Illicit Trade and Drug Trafficking Proving to be a Major Problem

When concerned with the ethics of development in a global environment, the issue of drug abuse is of particular importance. All of the different aspects of the drug trade impact a nation, and specifically the development of a nation within a global environment. Within the United States, drug abuse has been prevalent among specific populations in society for almost a half of a century now. Historically speaking, drug abuse has erupted in many directions; new drugs have offered new markets, new trends have developed new habits. These patterns have become societal concerns on many levels. The creation of new drugs has added another dimension to prescriptive drug abuse. Though science is making

The “War on Drugs” has been a hot topic for several decades in the United States. The argument for the success of this campaign usually varies depending on one’s political affiliation. The government handled the ongoing campaign differently with each new administration taking command, most of them having no little success. The fact of the matter is that the ideal of a “drug free civilization” is far from reality. The world is coming to terms that the various drug-fighting programs across the world are not producing the desired results. In fact, UN Office on Drugs and Crime doesn’t publicly aspire to reach a drug-free world. That wishful scenario seems very close to impossible at this moment. The office biggest claim to fame is that that the international drug markets have stabilized, which is not very optimistic.

Drug crimes happen to violate state or federal drug laws from possession, manufacture, use, or distribution. Trafficking does impede national currency of transactions seeing as, “both the federal government and many states criminalize drug trafficking and broadly define it as the trade or dealing in illegal substances” (Tran, 2016, para. 2). Its seriousness will confront some measurement by a range of economic damage, loss to victims, and so on. Ultimately, some elements bring an allowance of illegal narcotics or controlled industrial compounds to circulate within the U.S. government.

In regard to Latin America, this area is a crucial geographical zone for drug trafficking and production. Due to the location, the drug trade has found its perfect home, vast mountains and forests enable huge farms to produce and ship drugs to any region they want. Whether it is Colombia, Peru or one of the many countries found to be in this vast collection of drug trafficking, it is apparent that they all share similar geographies that allow the trade to continue. As a result of this, countries in this region have been subjugated to many imperialistic like efforts to eradicate this growing issue, regardless of involvement. Through the use of diplomacy and past military intervention, the U.S. and other countries have tried to keep a grip on the ever growing drug ring surrounding this area. Unfortunately, it has become evident that the effort given by the U.S. is not enough to combat this ever growing and secure market.

In the drug world, there are a great number of networks. Trafficking of drugs is a very serious operation and there is a lot of money involved inside this system. With the millions of individuals that use drugs, it would prove to very difficult to meet the demands without people trafficking (4). Despite their reason for taking drugs, there is always illegal substances on the market. Users are willing to spend well above the price for these substances (2). Areas in Asia and South America have a vast amount of resources and many people make their living off of the drug industry. Coca plants are grown all around the country.

Drug trafficking, a multi-billion dollar global business, is of growing concern to almost all countries around the world. To be specific, it has been a concern to all governments, as part of their job is the protection of the citizens. With the interference of drugs, it is not helping because it leads to many diseases, crimes and the death of many people. Drug trafficking is mainly the global illicit trade involving the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws; and illegal drug trade which is considered a global black market.

However, The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Millions of people worldwide use drugs that are currently deemed illegal, while Millions are also involved in the cultivation, production and distribution of drugs. the most crucial and most dangerous phase of the illicit drug market is the drug trafficking. illegal drugs weighing Thousands of kilograms cross international borders daily, parting the hands of violent traffickers and inflowing the lives of drug dealers plus addicts. Every week, hundreds of populaces are murdered in events directly allied to trafficking. While to end the drug trafficking problem several global efforts have befallen, they have yielded only marginal success.

What is International Drug Trafficking? International Drug Trafficking is a global illicit trade involving the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws (CITE). Most of the drugs that are being transported are grown in developing nations and then are transported to Industrialized nations such as the United States and Europe where drug use is all over. The United States and Europe have laws that are against drug usage, so for the drug users to get what they need they buy it on the black market. In Latin America many leaders believe that if the United States would allow illegal drugs to become legal, then they would have less drug addicts and overdoses. Since the United States would not allow illegal drugs into their country drug trafficking organizations, such as the cartels have stepped in to give the American people what they want, while making a ton of money. According to (CITE) Bruce M. Bragley the cartels have taken over drug trafficking all over the world for the past twenty-five years. Bragley also claims without uncertainty that the United States is the largest consumer of illicit drugs on Earth. The United States alone consumes more than one billion dollars on illicit drugs. (CITE) Although Cocaine is the most popular drug, it has significantly dropped in usage in the United States, but has gain usage in Europe. Cocaine is now largely consumed by Brazil and has replaced Argentina completely, this was reported by the United Nations. The United Nations Office on Drug and Crime reports that the Americas combined consumed sixty-three percent of the four hundred and forty metric tons of cocaine available, while the European population consumed twenty-nine percent of the world supply. (CITE) Out of all the drugs that are trafficked cocaine has been to more countries and has made the most success by spreading to more than two hundred countries. Drug Trafficking is not as

The international drug trade from Latin American states is having an impact on a global scale. The trafficking of drugs along with corruptness and murder is an international conflict that is being fought daily. There are many aspects of the drug war from Mexico and other Latin American states which have effects on United States policy as well as policies from other countries that participate in the global suppression of illegal drugs.

Drug trafficking is one of the many evils that plagues the contemporary world. It causes violence, corruption and drug addiction. Brazil, sharing borders with three of the largest producers of cocaine, is a hub for trafficking as drugs are brought into Brazil to be consumed or shipped onwards to the US, Western Europe and even Japan. The frequent drug transfers have created violence and unrest in Brazil, not to mention addiction and drug dependency.

Drug trafficking has become an increasingly growing problem in the world today. Illegal drug trade is a worldwide black market consisting of production, distribution, packaging, and sale of illegal substances. Although today’s "War on Drugs" is a modern phenomenon, drug problems have been a common problem throughout history. The market for illegal drugs is massive, when we consider the estimated global drug trade value is worth $321 billion (Vulliamy). The most drug trafficking happens on the border between Mexico and the United States. Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon said, “Our neighbor is the largest consumer of drugs in the world. And everybody wants to sell him drugs through our door and our window”

Due to archaic systems of tracking TOC, gaps in the implementation of global law enforcement, uneven norms that lack focus and authority and an inability to confront government corruption, the progress on combating TOC has been significantly slowed. In the case of drug trafficking, systems set by the UNODC attempt to collect data to gauge the size of the drug-using population. With

The issue of Europe council of recommendation was not given any further attention until 1988. When the United Nations adopted the Convention against Illicit Traffic, in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances .Yet it was not the first such initiative in this area as international initia-tives taken place regulate drug abase illicit trafficking date back to the International Opium Con-vention of 1912 and the 1931 Convention Limiting the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs. . While contributing significantly to the anti-narcotics movement, it grew increasingly apparent that these agreements, however, not focus sufficiently on legal tools and law enforcement strategies to com-bat drug trafficking. In December of 1984, the UN Assembly adopted a resolution expressing the conviction that 'the wide scope of the illicit traffic The General Assembly

Held et al also argue that with the spread of interconnection of crime across national boarders, it creates new opportunities and forms of global crime such as transnational organized crime, IP crime and human smuggling and trafficking (Held, et al., 1999:162). For instance, Castells points out that the Western societies acts as the demand side in a global criminal economy, they are in a high demand of drugs and prostitutes, which can be supplied and produced in a third world drug producing countries such as Columbia (Castells, 1998, cited in Puniskis, 2010:239). Furthermore, apart from the reasons that these crimes are prevalent in the Western nations, it becomes a controversial issue as it violates the international laws regarding humanity. For example, human smuggling and trafficking is an illegal sale of human beings that contains exploitation and coercion. According to Leman and Janssens, it is apparent that human trafficking is a violation of human rights in the way that it requires exploitation of human such as prostitution, non-voluntary form of sexual behavior, forced labor or services as well as slavery or slavery-like conditions (Leman and Janssens, 2012:175). Therefore, the coercive nature of such crime presents a violation

Asia Pacific can be said as a major supplier of illicit drugs, opium and heroin are the drugs that dominated the trafficking in the region(Cubbage and Brooks, 2013 :17). The impact of drug trafficking is obviously the increasing of drug abuse in a country. There are many consequences of illicit drug use especially on society, impact such as causing permanent damage to the physical and emotional of the drug users, it gives bad impact on user’s health and their healthcare system. Other impacts are the increasing number of crime, the reducing of national productivity, and even affect the environment(n.a, 2010 :3).