Dancing on a Volcano

This provocative, informative book explores what is rapidly becoming a major obstacle in inter-American relations. Despite the common problems created by increasing drug addiction and drug-related violence, each side continues to blame the other for the deepening crisis. There is, MacDonald states emphatically, enough blame to go around for everyone. He puts the Latin American drug trade in much-needed perspective, providing both historical backgrund and insight on the contemporary political ramifications of drug trafficking.

Because the drug trade is an inter-American phenomenon, the solution to it will have to be a joint one. Among the problems that will have to be faced, according to the author, are Cuba's role as an active middleman in the drug trade, the U.S. market for illegal drugs, the impact of the drug trade on U.S. policy in the region, and the interrelationship of the drug problem to the Latin Americn debt crisis. He warns that there will be no quick victories in the war on drugs in Latin America and the strategies used must attack both supply and demand. Whatever the approach used, its success or failure will depend on the ability of both the United Stataes and the Latin American nations to contain the drugs-insurgence nexus and to deal with the increasingly political nature of the drug trade.

SCOTT B. MACDONALD is Chief International Economist at Maryland National Corporation International Bank. Prior to that, he was the senior international economist at American Security Bank in Washington, D.C. (1986-87) and the unit manager for international and specialized industries in the loan administration at Connecticut National Bank in Hartford, Connecticut (1985-86). Dr. MacDonald has written over 100 articles, appearing in such publications as The Times of the Americas,Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, and Caribbean Review. He is also the author ofTrinidad and Tobago: Democracy and Development in the Caribbean (1986) and coauthor ofThe Caribbean After Grenada: Revolution, Conflict and Democarcy (forthcoming 1988). Currently, he is working on a fourth book,The Caribbean Basin Sugar Crisis: A Descent into Hell.