ABSTRACT
The "War on Drugs" was soon primed to take up some of the slack and serve some of the same purposes as the Cold War—example, as cover or justification for the monitoring and suppressing of Third World insurrection. The drug war also served as a rationale for maintaining obsolete or "underutilized" military units and weapons systems and for developing new ones. The introduction of new cash crops has always had a destabilizing effect on political as well as economic systems, as it has given rise to new elites having the wherewithal to challenge previously dominant classes. New cash crops also generate new struggles over land tenure and further reduce the land area allotted to food crops, leading to shortages and higher prices for staple commodities. Global aggregate figures with respect to food production may be good indicators of growth or profitability of the agroexport industry. In fact growth and profitability of the industry may be inversely related to food security.
