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¶ … Drug Trade
The international drug trade affects countless numbers of people personally, whether due to addiction or to organized crime-related death, or to imprisonment. How ever, the drug trade can also be placed in a broader social, political, and economic context. The international drug trade is a thriving black market industry. Its commodities are not exchanged on the New York Stock Exchange but in shady deals on darkened shipping docks. The international drug trade is, however, a lucrative industry, and its participants reap definite financial benefits.
The drug trade impacts the legitimate global economy by diverting funds towards policing, court costs, and other punitive procedures. Border patrols and other preventative measures also cost taxpayer money that could be diverted elsewhere.
Moreover, the thriving drug industry means that impoverished people are willing to risk the concurrent dangers associated with the trade in order to reap higher wages. For example, Afghani farmers make better money growing opium poppies than growing apples, and Columbians make more money harvesting coca than coconuts. Globalization threatens to exacerbate the dependence of farmers on drug crops because of the low wages paid by multinational corporations. Therefore, the current market system as well as politics fuels the international drug trade by making it a lucrative and therefore attractive alternative to legitimate forms of work. Unfortunately, the consequences include dependency on the organized crime syndicate for wages, which can lead to disrupted family ties, imbalanced social hierarchies, and a web of violent crime.
Therefore, the international drug trade poses a major problem and a significant threat to world peace. Governments who look the other way risk being shunned or boycotted by wealthy nations with whom they would otherwise engage in legitimate trade. Payoffs to corrupt politicians keep the drug trade in place and prevent democratic forms of government from taking root in many developing nations whose economy is bolstered by drug trafficking. The problem is deep-rooted, wide-spread, and difficult to solve through any simple policy changes but rather, would require a wholesale change of the current global economic and political systems.
Works Cited
'Drug Programme." United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Retrieved 1 Oct 2005 from http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/undcp.html
Yamane, Maki. "The Drug Trade." 18 Feb 1997. Retrieved 1 Oct 2005 from http://www.chez.com/bibelec/publications/international/drugtrade.htm
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