Publication

Interdicting cocaine traffic from Columbia is an unalloyed good, right? Not according to Juan Castillo and his colleagues. From 2006-2010, successful interdictions in the country led to obvious spikes in Mexican deaths and violence. It appears that disrupting the trafficking system incentivized those involved in it to ‘flex their muscles’ while they could -- i.e., absent the ‘third party’ predictability and enforcement provided by Colombian suppliers, even if temporary, violent attempts to grab power occurred in Mexico.