Statement from Students for Sensible Drug Policy

On the Extrajudicial Killing of Unarmed Fishermen in the Name of the “War on Drugs”

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) condemns in the strongest possible terms the reported extrajudicial killing of Latin American and Caribbean fishermen carried out by President Donald Trump’s administration as part of U.S. “counter-narcotics” operations.

These actions represent a grotesque escalation of the failed drug war, one that extends U.S. militarized policing beyond its own borders and inflicts lethal harm on working-class people of color far from U.S. shores. Killing civilians under the banner of “drug interdiction” is not drug policy. It is state violence and a grave violation of international law.

We reject this brutality on moral, legal, and human rights grounds.

1. The drug war is not a license to kill.

Fishermen and coastal workers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean deserve the same right to life and due process as anyone else. When governments frame such killings as “anti-trafficking” operations, they normalize the idea that poverty and geography justify execution without trial. That is unconscionable.

2. Militarized drug policy undermines democracy and international law.

The use of lethal force without judicial oversight in another nation’s territorial waters violates the U.N. Charter, basic norms of sovereignty, and the right to life protected under international human rights treaties. No administration, U.S. or otherwise, has the authority to declare entire regions kill zones in the name of prohibition.

3. These deaths expose the deadly logic of prohibition.

From Latin America to the Caribbean to Southeast Asia, “drug enforcement” has been used as cover for extrajudicial executions of poor people while political elites and corporate traffickers operate with impunity. Fishermen are not drug lords. They are collateral damage in a war that should never have been waged.

4. Accountability and demilitarization are urgent.

SSDP calls for full transparency from the U.S. government, independent investigation into the killings, and meaningful reparations to victims’ families. This administration must permanently end the use of military force in drug enforcement and shift all drug policy efforts toward evidence-based, health-centered, and rights-respecting strategies.

Our message is simple:
The drug war kills. It kills at home, and it kills abroad.
It criminalizes poverty, erases due process, and perpetuates cycles of violence that have nothing to do with public health or safety. Students for Sensible Drug Policy stands in solidarity with the victims’ families, with Latin American and Caribbean civil society, and with all communities resisting U.S. drug war violence. We demand justice, accountability, and an immediate end to all extrajudicial operations carried out in the name of drug control.

Media Contact:
Gina Giorgio – gina@ssdp.org

With chapters on campuses and in communities across the country, Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) is the largest national youth-led network dedicated to ending the War on Drugs. Our national staff, Board of Directors, chapters, and alumni work together to replace the disastrous War on Drugs with policies rooted in evidence, compassion, and human rights, at a grassroots level.

###

For more information, please visit: https://ssdp.org.

Share This!

Statement from Students for Sensible Drug Policy On the Extrajudicial Killing of Unarmed Fishermen in the Name of the “War on Drugs”