Editorial | The legitimate war on drugs

The Gleaner shares National Security Minister Horace Chang’s concern over the surge of cocaine seizures in Jamaica, which suggests a resurgence in the use of the island as a transshipment hub for drugs.

There is logic, too, in the minister’s argument for wider hemispheric cooperation to neutralise what he sees as a potential threat to the gains made against domestic crime, as well as Jamaica’s broader national security.

However, any partnership or pact Jamaica enters into to confront these dangers must be within the confines of international law and in concert with the island’s Constitution and judicial norms. Jamaica must not greenlight any partner operating within its national territory, including its territorial sea and airspace, to treat drug smuggling as anything other than a criminal offence.

In other words, Jamaica must not accede or acquiesce to the notion that mere allegations of drug smuggling elevate such acts to acts of war by illegal or irregular combatants, thus subjecting them to extrajudicial killings.

While The Gleaner does not believe that the Jamaican government would sign on to this perverse interpretation of international law or any arrangement that gives succour to such a scheme, to place the matter beyond doubt, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness should cause the publication of the latest agreement between Jamaica and the United States on cooperation between their militaries to combat what America’s Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth called “narco-terrorists”.

LEGITIMATE CONCERNS

Based on the data he provided in an op-ed article in this newspaper on Sunday, Dr Chang has legitimate concerns not only about the re-emergence of the cocaine trade, but also about its seeming explosion.

After law enforcement seized 2,508 kilogrammes of cocaine in 2024, the amount fell by 45 per cent last year to 1,378 kilos. So far in 2026, more than 7,200 kilos have already been seized. These include two big hauls at the Kingston transshipment port earlier this month, totalling 2,067 kilos.

The positive perspective on these seizures is that Jamaica’s law enforcement agencies are doing their jobs and disrupting criminals. Another viewpoint, however, might be that vastly more cocaine is being smuggled through the island and that higher nominal seizures by weight might not reflect an increased ratio.

In some respects, there is the sense of Jamaica returning to the high-profile cocaine-trafficking period of the early 2000s, before the police’s Operation Kingfish put a major dent in the trade. In those days, Britain’s tabloid press nicknamed Air Jamaica ‘Air Cocaine’. Air Jamaica planes were not infrequently subjected to extensive checks for cocaine, and sometimes detained by foreign authorities when drugs were discovered.

In the current scenario, as Dr Chang observed, the economics of cocaine makes these increased numbers highly troubling. With lots of money sloshing around, criminals have the wherewithal to “corrupt institutions, compromise individuals and penetrate legitimate businesses”. Additionally, the cocaine trade often leads to turf wars between gangs, with the threat of undoing the sharp decline in homicides Jamaica has experienced over the past three years.

DEEPER COOPERATION

That is part of the backdrop against which the security minister, in his article, touted Jamaica’s anti-drug cooperation with the United States, Britain and Canada, while stressing the need for deeper cooperation across the “wider Latin America and Caribbean as well as with both source and destination countries”. This reference was likely a nod to Jamaica’s membership of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (ACCC), announced during a meeting in Panama, a group of hemispheric countries brought together by the US to confront narcotics smuggling.

While partnership makes sense, this newspaper shares much of the world’s abhorrence of the Trump administration’s disregard for international law in its approach to purported drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean: they are fired upon, resulting in, as Mr Hegseth put it, the “kinetic killing of terrorists”.

In nearly 70 of these operations since last September, over 220 people have been killed. They were not indicted and brought before civil courts of law.

The Jamaican government has indicated that the agreement it signed with the US this month, which Mr Hegseth said “will cripple narco-terrorists that transit through the Caribbean”, will allow joint operations between the US and Jamaican militaries. But there is a lack of clarity about what this means, how it will work, and whether it will advance the shiprider agreement of the late 1990s that allows US vessels in hot pursuit of drug vessels to chase them into Jamaican waters, with a nominal need for permission.

Prime Minister Holness has been an advocate for a global coalition against gangs, along the lines of the alliance that was mustered for the supposed war on terror.

Dr Holness, however, added a caveat: that this war must be prosecuted “with full respect for international law, human rights, and with the coordination and collaboration of the countries of the region”.

While endorsing the partnership in the war on gangs and narco-traffickers, the partners must not ignore or misinterpret Dr Holness’ framework for the conduct of that war.