Roundup: Drug scourge reopens veins of Latin America

Famous Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano wrote in his work "Open Veins of Latin America" that "Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything, from the discovery until our times, has always been transmuted into European-or later United States-capital, and as such has accumulated in distant centers of power."

After suffering hundreds of years of exploitation and colonial repression, Latin America still cannot recover. Nowadays the sharp claws of drugs are reopening many scars in the veins of this region.

Latin America is located in the world famous "Silver Triangle" drug producing region which includes Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. Cocaine production in the three countries represents 98 percent of world production.

Some 90 percent of the total drugs produced in these South American countries are sent through Central America and the Gulf of Mexico to the United States.

Drugs are a topic that Latin American people "want to leave but can't leave." It is the war of words in political life and the coca farmers' daily work. It is the exchange of fire on the street between drug trafficking gangs.

Drugs are the focus of Latin American politics. Taking Mexico as an example, from 2006 to 2012, then-president Felipe Calderon initiated the "War on Drugs" in an attempt to annihilate drug trafficking gangs using military means. However, he failed to eradicate the problem.

After Enrique Pena Nieto took over the presidency, various cartel leaders were arrested, but the drug trafficking gangs were far from being dismantled. Drug-related crimes are still rampant and local people continue to suffer from insecurity.

Drugs fuel social violence. The drug trafficking gangs have begun to expand into defenseless areas of Central America and the Caribbean. In the small Caribbean country of the Dominican Republic, 70 percent of violent crimes are related to drugs, which encourage sales of illegal weapons on the thriving black market on the island nation.

Drugs affect civilian life. According to statistics from the United Nations, a total of 4 million people in the world earn a living from growing coca and poppy and the majority of them live below the poverty line (less than two U.S. dollars per day).

Taking Colombia as an example, the coca farmers are excluded from the country's main formal economy and their fate is controlled by the drug trafficking intermediaries.

Drugs damage Latin America's future. Children represent the future and hope of the countries. However, the fate of children in the region is worrisome due to the issue.

At the beginning of June, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said that the Mexican government "has taken insufficient measures to prevent the continuous recruitment of children by armed groups." The problem is not confined to Mexico only.

Over many years, the United States, the country hardest hit by drugs grown in its backyard, has been actively working to contain its rampancy.

Glyphosate was scattered indiscriminately by U.S. planes in fields and forests, provoking the destruction of crops and tropical forests in the country's Amazonas department.

It hoped to kill coca, but fell short of considering the environment or health of the local residents. This partly explains why the U.S. policy against drugs was coldly received in Latin America.

Latin American governments should reduce U.S. influence with respect to the fight against drugs, said the Organization of the American States (OAS) in a report.

Production is always fanned by demands. The U.S. has been told to spend more efforts at home before any meaningful results in chopping off the "invisible claw" that opens Latin America's veins. Endi