Drug cartels and drug trafficking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Drug cartels and drug trafficking - Essay Example Prices of heroin and cocaine have decreased substantially in the past two decades, indicating greater availability (Lyman, 2010). The efficacy of international narcotics control policies remains a major issue. Millions of Americans purchase illegal drugs, spending roughly $60 billion yearly in multiple illegal markets (Barton, 2007, 18). These drugs are damaging to the user’s overall wellbeing, productivity, decision-making capacity, and health. Furthermore, the U.S. illegal drug market makes massive profits. These profits generate resources needed by global drug trafficking organizations to successfully dodge and fight with law enforcers, to break through legal economic sectors, and, in certain cases, to defy the power of the state (Erlen & Spillane, 2004). Computed in terms of dollar value, four-fifths of the total illegal drugs purchased in the U.S. come from foreign countries, as well as majority of the marijuana, heroin, and cocaine, as reported by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2002 (Barton, 2007, 19). According to Hinojosa (2007), the methamphetamine market, as stated by the DEA, is supplied mostly from Mexican and U.S. laboratories while majority of †˜designer’ drugs, unlawfully traded psychotherapeutic drugs, and hallucinogens comes from the U.S. The drug industry is highly profitable and a major source of international criminal operations. As stated in a 2002 report by the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), more or less 930 tons of cocaine may have been manufactured in South America in 2001 (Barton, 2007, 19). A 2002 investigation by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime calculated the total profit of the illegal drug market in the Caribbean at $3.3 billion (Barton, 2007, 19). Not much is known about the circulation of profits from illegal drug trade, but foreign drug cartels hold substantial power over general