The World Upside Down?

This study applies a world-system perspective to transnational drug trafficking. Such a framework offers an alternative to traditional, and often overly simplistic, models which emphasize globalization trends in the drug trafficking context. The world-system approach frames drug trafficking in a structured exchange system between core and peripheral countries, with less emphasis on stereotypical (and often mythical) organized crime groups. The research review and analysis provided in this study suggests that drug trafficking may be best understood in comparison and contrast with trade patterns in legitimate transnational markets. In many ways, the drug trafficking world system flows inversely to trade patterns that structure most conventional commodities. Transnational drug markets, in essence, are consistent with luxury goods markets, in which a commodity is accessible to a minority of consumers who are capable and/or interested in purchasing a relatively high price for a short-lived and staple product. This basic model does, however, vary across cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and synthetic drug markets.