Resumen
This paper offers a study into the question on War on Drugs and its consequences in the Andean countries (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia). In particular, it addresses how the United States imposed a criminal policy response that led to mass imprisonment, the progressive increase of prison overcrowding and the criminal prosecution of people belonging to groups that are marginalised in society. The final part of the paper, opens the debate into the need to investigate a new criminal policy which aims at the rehabilitation of users and small-scale traffickers through the drug courts, directing the punitive response only at major organised crime.