Benin

Bordered by Togo, Nigeria, Niger, and Burkina Faso, Benin is a small West African democratic republic with a short southern coastline on the [Page 92]Bight of Benin. Its multiparty electoral system is young, but its successes and the country's high scores on the Ibrahim Index of African Governance have made it a model of African democracy. The economy, concerned primarily with the cotton trade and subsistence farming, remains underdeveloped. Benin, like all of West Africa, has been the site of prominent drug trafficking, problems with which have accelerated since the early 1990s.

Men loading cargo in one of Benin's ports, which often serve as transit points for the Nigerian drug trade.

Apart from counterfeit pharmaceuticals, marijuana is the only drug produced in Benin, but indications are that ...