title: Getting out of the game: desistance from drug trafficking.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This ethnographic study was conducted along the U.S.-Mexico border, the centre of the western hemispheric illicit drugs trade. It examines factors that encouraged or discouraged drug traffickers to "get out of the game" (a common slang reference to leaving the drug business).
  
  
  METHODS
  In-depth, life history interviews were conducted of thirty ex-traffickers in the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez area. Participants discussed their experiences exiting drug trafficking and their retrospective, often conflicted, feelings about the trade.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although leaving drug trafficking is a complex and multi-faceted process, the principle factors for study participants were (1) punishment (by authorities or other traffickers), (2) self-image and identity, (3) social ties, (4) life course changes and (5) drug use/abuse.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Traffickers often want to quit, but their divided self-identities make it difficult to relinquish the power and exhilaration they derive from the illicit drugs business. Harm reduction policies are needed that address the embeddedness of trafficker identities in dense webs of family, community, street gangs and transnational cartels, and the larger society, as well as the seductive appeal of Hollywood and pro-cartel narco-media. Traffickers need pathways that allow them to exit the illicit drugs business without surrendering their identity. Prison sentences are not enough to encourage traffickers to stop-also needed are culturally sensitive policies that help traffickers get out of the game and stay out.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79969-0582, USA. hcampbel@utep.edu
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Tobin
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hansen
mesh_terms: D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003415:Crime / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D057237:Criminals / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D055030:Drug Users / Q000523:psychology; D004335:Drug and Narcotic Control / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D013287:Illicit Drugs / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D035846:Law Enforcement; D008800:Mexico; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D014186:Transportation / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D013287:Illicit Drugs