Tracks of Despair

Who Built it, Who Profits from it, and Who Dies on it?

The Invisible Railroad

There’s an invisible railroad that runs from the coca fields of Colombia and Peru through the cartel-controlled territories of Central America and Mexico, across the Rio Grande, and into the abandoned factory towns and coal mines of Appalachia and the Midwest. It leaves a path of corruption, addiction, destruction, and violence in its wake and runs on fuel that is one part opportunity and one part despair.

At one terminus: cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and the criminal enterprises that destabilize entire countries. At the other terminus: hollowed out communities ravaged by economic contraction self-medicated on opioids. Drugs flow north. Migrants flow north. Violence, destruction, and hopelessness flow in both directions.

Five Decades of Failure

The drug war we’re fighting is neither a military nor a law enforcement problem. We’ve tried that approach for five decades. It has failed in the past and is failing now. The pointless attacks on fishing boats in the Caribbean—the operations that caused Admiral Holsey’s resignation—are the latest example of tactical theater masquerading as strategy.

Since President Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971, we’ve treated drugs primarily as a security problem. Interdiction. Eradication. Incarceration. We arrested kingpins—successors fought violent and bloody wars for control of the sprawling transnational narco enterprises. We eradicated coca fields—production shifted to new territories. We cracked down on heroin—cartels switched to fentanyl.

The Question We Never Asked

Why? Because we never stopped to ask what built the railroad—who laid its tracks, who profits from its cargo, and why so many are willing to ride it even though the route inevitably ends in death and destruction.

To address this crisis effectively, we need to understand the economic forces driving supply in source countries and demand in the United States—and why both are fueled by despair and end in collapse. This requires comprehensive reform of education, public health, enforcement, and immigration both in the United States and in Central and South America.

When Institutions Fail

Regardless of ideology, certain institutions must exist for any society to function effectively. Healthcare. Education. Infrastructure. Rule of law. Security. Where these institutions fail, predators fill the void.

The Trump banners on pickups and on front porches mark the stations on the railroad of despair. The attack on the Capitol on January 6 was a primal scream from a group of people who felt ignored and abandoned for generations and whose leaders failed to recognize their plight. Deportations, border walls, and attacks on fishing boats are ideas that strike at the symptoms of the problem while leaving the causes unaddressed in the United States, as well as in the countries where drugs originate and through which they are transported.

There Is Another Way

This is the first in a series called Tracks of Despair where we’ll trace the economic, geopolitical, and human costs of the drug war. In the posts that follow, we’ll explore what built this railroad and how to dismantle it. We’ll examine the economic forces on both ends—why farmers grow coca and why communities turn to opioids. We’ll look at market-driven models that have worked before: the policies that rebuilt Germany and Japan, and the development finance tools China now uses to redraw the map of the world while America disengages.

There is another way. We’ll return with ideas that address the causes and reroute the train from despair to hope. If this resonates with you I hope you’ll climb aboard, invite some friends, and stay with us for the journey ahead.