Las políticas de drogas africanas continúan atrincheradas en enfoques represivos de aplicación de la ley. El aumento del tráfico de drogas en la región ha generado preocupaciones sobre la capacidad de los gobiernos para hacer frente a temas de drogas, así como a instituciones débiles, la corrupción y violaciones de derechos humanos. Sin embargo, hay algunos movimientos reformistas en África Occidental y en varios estados de África Oriental.

Disponible en: http://idpc.net/policy-advocacy/regional-work/sub-saharan-africa

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In Sub-Saharan Africa, cannabis and khat are the two main cultivated drug crops. They have been grown for centuries for ritual, medical and recreational purposes (especially in eastern, western and southern Africa for cannabis, in eastern Africa for khat). Cannabis and khat production rose significantly in the 1970s and the 1980s because of the economic crisis and the structural adjustments that were implemented in Africa, at a great cost for its population. At the time, cannabis and khat appeared as ‘compensation crops’ of prime importance.

Khat is currently cultivated intensively in Ethiopia and Kenya – and is legal in these two countries, a status that can be explained by the substantial economic role khat is playing for farmers: cash income per hectare for khat growers is three times that of cereal growers.

A survey carried out by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that in 2005, cannabis was grown in at least 43 countries on the African continent (including North Africa). While North Africa is the main area where cannabis resin is largely produced and exported (in particular Morocco), Sub-Saharan countries also grow cannabis herb varieties that meet a huge demand internationally (such as Durban Poison or Malawi Gold). Cannabis production and trade is integrated into the economies of several southern African countries such as Lesotho, South Africa, Malawi, Swaziland and Mozambique.

Cannabis and khat grown in Sub-Saharan Africa are destined both for internal trade and consumption in Africa, and for exportation to Western Europe.

The synthetic drugs manufactured in Sub-Saharan Africa are mostly amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) (mainly methamphetamine and methcathinone). While they used to be manufactured in North Africa, production recently emerged in West African countries (notably in Nigeria) and South Africa (where it is called “tik”). The main market for West African-produced methamphetamines is East Asia, and to a lesser extent, South Africa.

Much of the cocaine smuggled by West Africa comes from Brazil where traffickers (mainly Nigerians) export it to Africa and Europe. In 2012, Algeria in particular registered a spike in cocaine seizures, reporting that cocaine transited through countries in West and Central Africa prior to seizure, and identifying trafficking by air as the main mode of transportation.  East Africa, on the other hand, has become a port of entry and transhipment for the opiate trade from the Golden Triangle.

Overall, the estimated volume of the African trade continues to be minor compared to other major smuggling routes: according to the vague estimations currently available, the whole African continent accounted for a mere 0.1% of global seizures of cocaine in 2009 and for less than 1% of global seizures for heroin in 1996.

Drug Policy is not uniform in Sub-Saharan Africa. States in this region adopted very different approaches, going from “neglect of the trade, through complicity, to the enactment of oppressively harsh punitive measures”. Most of these repressive drug policies led to gross human rights violations and greater drug-related harms, and failed to significantly reduce the scale of illicit market. Moreover, in this region, very few actions have been implemented so far to address the health harms associated with drug use.

In response to those harsh and ineffective drug policies, a broad range of policy and operational responses have been adopted to better respond to drug trafficking in Africa and more particularly in West Africa.