Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Paraguay and its closest neighbors, the Rio Plata Basin from one point of view or the Southern Cone from another, have experienced an increasing challenge from the drug traffic in recent years. Initially, everything linked to drug use and traffic was considered—in general, much oversimplified terms — mainly as the social problem of a rich society, primarily that of the United States. The South American countries, preoccupied with surviving the blows of the “lost decade” while trying, simultaneously, both to throw off authoritarian regimes in terminal crisis and to negotiate transitions from democracy, assumed this problem could not affect them. In any event, that aspect of the drug trade which concerned the countries of South America above all was the growing tragedy of Colombia, which was just beginning to make headlines in the world press.