palace of Westminster

Challenging orthodoxies and promoting fresh thinking on international development

This series of seminars is run jointly by the Institute of Development Studies and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Debt, Aid and Trade.

Speakers: Professor Mick Moore, IDS, and Mike Trace, chair of the International Drug Policy Consortium

Chair: David Borrow MP, chair of the APPG Debt, Aid and Trade

The international narcotics trade inflicts enormous damage, in the form of corruption, violence and untreated addiction, on many poor countries.  These include producers like Afghanistan, Bolivia, Myanmar, Colombia and Peru, and the countries such as Mexico, most of Central America and the Caribbean and much of West Africa through which drugs are smuggled into North America and Europe.  The rural producers of coca and poppy are paid very low prices; the profit accrues to criminals and the people who protect them, creating the conditions for widespread crime, violence and corruption.  The objectives of international narcotics policy – the total eradication of narcotic production and trade – have remained unchanged for decades.  But the world has changed in many ways since the current international narcotics control regime was established.  Current policies are clearly not working, despite decades of resolute global commitment and investment. At the same time, drug control policies can directly undermine the objectives of Britain’s overseas aid and development policies. Attempts by DFID and FCO to create an enabling environment for the effective implementation of aid programmes must include consideration of the impact of drug control policies on health and social development.

To reserve a place RSVP to Charlie Matthews: c.matthews@ids.ac.uk