Nicaragua is often held up as an exception within the Central American panorama of criminal violence, widely presented as the safest country in the region due to its particular revolutionary legacies, the (supposed) absence of transnational gangs and drug-trafficking organisations, and the National Police's representation as an efficient and professional force. This commentary proposes an alternative reading of Nicaragua's contemporary political economy of violence in order to reveal the profoundly misleading nature of this prevalent view. In particular, it highlights how Nicaragua is governed through a particular political ‘settlement’ underpinned by drug trafficking, police and judicial corruption, as well as ‘mafia state’ governance. These factors have coalesced to establish a highly efficient and engrained ‘narco-state’ whose undoing is unlikely in the short term.

Observers have increasingly described the drug-related violence and corruption affecting Central America as the region's ‘Colombianisation’. This narrative is not just confused and misleading; it is dangerous. The Colombianisation discourse perpetuates ineffective and destructive anti-drug policies. It also obscures the circulations and connections that make the drug trade, the drug war and their associated economies of violence possible. We do, however, recognise one form of Colombianisation that actually is under way, but it is not the one imagined by security pundits. The real Colombianisation is a convergence of geopolitical and economic interests that have seized upon the geographical realignments of the drug trade to expand the same agroindustrial-military nexus in Central America that proved so ‘successful’ in Colombia.

Pentecostal drug rehabilitation centres in Guatemala City are informal responses to drug use, with these all-male institutions attempting to save drug users from what some Christians call ‘the devil’. Of ethnographic interest is that the mothers, sisters and wives not only pay for the capture and captivity of their loved ones but also volunteer their labour to support these centres. This article, in response, assesses not only the Christian impulse to domesticate sinners but also the extent to which a cult of domesticity organises Guatemala's war on drugs.

Based largely on research completed in the North American context, scholars of prisons detail the multiple ways in which carceral practices extend beyond prison walls to transform a wide variety of spaces, ultimately assessing how carceral imaginaries inhabit the most intimate aspects of everyday life. In Latin America, this division between the inside and the outside of prison breaks down even further when read from the perspective of survival. Drawing on ethnographic research across Guatemala's penitentiary system, this article explores how the deep interdependencies that develop between male prisoners and female visitors sustain not just these prisoners and their visitors but also the prison system itself.

The effectiveness of treatments for substance use disorders is strongly related to retention, since early dropout from treatment is associated with greater likelihood of relapse. The purpose of this prospective, ex post facto study is to analyze the effect of individual variables on retention in a treatment program carried out in a prison drug-free unit. The Addiction Severity Index, motivation and personality profile of fifty inmates were assessed on entry to the prison. Inmates were monitored for a year to identify length of stay. Results: Motivation variables at intake play a vital role in the prediction of retention in a prison drug-free unit; scores on the Aggressive-Sadistic and Narcissistic scales are also strong predictors of treatment retention.

La abstinencia del alcohol es un síndrome clínica y etiológicamente heterogéneo causado por una interacción compleja de factores ambientales (por ejemplo, la cantidad de etanol) y genéticos. Se considera que múltiples genes están implicados en diversos componentes del síndrome, contribu-yendo cada uno de ellos sólo de manera modesta a la abstinencia. Se revisan los estudios de asociación que han utilizado genes candidatos de los sistemas de dopamina, serotonina, gabaérgico y opioidérgico y se analizan las limitaciones metodológicas.

Desde 1990, los estudios de asociación han acumulado sólidos datos que implican al gen del receptor D2 de dopamina (DRD2) en el alcoholismo. Específicamente, se ha asociado con el alcoholismo el alelo menor A (Al) Taql del gen del DRD2. Se ha encontrado también que el gen del DRD2 está implicado en otros trastornos por uso de sustancias, incluida la dependencia de cocaína, nicotina y opioides, y la obesidad. Además de los estudios de asociación, los estudios farmacológicos han mostrado un número reducido de receptores D2 de dopamina cerebrales en los portadores de alelos Al+ (genotipos A1A1 y A1A2), en comparación con los portadores de alelos Al- (genotipo A2A2). Por medio de varios otros enfoques, se han identificado también fenotipos diferentes en los sujetos con los alelos Al+ y Al-. Estos enfoques incluyen estudios metabólicos, neurofisiológicos, neuropsicoógicos, de personalidad, de estrés y de tratamiento. Se ha formado la hipótesis de que, en un esfuerzo por compensar las deficiencias en el sistema dopaminérgico, las personas que abusan de sustancias pueden tratar de estimular los circuitos mesocorticolímbicos del cerebro, que desde hace mucho tiempo se ha pensado que son importantes en la recompensa y el refuerzo conductuales. En efecto, una forma del gen del DRD2, el alelo Al, hace ineficaz el sistema dopaminérgico y recompensa el abuso de sustancias que aumenta los niveles de dopamina en el cerebro.