Drugs, Violence and Trauma in the Colombian Context: A Health Care Point of View of a Human Rights Challenge
Álvaro I Sánchez, Andrés M Rubiano, Jorge HM Muñoz, Glyn Estebanez, Juan C Jacob Puyana
Keywords :
Colombia, Drug Trafficking, Injury, Trauma, Violence
Citation Information :
Sánchez ÁI, Rubiano AM, Muñoz JH, Estebanez G, Puyana JC. Drugs, Violence and Trauma in the Colombian Context: A Health Care Point of View of a Human Rights Challenge. Panam J Trauma Crit Care Emerg Surg 2018; 7 (2):158-163.
The impact of violence due to illicit drugs markets varies tremendously in magnitude and characteristics depending on several factors. In Colombia, drugs and trauma are related in multiple ways. From interpersonal violence at the street level to the criminal actions of various armed groups whose violent campaigns are financed through the vast profits associated with the illicit drug market. The objective of this review is to analyze the association of the illicit drugs trade and its impact on violence in Colombia from the viewpoint of healthcare providers who care for trauma patients. Injuries related to drug traffic violence are high in Colombia, and only a small reduction was obtained after severe crime enforcement policies. The societal cost of the war on drugs policy is high on trauma deaths and related disabilities according to several reports from non-government agencies and the Colombian National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences. A health care initiative in order to understand the drug phenomena as a health care problem shifting the actual criminal-justice based on the approach can minimize the human rights crisis that is evolving being faced every day at health care facilities in Colombia. This new approach in the actual post-conflict environment deserves to be analyzed.
Matthee R. The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900. 1st edition. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press; 2005
Cohen P. Re-thinking drug control policy: Historical perspectives and conceptual tools. Geneva: Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD); 1993
Chepesiuk R. The War on Drugs. Santa Barbara, CA: An International Encyclopedia. 1st edition: ABC-CLIO; 1999
Dikötter F, Laamann L, and Xun Z. Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China. 1st edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2004
Degrandpre R. The Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World's Most Troubled Drug Culture. Durham: Duke University Press; 2006
Webster P. Learning from history: a review of David Bewley- Taylor's The United States and International Drug Control, 1909–1997. Int J Drug Policy 2003;14(4):343-346.
Levine H. Global drug prohibition: its uses and crises. Int J Drug Policy 2003;14(2):145-153.
UNODC. Coca Cultivation in the Andean Region: A Survey of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. Vienna A: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; 2006
ICG. War and drugs in Colombia: Latin American Report. Belgium: International Crisis Group; 2007
Hylton F. Evil Hour in Colombia. 1st edition. London: Verso; 2006
Miller R. Drug Warriors and Their Prey. United States: Praeger; 1996
Canby P. Latin America's Longest War. United States: The Nation; 2004
Aguirre K, Muggah R, Restrepo J and Spagat M. Colombia's hydra: the many faces of gun violence: Small arms survey. Oxford, Geneva: Conflict Analysis Resources Center (CERAC); 2006
Thoumi F. Why the Illegal Psychoactive Drugs Industry Grew in Colombia Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. Why the Illegal Psychoactive Drugs Industry Grew in Colombia. J Inter-Am Stud World Aff 1992;34(3):37-63.
UNODC. Colombian Survey. Vienna A: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; 2005
Bertram E. Drug War Politics: The Price of Denial. 1st edition. California: University of California Press; 1996
Buscaglia E and Ratliff W. Essays in public policy: War and Lack of Governance in Colombia: Narcos, Guerrillas, and U.S. Policy. California: Hoover Institution, Stanford University; 2009
Evans M. War in Colombia, Guerrillas, Drugs, and Human Rights in U.S.-Colombia Policy, 1988-2002. Colombian Documentation Project. Washington: George Washington University, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing; 2002
Graham B, Scowcroft B and Shifter M. Toward Greater Peace and Security in Colombia: Forging a Constructive U.S. Policy: Council on Foreign Relations, Inter-American Dialogue; 2000
NDIC. National Drug Threat Assessment 2009. United States: National Drug Intelligence Center; 2009
Horn M. DEA Congressional Testimony, Office of International Operations Drug Enforcement Administration:Regarding: Violent Drug Mafias. United States: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, Narcotics, and Terrorism; 1997
Bewley-Taylor D. Challenging the UN drug control conventions: problems and possibilities. Int J Drug Policy. 2003;14(2):171-179.
Gomez G. Presencia de Consumo de Sustancias Psicoactivas en Pacientes que Acuden a Centros de Urgencias de dos Hospitales de Bogotá. Bogotá: Organizacion de Estados Americanos (OEA); 2004
Bejarano M. and Rendón LF. Injuries from external causes in minors (less than 18 years of age) and adults at a hospital in Colombia. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2009;25(3):234-41.
NILMFS. FORENSIS. Bogota: National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences; 2013 Available at http:// www.medicinalegal.gov.co/forensis.
UNODC. The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment. Vienna A: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; 2010.
Puyana JC, Puyana JC, Rubiano AM, Montenegro JH, Estebanez GO, Sanchez AI, Vega-Rivera F. Drugs, Violence and Trauma in México and the United States. Med Princ Pract. 2017 Mar 21. doi: 10.1159/000471853.
Rubiano AM, Sánchez AI, Guyette F and Puyana JC. Trauma care training for National Police nurses in Colombia. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2010;14(1):124-130.