NASA. Retrieved 31 October 2022. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. 2001 Mars Odyssey, the robotic spacecraft that has orbited Mars since October of that year, provides spatial data on the planet’s surface. With poor economic outlooks among many of the nations along the west coast and inland, combating the drug trade has taken a back seat in many cases to the economic stimulus trafficking provides. Zambia was among the first African nations to see a narco state rise out of its poor economy, but it was far from the last. ­Combined, these nations have come to form the backbone of a bustling narco economy that links Latin America with Europe. After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, America and its allies toppled the Taliban militia that had ruled the nation under strict Islamic law. While marijuana and hashish had long been favored by many African nations, cocaine made a big entrance into the continent as drug traffickers from Latin America began to gain traction in Africa. In 2008, drug officials around the world watched as West Africa became the new narco state capital of the world.

Under the Taliban, Afghanistan functioned as a narco state, with the government using profits from its state-run heroin processing labs to fund its military and keep its economy afloat. Like just about every other narco state, Guinea Bissau emerged due to money. There is no other nation in Africa, however, that fits the classic definition of a narco state than the continent’s newest addition to the international drug trade, Guinea Bissau. This former colonization has helped make Guinea Bissau a drug trafficking paradise. Like other narco states around the world, Guinea Bissau proves that when poverty collides with the will of drug traffickers, a narco state is likely to emerge. Its economy depends solely on drug trafficking. With remote areas still ruled by drug trafficking tribal leaders, the nation certainly contains narco states within its borders. In Zambia, a southern central African nation, 25 prominent citizens were indicted on drug trafficking charges. President Karzai isn’t accused of personally engaging in drug trafficking, and he has stated poppy eradication as a goal of his administration.

The U.S. made efforts to eradicate poppy crops early in its occupation, but could offer no replacement crop that approaches its profitability for Afghani farmers. Once news leaked of Noriega’s involvement with the U.S. U.S. to eradicate crops with ­pesticides sprayed from airplanes, a method that’s proven effective in fighting Colombian cocaine production. These bank notes may have been handled by drug dealers or users, or may have served as impromptu straws for sniffing cocaine. Its president is at war with the military, which has allied itself with drug traffickers. Portugal, another major port of entry for drug smugglers, is of particular use to Guinea-Bissauan traffickers. When narco states emerge, the drug economy thrives. The nation has become the purest — and most important — West African narco state. It’s little wonder that the nation became a narco state as a result. Airstrips located on uninhabited islands, for example, went unused for decades because the nation of Guinea Bissau owns no airplanes. The virtually unfunded police in the capital city of Bissau have been unable to make any headway in fighting the Colombians.

Guinea Bissau has become a case study in the emergence of narco states. William Fleming, author of a study published this month in Industrial Relations Journal and a research fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. “Given the kind of upheaval a working quantum system would bring, especially to the financial system where cryptography would become vulnerable, it would be major technology breakthrough,” said Martin Kariithi, an analyst with Technology Business Research. In the 1990s, cocaine and heroin use among the upper classes began to take off as a major influx of drugs penetrated the nation’s borders. This foothold led to the establishment of narco states, especially along the west coast, a major transit point for Latin American cocaine en route to Europe. ­For more information on narco states, please see the links on the next page. His nation, however, remains the world’s leading exporter of heroin, generating more than $3 billion annually for the country’s economy. Again, however, such an average is based on widely divergent distributor rental ratios on individual films. Blair, David. “West Africa welcomes Latin America’s drug barons.” The Telegraph.