Drugs and other illicit activities usually spur violence. For example, cities with the highest homicide rates are nearly all in South America, where cocaine is primarily grown and trafficked to the world’s largest market, the United States, through the Caribbean. The routes start in Colombia and pass through the small nations of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala before cutting through Mexico. Because of this trafficking, Latin America holds the title of the world’s most violent region that is not at war.
According to data from the Igarape Institute, a Brazilian think-tank, 43 of the 50 most murderous cities in the world last year and eight of the top ten countries are in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, this data excludes war zones where numbers are difficult to verify. Conflicts between
