Drugs and development: new prospects ahead?

A second part explores the emergence of a new conception of the issue, drawing on lessons learned from previous setbacks. 

After simply being secondary to eradication policies, alternative development is now envisaged more as an instrument of long-term strategies and socioeconomic integration policies adapted to the territories concerned, taking into account all aspects of the rural condition, together with the primary local drivers to illicit cultivation: ranging from access to land, to participation in political life, through viable integration in economic circuits. 

Although this general approach to drug control policy is still in the early stages, this new focus currently at work and its tentative applications in the field bring the possibility of a development-oriented drug policy to the table, as a legitimate and credible alternative to the strategies followed over the past forty or so years.