“Binocular Vision”

Analyzing the Drug Trafficking Problem and the “War on Drugs” Through the Dual Lenses of Realism and Constructionism

Abstract

Realism and constructionism, the two dominant paradigms used to conceptualize the issue of drug trafficking are posed as mutually exclusive. How can they not be, when the former calls for a coercive response to a real problem, while the latter maintains that the “problem” is a rhetorical construction created to serve powerful interests?

This paper analyzes the issue of drug trafficking through these dual lenses, and highlights the main arguments cited by scholars from each school of thought. The claims made by scholars on both sides of this theoretical debate will be supported with empirical evidence, showing that the issue of drug trafficking is both real and a construction. Using the theoretical lenses of realism and constructionism, drug liberalization and a public health framework will be investigated as a way of addressing the issue of drug trafficking.This policy recommendation is significant, as it not only neutralizes many of the most pressing issues related to the drug trade and intensified by current hardline policies (i.e. violence, drug precariousness, and drug trafficking monopolies), but it also satisfies both realist and constructionist arguments, suggesting that despite the framing of the drug trafficking problem, the same solution may successfully apply.