Atharv Walimbe, a senior, and his mentor Dr. Mike Hendricks, received $1,500 from the Office of Student Research’s Faculty-mentored Independent Research Experiences (FIREBird) Grant.
Their research explores the inefficacies of the global drug prohibition regime’s inability to curtail drug supply due to persistent demand for narcotics in developed nations, particularly the U.S. The illicit nature of drugs and their high demand create a profit paradox where drug trafficking remains a lucrative, albeit perilous, enterprise. Despite stringent enforcement measures, traffickers adapt through phenomena such as the balloon effect and the hydra effect. These factors make drug trafficking highly lootable and less obstructable.
For instance, heightened U.S. pressure on Caribbean and Mexican routes in the early 2000s redirected trafficking channels to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, exploiting their geographic proximity and weak governance structures. Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have consequently become narco-states, characterized by political complicity in drug trafficking and stagnant economies crippled by pervasive criminality. Civil society in these nations is either complicit or subdued by corrupt officials and criminal syndicates. The resultant socio-economic conditions have forced many individuals to flee northward, creating a significant narco-refugee crisis.
Through collaboration with a local organization in Central Illinois, Walimbe and Hendricks will interview migrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to document their migration stories and how drug trafficking and their respective narco-state governments contributed to their migration.
