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International Drug Trafficking
One of the most prominent international issues regarding drugs is the ways in which these substances are illegally moved across borders. It was originally believed that the drug trade could be adequately controlled by enforcement. However, after roughly forty years of the failure to win the "war on drugs," it is becoming undeniably obvious that enforcement is not the effective solution to this situation. The role of globalization in the international community has worked to facilitate the exchange of information and goods, including the illicit drug trade; illegal markets have reached a level of complexity that no one previously thought possible and the value of the illegal drug market is valued at over five hundred billion dollars a year (Jenner, 2011). This hidden market has created innovative methods of subverting any effects of increased international enforcement and in many cases uses violence to ensure local compliance.
The drug laws vary widely around the world. Some countries focus on harm reduction from these substances while others have instituted a more progressive "post-prohibition" approach that uses greater focus on health-oriented approach (Drug Policy Alliance, N.d.). The countries that criminalize drug use are also the ones...
The United States is the biggest illegal market for drugs in the world and nearby countries such as Mexico have capitalized on the situation. For example, currently the U.S. has a heroin addiction epidemic which has resulted in a Mexican opium production increase by an estimated 50% in 2014 alone and impoverished farmers in Mexico and entrepreneurial drug cartels work had to fill the demand and have even enlisted children to help harvest opium (Ahmed, 2015).
The policy in the United States has been to attempt to subvert the power of the drug cartels in countries such as Mexico by disrupting their networks and killing or capturing their leaders. The pinnacle of that strategy was the capture of Mexico's most powerful trafficker, Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo, who escaped in spectacular fashion last month from a maximum-security prison (Neuman, 2015). However, these efforts often have little lasting effect as drug rivals often fill in the gaps and maintain the production and trafficking of the illegal drugs. Often when one leader is captured or killed, what results is a bloody struggle in the aspiring leaders to fill this gap which can have disastrous consequences for the communities involved.
There have…
References
Ahmed, A. (2015, August 29). Young Hands in Mexico Feed Growing U.S. Demand for Heroin. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/world/americas/mexican-opium-production-rises-to-meet-heroin-demand-in-us.html?_r=0
Drug Policy Alliance. (N.d.). Drug Laws and Drug Enforcement Around the World. Retrieved from Drug Policy Alliance: http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-laws-and-drug-enforcement-around-world
Felbab-Brown, V. (2012, August). Organized Criminals Won't Fade Away. Retrieved from Brookings: http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2012/08/drugs-crime-felbabbrown
Jenner, M. (2011). International Drug Trafficking: A Global Problem with a Domestic Solution. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 901-927.
Neuman, W. (2015, August 12). As Drug Kingpins Fall in Mexico, Cartels Fracture and Violence Surges. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/world/americas/as-mexico-arrests-kingpins-cartels-splinter-and-violence-spikes.html?ref=topics
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