"Demand for cocaine in Europe, combined with the stepping up of policing in the Caribbean has simply shifted transit routes to West Africa – the balloon effect. Guinea Bissau, already with weak governance, endemic poverty and negligible police infrastructure, has been particularly affected - with serious consequences for one of the most underdeveloped countries on Earth.
"In 2006, the entire GDP of Guinea-Bissau was only US$304 million, the equivalent of six tons of cocaine sold in Europe at the wholesale level. UNODC estimates approximately 40 tons of the cocaine consumed in Europe passes through West Africa. The disparity in wealth between trafficking organisations and authorities has facilitated infiltration and bribery of the little state infrastructure that exists. Investigations show extensive involvement of police, military , government ministers and the presidential family in the cocaine trade, the arrival of which has also triggered cocaine and crack misuse.(16)
"The war on drugs has turned Guinea Bissau from a fragile state into a narco-state in just five years."
"The War on Drugs: Undermining international development and security, increasing conflict" from the "Count the Costs: 50 Years of the War on Drugs," Transform Drug Policy Foundation (United Kingdom, 2011), p. 10.
http://www.countthecosts.org/…
