429 African Affairs, 104/416, 429–447 doi:10.1093/afraf/adi015 © The Author [2005]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved DIASPORA AND DRUG TRAFFICKING IN WEST AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF GHANA EMMANUEL AKYEAMPONG ABSTRACT This article interrogates the emergence of drug trafficking in contemporary Ghana and West Africa within the context of a global political economy, situated within a deeper historical perspective. It examines the earlier traf- ficking of cannabis along the coast of West Africa in the colonial period, and the later transnational networks that have emerged to promote inter- national drug trafficking (cocaine and heroin). The article probes how the African diaspora and international travel service these emerging drug networks in Ghana, West Africa, Europe and the Americas. It suggests that the concept of an ‘ideological diaspora’ could shed light on a shared global popular culture, which constitutes a counter culture and rationalizes criminal activities. IN A RECENT, IMPORTANT ARTICLE ON WEST AFRICAN CRIMINAL NETWORKS in southern Africa, Mark Shaw highlighted the need for academic research — despite the difficulty in researching crime — to provide a fuller understand- ing of African criminal networks, ‘not least to provide an independent and strategic overview of developments and the identification of trends’. 1 Much of the existing literature on the trafficking of illicit narcotic drugs (cannabis, heroin, and cocaine) has been from a policy perspective, funded by agencies in consumer countries in the West. This article is a preliminary reflection on drug trafficking from a West African perspective, situating this development within the larger global political economy, as well as providing a deeper historical framework. The article examines how drug Emmanuel Akyeampong teaches in the History Department at Harvard University. He is grateful to Colonel (rtd) Isaac Akuoku, Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board in Ghana, for his permission to consult the records of the organization. He is also indebted to his two deputies, Emmanuel Agyarko and Major Abdul Braimah, and to Mr Amankwaah, the Educational Officer, for several informal lectures. He also acknowledges his debt to Dr J. B. Asare, head of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, who has long supported a historian’s interest in addiction and given him access to the hospital’s records. He owes several insights on crime in Ghana to conversations spanning several years with D.S.P. Ayalingo, former head of the Police Narcotics Unit. This article was first presented at the ASWAD Conference on Affirmations and Contestations: Interpreting the Connections between Africa and the African Diaspora, Northwestern University, 2–4 October 2003. 1. Mark Shaw, ‘West African criminal networks in South and southern Africa’, African Affairs 101, 404 (2002), p. 315. His article should more appropriately have been titled ‘Nigerian criminal networks’.