Shoot down laws: Nine countries in Central and South America have passed shoot down laws which authorize their respective air forces to shoot down suspicious aircraft which fail to respond to requests to land voluntarily. Two of them were on our route: Columbia and Peru. The others which have approved such legislation are Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Paraguay, and Venezuela. Each country has its own procedural protocol and not all of the countries have implemented the law. Some, such as Paraguay, don’t have the resources to implement enforcement. Lawmakers in Argentina proposed a similar law; however, it was not enacted due to lack of support. One of the most highly publicized incidents occurred in 2001, a year after Miguel and I made our trip. A plane carrying four missionaries affiliated with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism was shot down by the Peruvian Air Force. Their aircraft was identified on radar as being suspicious, and its pilot did not respond to requests to land voluntarily. Among the occupants who died were a 35 year old woman from the United States and her infant daughter. After the incident, Peru rescinded its shoot down policy. However, in 2015, it was re-authorized with the provision there is reasonable suspicion the plane carries contraband. Without a doubt, drug trafficking presents an enormous problem for Latin American countries and there exists a significant need for innovative strategies to deal with the issues.
In recent history, there has been much rhetoric surrounding the eradication of cross-border drug trafficking. The “war on drugs” was introduced in the 1970s by Nixon, who wanted to eliminate the drugs coming into the United States, since they were seen by him as a threat to our nation. Many laws have been enacted with the purpose keeping illicit drugs out of the United States, yet they do so through the use of nativist ideology, which upholds white supremacy by perpetuating the belief that those associated with Mexico are inherently criminals and must be kept out of the United States. Latin America is looked at as a corrupt place, teeming with drugs and criminals, that is tainting the wonderful and
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.
Over the past few decades drug cartels in Mexico have begun glorifying their brutal attacks and fearless efforts over the war on drugs and territory. Drug trafficking has become such a profitable epidemic that various organizations have grown to exploit this area of criminality. Cartels have gained notoriety by amassing large profits in exploiting the drug business. These organizations have created complex strategies to smuggle vast amounts of narcotics from the arms of the producer straight into the hands of the buyers. They have perfected this strategy successfully by distributing the illicit narcotics with the help of their government and local law enforcement, who in return receive bribes of monetary value to look the other way. This
Over the past decade drug cartels has had a free flow through Central America to import illegal drugs to the U.S. Even with a strict drug policy drugs are still crossing the Mexican border. Due to corruption and political influence drug cartels are able to manipulate the government to go undetected. The drug cartel is infamous for their ability to kidnapped, corrupt, and kill anyone trying to crackdown or expose any operation. Due to this corruption within local governments drug activity has been able to flourish causing countless lives of innocent people.
When the vagrancy law was out of the lawmaker reach, they found themselves back in the same problem they were in after slavery ended. Out of desperation to find a solution to their slave labor problem, the state took full advantage of the Tenth Amendment. The tenth Amendment “establishes a strong principle of states ' rights in the Constitution. Any powers not explicitly given to the federal government can be assumed to belong to the states, or directly to the people”. With this piece of legal document in their possession, they came up with the convict leasing program. Which gives state the right to lease prisoner to private business and people with large plantation to perform hard labor. It is because of this law our penal system in America has been heavily monetized by private companies today. Back then prisoner were taking to plantation, and now inmate are treated just about the same way.
The large country of Mexico is currently having a long and hard battle against the raging and harmful issues that threatens to destroy humanity. Drug trafficking has become the king of these issues, with the other issues slowly branching off as subjects to serve their king. Currently, Mexican drug cartels dominate the wholesale illicit drug market, earning $13.4 to $49.4 billion annually. Since this investment is extremely large, it has become an exhausting challenge to try to destroy the drug trafficking as it threatens to hurt innocents.
As we all know Drug Trafficking has been a major problem for years now. The Mexican Drug War is one that has existed for decades which the government’s goal has been to get rid of the drug violence but there hasn’t been any solution to solve this illegal issue. “Under the Presidency of Felipe Calderón (2007–2012) the Mexican government has made an effort to stop their operations using crackdowns. As a result, more than 50,000 people have died in the last six years and drug traffic has not declined” (González, 1). “Although the Mexican government has been fighting the drug industry in the last decades, Drug Trafficking Organization (DTOs) have been expanding across space and violence has increased dramatically” (Gonzalez, 2). This could be because
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.
The Mexican Drug Cartels are becoming a very strong force on the North American continent. “More than 90 percent of cocaine now travels through Mexico into the United States (Lee).” It is also reported that the cartel makes nearly 30 billion dollars in a year, with about five hundred
For decades, drug trafficking has cast its dark shadow over the Americas. In the early 1980’s Columbia was the leader in drug trafficking. They had 2 menacing cartels, the Cali and the Medellin. They owned the show and would eliminate any threats to their business. Though in the early 1990’s when these two cartels were finally taken down, it only gave other cartels the opportunity to rise. This issue has grown rampant and out of control for one country. Mexico has seen a severe increase since the 1990’s in drug trafficking and cartels. The rise in power of Mexico’s Cartels shifted the balance between law and order in this country. Now cartels are killing thousands of citizens and corrupting hundreds of government officials in mexico. Also making
Latin America has had a long history of drug use, which contributes to its stereotype as a drug infested region. Beginning in the 1970’s, the United States has been trying to eliminate drug cartels, trafficking, and use in Latin America (Bogota). The influence of drugs in Latin America has led to violence and death over the many years.
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”
Up to 58 milligrams(mg) of coca leaf, the derivative of cocaine, is chewed and consumed daily by indigenous men and women of Latin America. Ydang, a Colombian coca farmer, states that he “will sell to anyone who wants to buy”. At every level of drug trafficking, economic and political factors are effected. In Latin American countries, specifically Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, drug trafficking has been a problem for decades. Despite attempts to hide or deny it, during the twenty year period of 1950 through 1970, all three of these countries political actions and economic policies were impacted.
Drug trafficking is an illegal drug trading system in which drugs are brought from other countries to the United States. According to the article, “Crime and Drug Control Policies in the United States” written by Thomas Mieczkowski, illegal drug trafficking from Mexico and Colombia have been hurting the American society for many years. Drugs have been coming into the U.S. in many different forms and routes especially through the border of the United States and Mexico (Mieczkowski 2008). The large amounts of drugs brought into America is for intent to sell and make immense amounts of profit. Most of the drugs coming in from Mexico and other South American countries are all easily grown or produced from where it comes from. After these drugs enter the U.S. they are given to distributors who supply portions to many different drug dealers and these drug dealers sell the drugs to the citizens of America. In most cases the buyer of the drugs are drug addicts, or someone that 's just trying sell what they got for more profit (Mieczkowski 2008). All these different drugs are causing thousands of American teens to become addicts, which leads them to lose control and do absurd things or die due to overdose on those drugs (The History of Drug Abuse). The DEA and the American government do many things to prevent drugs coming in from Mexico and confiscate anything they find, but the amount confiscated is nowhere near the amount actually entering the U.S. (Mieczkowski 2008). Drug
Drug cartels perform brutal criminal activities such as terrorism in the United States apart from sale of drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnappings for Ransom and the sale of illegal weapons in the United States. The presence of criminal activities goes beyond the critical threat against the sovereignty and weakening of the Mexican governmental institutions on the state, local and national levels. Profits from drugs are so huge in Mexico, an estimated 60 billion dollars a year, that these