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Drugs and Security in the Caribbean is a comprehensive study of the drug dilemma in the Caribbean that reveals the severity of the threat illegal drug trafficking poses to the small countries of that region.

The illegal drug traffic in the Caribbean is a persistent problem for law enforcement in the United States, but for small countries in that region it threatens their very existence. The increase in the production and flow of drugs undermines the political stability and economic development because it leads to crime, corruption, and arms trafficking and affects tourism. And although all these countries, except Cuba, are democracies, the need to commit military and paramilitary forces in the war against drugs can seriously undermine democratic governance in those nations.

Ivelaw Griffith has undertaken the first extensive study of illegal drugs in the Caribbean by examining the nature and scope of drug operations, probing the security implications of those operations and the problems they cause, and assessing countermeasures for dealing with drug traffic and resulting problems. By disclosing the various elements of the drugs-security matrix, Griffith argues that the sovereignty of Caribbean countries is under siege, not only from drug operators but also from other states, owing to the transnational nature of drug trafficking and the inability of most small countries to cope with it. Drugs and Security in the Caribbean makes it clear that there is no simple solution to the drug threat. As long the demand for drugs persists in the United States and Europe, drug trafficking in the Caribbean will be nearly impossible to control.

Included in the book are two appendixes: the first is the 1996 anti-drugs treaty between the U.S. and Trinidad and Tobago, a model for agreements signed with other countries; the second is a Caribbean Counternarcotics "Who's Who."

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CHOICE Review

Griffith's study of the ramifications of the drug trade in the Caribbean is a wide-ranging survey of the topic but somehow never escapes a basic structural division rooted in the difficulty of examining this complex topic with a linear focus. On the one hand the book is a well-ordered exploration of how drugs are made, transported, marketed, and consumed, followed by discussions on money laundering, corruption, arms trafficking, and security problems. On the other hand, the author gives examples in each section in a random manner, drawn from a dizzying range of sources, e.g., personal experience, newspaper articles, international treaties, and from any of the 28 political entities he counts as part of the Caribbean. The study is not a policy prescriptive, but Griffith (political science, Florida International Univ.) does not take advantage of his freedom from the task of offering policy solutions to explore the topics on a deeper level. Who, after all, would argue that the drug trade does not threaten sovereignty? Nevertheless, the book is an excellent introduction to the topic and includes 20 concise and informative tables. Undergraduates, graduate students. J. Rosenthal; Columbia University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith is Associate Professor of Political Science at Florida International University. He is the author of The Quest for Security in the Caribbean andCaribbean Security on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century, editor of Strategy and Security in the Caribbean, and co-editor of Democracy and Human Rights in the Caribbean.