Ecuador: The evolution of drug policies in the middle of the world

Abstract

This chapter analyzes drug policy in Ecuador, by describing the evolution of the policies it adopted. The article begins with an historical review of substance regulations, starting in the Colonial period, and moving towards the country’s incorporation of the international regimes that have regulated the market and the use of drugs during the early twentieth century. The second part reviews Ecuador’s alleged entry into the coc-cocaine productive complex during the 1990s, as a transit county and as a producer of chemical precursors. Additionally, in this section, we will analyze the establishment of law 108, which was the most punitive legal framework in Latin America, and its consequences in terms of the increase of people incarcerated. The third section discusses the legal reforms that were implemented in Ecuador, starting with the 2008 Constitution, and including the new Penal Integral Code (COIP), which establishes threshold quantities for consumers; an innovative approach that is supposed to distinguish consumers from producers and drug traffickers. Regardless of the achievements made during the last years, the new legal Ecuadorian structure has some limits that block effective advances, especially as defined by internal disputes and by the difficulties of changing old punitive representations.