Illegal drug use and violent crime are on the rise amid crisis, Cuba’s leader admits

Illegal drug use and violent crime, once rare in Cuba, are on the rise, the island’s leaders have told the country’s National Assembly in a session where officials shared data showing the severity of the economic crisis and the massive scale of emigration in recent years.

In closing remarks at assembly sessions last week, Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel called the current economic situation “very difficult.” He then acknowledged that the government is no longer able to provide needed medicines or deliver in a timely manner “the few” food products that Cubans can still obtain through ration cards.

“At the same time, and as a consequence of the sustained shortages and limitations... social violence, addictions and vandalism are growing, which threaten the peace,” he added.

It was a remarkable admission for a government that just last year called reports about the rise of violent crime in Cuba “fake news” spread by a “terrorist mafia” paid for by the U.S. government — and an acknowledgment that the country’s economic and political crisis is so severe that it affects every aspect of Cuban society.

A Miami Herald investigation found that there was a 22% jump in homicides in 2021 and an even higher 131% jump in deaths labeled “events of undetermined intent” between 2016 and 2021, which experts believe may include homicides. Cuba’s Ministry of Health released numbers indicating a slight decrease in both categories in 2022. However, the real figures are likely higher because the ministry calculated it using a population estimate of over 11 million people, which Cuban officials recently revealed has decreased by more than 1 million people due mainly to a massive wave of emigration.

Despite denials of growing crime rates, authorities have been unable to look the other way as Cubans have turned to social media to denounce frequent robberies and deadly assaults and publish videos of people on the street apparently suffering from drug overdoses.

A growing drug problem

For decades, the government has upheld a “zero tolerance” drug policy and recently strengthened laws that criminalize drug possession and impose severe punishments for trafficking. But that has not prevented drugs from reaching the island, which sits in the middle of several sea routes used by international trafficking networks.

A senior Interior Ministry official told the National Assembly in December that drug trafficking into Cuba is on the rise, as is the growing of marijuana in eastern Cuba. The official said police had arrested 1,440 people, including 16 foreign nationals, and seized two tons of narcotics in counter-trafficking operations last year. Most of the drug seized was left floating at the sea, he added.

“The maritime channel is the most worrying; that is where we direct the most attention because that is where the largest volume of drugs can arrive,” said Col. Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, head of the Interior Ministry’s counter-narcotics investigations department.

He said law enforcement launched an operation last July to tackle growing attempts to bring drugs into Cuba via airports, cargo, mail and the use of people, known as mulas — mules — by Cuban traffickers living in the U.S. and other countries like Suriname, Mexico, and Ecuador.

An Education Ministry official told lawmakers in December that drug consumption was increasing among middle- and high-school students.

The subject of drug use, previously taboo on state media, is worrying authorities so much that in April, Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, ran a story with the headline, ‘Drug consumption, a present danger?’

A doctor who heads a mental health clinic in Havana quoted in the story said the age at which teenagers start using drugs is decreasing to between 13 and 14.

“Likewise, there is a high rate of young women who use drugs and are pregnant,” said Dr. Alejandro García Galcerán. “Historically, what was consumed the most in some municipalities of Havana was crack, but in recent times, new chemicals have been incorporated that we are sometimes unaware of.”

Cuban independent media were the first to sound the alarm about the growing popularity of a cheap drug made up of cannabis with added chemicals, known in Spanish simply as el químico — the chemical. The drug is cheaper than buying a pound of sugar, independent Cuban news site Cubanet reported.

Some videos recently shared on social media show people having apparent seizures or falling over after overdosing in Havana. Most of the people appearing in the videos are young Black men, suggesting the problem might be affecting the Black population the most. Poey Guerra said the Interior Ministry has increased its police presence and arrested 300 people connected to drug trafficking in six of Havana’s poorer neighborhoods, where a big chunk of the population is Black.

No solutions to the crisis

Experts say Blacks, pensioners and generally people with fewer resources or family abroad that might help them are the biggest losers in an economic crisis whose real dimensions were on full display in the assembly sessions last week. Officials shared figures showing the collapse of the sugar harvest and agricultural production, minimal levels of public transportation and low amounts of exports, and said the economy contracted almost 2% last year.

Cuba admits to massive emigration wave: a million people left in two years amid crisis

The country lost a stunning 10% of its population, mostly to migration, between 2023 and 2023, the head of the country’s national statistics office revealed for the first time during the sessions.

But in his 45-minute closing speech, the country’s leader, Díaz-Canel, said little about how his government plans to improve the situation. Nor did he take responsibility for his role in the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

“It is shameful to me that year after year, the President and his ministers go to the Assembly to recount the disasters that their erroneous policies have caused and ask the people for more sacrifices,” said Juan Triana, an economist living in Cuba who has advised the government at times, in an email exchange published by popular Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez on his blog. “But it is even more shameful that the people’s representatives continue to accept that situation.”