The term narcoterrorism has entered the popular lexicon as a shorthand to refer to the complex relationship between the illicit drug trade and terrorism. The term, however, has often been used interchangeably to refer to two distinct aspects of this issue.

Exploiting the Drug Trade

Narcoterrorism refers, first, to the activities of a number of guerrilla groups worldwide. These groups engage in terrorism and insurgency and also exploit the drug trade for financial gain. In most cases this exploitation involves rural-based guerrillas. Guerrillas and the drug trade (especially cultivation and processing) both tend to thrive in rugged, remote areas where government control is weak and where a nationally integrated economic infrastructure is lacking.

Rural-based guerrillas make money primarily by extorting "war taxes" from growers and traffickers. Thus the relationship between guerrillas, on the one hand, and the growers and the traffickers, on the other...