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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Ghana's Drug Economy: Some Preliminary Data |
Author: | Bernstein, Henry |
Year: | 1999 |
Periodical: | Review of African Political Economy |
Volume: | 26 |
Issue: | 79 |
Period: | March |
Pages: | 13-32 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ghana |
Subjects: | drug policy drugs Law, Human Rights and Violence Economics and Trade |
External links: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056249908704358 http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=43CA85DC1D4C1501FC6D |
Abstract: | This article examines the introduction and spread of cannabis/marijuana, cocaine and heroin in Ghana on the basis of information collected in Ghana in February 1998 in the context of a wider study of the social and economic aspects of drugs in eight African countries, conducted for the United Nations International Drug Control Programme. Cannabis cultivation and trade, for domestic consumption and export, appears to have expanded significantly only since the 1960s. The cannabis economy provides important sources of income for significant numbers of farmers and intermediaries in the chain of distribution. The transit/re-export of cocaine and heroin is a phenomenon of the 1980s, with the usual 'spillover' effect, and extension of their consumption to a wider social range of users than is commonly believed. The current legal framework for drugs control is provided by the Narcotic Drugs (Control, Enforcement and Sanctions) Law/PNDC Law 236 of 1990. There is a widespread perception that only the small fry are arrested, charged and convicted. It can be hypothesized that the growth of the drug economy in Ghana has some relation to the enduring crisis of development. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. |