Venezuela is the Bad Kind of Narco State.
Last year Washington indicted the elected government of Venezuela on charges of “narco-terrorism,” and even sent warships to patrol the coast to stop the flow of drugs from Colombia.
Those warships never actually stopped anything, which seems kind of weird. You would think that if a whole bunch of drugs are coming out of Venezuela that a naval blockade would be able to catch some of it.

Colombia is a Good Narco State.
While we were threatening Venezuela, the Medellin Cartel has reconstituted. The government of Colombia is complicit.

The evidence discovered by the cops about the far-right party plotting with the drug trafficking organization of Marquitos Figueroa is so compelling it could even send far-right former President Alvaro Uribe, whose drug trafficking ties are almost as old as the cocaine trade, to prison.
Wiretapping Uribe’s former personal assistant, Maria Daza, and late money launderer Jose Guillermo Hernandez talking about moving money around presumably for vote-buying has consequences.
In fact, finding evidence of Uribe’s allegedly crime-ridden past can get you killed.

Eight potential witnesses who could confirm claims and evidence that the Uribe family has been at the center of organized crime in their home Antioquia province Since the 1970’s have either been assassinated or extradited to the United States.

The former President’s former chief of staff died in the mysterious helicopter crash allegedly after Uribe ordered Medellin crime lord “Don Berna” to kill his former right-hand man.

Columbia gets more US money than any other Latin American country. Most of that goes to their security forces.

Afghanistan is a Good Narco State.
Opium production in Afghanistan increased a stunning 37% last year.

A U.S. government agency reported to U.S. Congress in January that Washington has appropriated $9 billion for counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan since 2002.

However, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said the opium economy had grown exponentially over the period, while interdiction efforts have had “only a minimal impact” on the illicit narcotics trade.

Honduras is a Good Narco State.
In March, the U.S. declared in federal court that the Honduran President was playing “a leadership role in a violent, state sponsored drug trafficking conspiracy.” Honduras had become a “crumbling narco-state”.

U.S. prosecutors alleged on Tuesday that Honduras had become a “narco-state” with security forces and politicians, including President Juan Orlando Hernandez, working with traffickers to move large quantities of cocaine into the United States.
...Hernandez, who has repeatedly denied any involvement in drug trafficking, was a key ally to the United States under both the Obama and the Trump administrations, in both immigration and anti-narcotics operations in the region.

The investigation could complicate the new Biden administration’s efforts to invest $4 billion in Central America, including Honduras, to address the causes of migration.

Honduras' government came to power during a 2009 coup.

U.S. officials privately acknowledged in internal cables that Zelaya’s ouster was an “illegal and unconstitutional coup,” but the Obama administration resisted pressure to officially label it a coup, which would have required a cut-off of U.S. assistance. Under pressure from neoconservatives and other hawks in Washington, the administration also shielded the successor regime from sanctions favored by other Latin American nations at the Organization of American States.

Prosecutors claim that National Party chief Porfirio Lobo Sosa and JOH had cooked up a plan a year before the coup to offer “protection in drug trafficking” in exchange for million-dollar bribes.
...Tony Hernández was able to enlist “heavily armed members of the Honduran military and Honduran National Police” in drug smuggling operations during this time, according to prosecutors.

So if the Honduran government was in bed with drug traffickers from the very start, why did we look the other way? Could it have been that Honduras is been a laboratory for a radical neoliberal experiment? (see here, here, here and here)

On May 26, the Honduran Supreme Court upheld a 2013 law that would in effect cede control of sovereign territory to foreign investors under the guise of Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs). Known as model cities or charter cities, ZEDEs are investor-friendly enclaves governed by their own judiciaries, laws and security apparatus. By relinquishing control of key state functions to foreign investors, the arrangement allows corporations to circumvent local laws and business practices.