McMafia: Crime without frontiers

An interesting book review in today's Observer of 'Mc'Mafia: Crime without frontiers' by Mischa Glenny.

The book examines the world of organised crime and, unsurprisingly perhaps, inevitably alights on the role of the illicit drug market at the heart of many of the most profitable enterprises, the reviewer noting the reality that: 'when goods and activities are illegal, it's the criminals who make the profits' .

The review also highlights that:

If the writing is occasionally a little colourful, the conclusions are mostly sober and sound. Glenny correctly identifies the contradiction of the Wars on Drugs and Terror, in which the illicit trade created by the former sustains the enemy in the latter.

and quoting Glenny;

'If the UN is right and drugs account for 70 per cent of organised criminal activity, then the legalisation of drugs would administer by far the deadliest blow possible against transnational organised criminal networks.'

Below is a short video of the McMafia author confronting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the recent NATO summit in Bucharest about how "the Taliban are the biggest backers of the of the War on Drugs." Harper responds typically ineffectually with more talk about how "demand reduction requires a change in the culture."