Illegal drugs are connected, at one level or another, to much of the crime and violence in Latin America.
The region is home to "the world's only producers of cocaine in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia," Muggah said. "The power of this kind of drug, from the point of conception, production, through to transshipment and then ultimately retail, is really unprecedented. There are very few commodities on the planet that are so inelastic and generate such high dividends."
Turning raw coca leaf into a kilo of cocaine paste in Colombia costs several hundred dollars.
In Rio, now one of the world's biggest cocaine markets, the price for that kilo pushes to $5,000 or $6,000. In New York, the price rises to the $25,000 to $30,000 range. Farther afield, in places like Hong Kong or Sydney, you can multiply that price four or fives again, Muggah said.
"This is an incredibly lucrative business in a part of the world where your average police officer is making between $500 and $1,000 a month."
Drug use is also rising the region, "because traffickers pay the transshipers in product, not in cash, there's an incentive for them to offload it" locally, Muggah said.
A 2001 UN report estimated about 900,000 Brazilians, 0.7% of the population, used cocaine. In 2010, according to the UN, 2.8 million Brazilians, or 1.4% of the population, had used the drug at least once that year; they consumed 92,000 kilograms, or 18% of the world's yearly supply, second only to the 38% consumed by 1.5% of Americans.
Mexican traffickers, responding to drug use in the US, have turned to synthetic drugs and opioids, like crystal meth and fentanyl. Increased use of crystal meth in Mexico's border cities has been tied to rising violence, as criminal groups compete for control of local markets.