Drug Trafficking and Threats to National and Regional Security in West Africa: WACD Background Paper No.1 Dr Aning, Kwesi John, Pokoo Drug In less than one and a half decades West Africa has become a major transit and repackaging hub for cocaine and heroin flowing from the Latin American and Asian producing areas to European markets. Drug trafficking is not new to the region; the phenomenon rapidly expanded in the mid-2000s as a result of a strategic shift of Latin American drug syndicates towards the rapidly growing European market, leading UNODC to state in 2008 that ‘…the crisis of drug trafficking … is gaining attention. Alarm bells are ringing …West Africa has become a hub for cocaine trafficking. This is more than a drugs problem. It is a serious security threat. Ghana KAIPTC 2013 2013 Text 15p. http://iffoadatabase.trustafrica.org/iff/drug-trafficking-and-threats-to-national-and-regional-security-in-west-africa-2013-04-03.pdf