The Global Drug Trade - Essay Example

THE GLOBAL DRUG TRADE: A 20 YEAR OVERVIEW The drug trade is more than a century old. However, the notion of illicit drugs and consequently, drug trafficking, did not emerge until the beginning of the 20th century. Advances in communications and transportation as well as increases in international trade and economic relations have contributed to the development of a global drug network. Over the past 20 years, the trafficking of illegal drugs has undergone significant change with both the production and consumption of drugs reflecting global economic realities. Governments have spent significant funds in an effort to curb drug trafficking with various levels of success. This essay will embark on an analysis of the global trafficking of drugs and will further analyze the current state of international drug trafficking. EVOLUTION OF DRUG TRAFFICKING The 1960s saw an increase in drug use and production on a global scale. This change was due to a number of factors, including improved communication and transportation systems and increased demand from youth populations in developed countries. During the 1970s, the European drug trade supplied over 80 percent of America's heroin (McCoy 2003). In response to this issue, President Nixon took the first step to combat the drug trade. Nixon, through diplomatic pressure, forced Turkey to eradicate its opium fields and France to close its heroin laboratories. The result was a shift in production from Europe to South East Asia and the beginnings of an international drug trafficking system. DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIZED DRUG TRAFFIKING The global narcotics traffic, once contained to Europe and America, exploded as heroin production shifted to the South-East Asian market. The once straightforward drug route of Marseille-New York shifted to a complex web of global trafficking that "tied rising First World consumption to spreading Third world production" (McCoy 2003). On the supply end, developing countries were undergoing economic hardship and people were searching for lucrative solutions to supplement their incomes. Organized crime and drug cartels emerged to capitalize on this growing market. Increased production resulted in increased trafficking and availability of drugs in developed countries and transit countries, thus contributing to an overall spread and expansion of demand (Reichel 2004). By the 1980s, drugs were wreaking havoc on local communities across the globe. In North America, cocaine was the drug of choice, both for South American cartels and global consumers. Panama, Columbia and Mexico became huge producers of cocaine with transit routes passing through Central America and into the U.S and Canada. Crack, a cheaper and more addictive version of cocaine emerged and with devastating consequences to poor communities. By 1986, the American "war on drugs" was in full swing, with the Reagan Administration pouring 1.7 billion into the cause (Frontline 2008). While the U.S struggled to deal with the increasing prevalence of cocaine and crack, Europe was battling against a growing heroine problem. Switzerland in particular was facing "one of the highest rates of heroin addiction in Europe" (Foulkes 2008) According to McCoy, during the 1980s, Afghanistan became Europe's main opium supplier, due primarily to CIA covert operations that served to transform southern Asia from a self-contained opium zone into a major supplier of heroin for the world market. He states: "CIA intervention provided the political protection and logistic linkages that joined Afghanistan's poppy fields to heroin markets in Europe and America" (McCoy 1991). Although the war on drugs made headway in combating drug use in the North America, by the 1990s, the production and consumption of drugs was on the rise again. This time due, primarily, to the end of the Cold War. TRENDS IN GLOBAL DRUG TRAFFICKING With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the former Soviet countries were in a state of economic collapse. The result was complex but included: "the shipment of Colombian cocaine to Eastern Europe and then on to the West; the increased cultivation of opium poppies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia; the manufacture of heroine and shipment overland or through the Baltic ports into Europe; and the production of amphetamines in Central and Eastern European states such as Poland, and their distribution to the West" (Leduc 2003). According to the United Nations 2007 World Drug Report, there has since been an overall stabilization and containment of the global drug trafficking. However, new issues have emerged that challenge this uncertain stability. COCAINE MARKET EXPANDS Through intensive efforts to counteract cocaine production in Colombia, the global cocaine market is largely stable in both supply and demand (World Drug Report 2007). Due to developments in technology, fertilizers and pesticides, the reduction in cocoa cultivation did not result in a decline in cocoa production. However, law enforcement of illegal cocaine seems to be having a positive effect on distribution, with an interception rate that rose from 24 percent in 2000 to 42 percent in 2006 (World Drug Report, 2007). This is primarily, a result of improved cooperation among law enforcement agencies and governments. The trafficking route of cocaine, has in the past, frequently been through Europe via the Caribbean region and increasingly via Africa. During the 2000-2005 period, seizures by law enforcement of cocaine increased six fold in Africa, indicating that the Gulf of Guinea and off the coast of Cape Verde, is increasingly being used as a transhipment point for cocaine from South American to markets in western Europe(World Drug Report 2007). In terms of consumption, the North American market is stable; however, cocaine has made in-roads into new European markets and West Africa. Spain has recently experienced a significant rise in the consumption of cocaine, with annual prevalence rates exceeding those of the USA in 2005. Mounting levels of cocaine use has also been reported in the UK and Italy (World Drug Report 2007). AFGHANISTAN: SURGE IN SUPPLY OF OPIATES Drug agencies have over the long-term managed to tackle the supply of opium from South-East Asia. According to the 2007 World Drug Report, this is "down by more than 85 percent over the last decade." Despite this, opium production is on the rise because Afghan opium fields produce larger yields than South-East Asian fields. In 2006, Afghanistan produced 92 percent of the worlds opium setting a record high of opium production of 6, 610 mt., a 43 percent increase over 2005. Currently, Afghan opiates enter the European market (as has been the case historically) as well as the Near and Middle East and African markets. The North American market was traditionally supplied by opiates in Latin America, however, the UN reports that there has been a global shift in trafficking and cross-regional trafficking is gaining importance. INTERNATIONAL APPROACHES TO DRUG TRAFFICKING The end of the Cold War brought increased participation by countries to combat global drug trafficking and drug enforcement agencies have become increasingly successful at seizing drug supplies. In 2005, "42 percent of global cocaine production and 26 percent of global heroin production was intercepted by the authorities (World Drug Report, 2007)." The improvements in drug seizures are a result of the shift in the last decade to a more holistic and international approach to drug enforcement. As drug trafficking expands to new markets so to must the international communitys response to combating it. As the Nixon example illustrates, decisions made by governments to protect their citizens often have dire consequences for neighbouring countries. This is especially true in an ever-increasing global economic landscape. As the 2007 World Drug Report maintains, the "war on drugs" has, in recent years managed to stabilize the production and consumption of illicit drugs. However, there still remain serious obstacles in certain areas including a persistent drug trafficking network in Afghanistan and emerging supply and demand in Africa. Reference List Abadinsky, Howard 2003, Organized Crime, 7th edn, Wadsworth. Drug Wars, Frontline, 2008, Available from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/cron/ EU Commission 2009, A Report on Global Illicit Drugs Markets, Foulkes, Imogen 2008, "Swiss vote on radical heroin rules" BBC 20 November. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7755664.stm Leduc, Diane 2003, "Illegal Drugs and Drug Trafficking" Library of Parliament. February. Available from: http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/bp435-e.htm#24 McCoy, Alfred W. 1991 The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago. Reichel, Philip (ed) 2004, The Handbook of Transnational Crime and Justice, Sage. Ruggiero, Vincenzo & South, Nigel 1995 Eurodrugs: drug use, markets and trafficking in Europe, UCL Press, London. Sheptycki, J.W.E 1996 Law Enforcement, Justice and Democracy in the Transnational Arena: Reflections on the War on Drugs, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, vol 24, no.1, pp. 24-75. United National Office for Drug Control & Crime Protection 2007, United Nations World Drug Report, Oxford University Press, London. Read More