If it is true that important individuals are often notable by their absence, it is equally obvious that certain topics are noteworthy because they are ignored by scholars. Such is the case with the international politics of narcotics. Before the efforts of Arnold Taylor and David Musto, there were virtually no historical analyses of United States drug diplomacy. Before the publication of this work, there was really no history in English or Spanish of United States-Latin American narcopolitics. William Walker has thus filled a scholarly void, at least in part.
The first half of this book should have been reduced substantially, as much of the material, its manner of presentation notwithstanding, is repetitious of previous studies. Contrariwise, the chapters treating Latin American drug traffic during the interwar period are for the most part refreshingly original. Walker’s analysis of United States–Mexican narcopolitics is particularly impressive and well documented. Much the same may be said for his brief, original descriptions of the Honduran drug scene in the 1930s and the formalistic, wholly ineffective control efforts by Peruvian and Bolivian authorities.
Students of contemporary international drug problems will note several disturbingly familiar themes emerging from this study: (1) Washington’s fixation on the punitive approach to drug abuse and its pique with those countries that do not follow suit; (2) the futility of interdiction in the face of smuggling ingenuity and the resultant calls to “cut it off at the foreign source (3) the inability of Latin American states, with or without Washington’s assistance, seriously to curtail growing abuse patterns that predate the colonial period; (4) possible linkages between traffickers and rural revolutionaries; and (5) corruption, violence, and abject poverty, then as now the sine qua non of narcotráfico.
