Introduction
International Drug Trafficking is the worldwide illegal trade that involves the manufacture, cultivation, and distribution of substances subject to laws on drug prohibition and is approximated to be 32 billion USD business. The lately launched UNODC campaigning program in international organized crime outlines that drug trafficking continues to be the profitable business for criminals globally (Rousseau, 2017). The solution to international drug trafficking is strengthening sanctions of drug vendors. The government must increase the usage of sanctions on private and public individuals determined to be involved in illegal activities like the expansion of the Chief’s Missions to suspend non-immigrant visas for families and individuals. Because of the scope and jointly constitutional way of intercontinental drug trafficking with worldwide societal, political and economic forces, analytically understanding this matter is vital.
Background Information
The worldwide illicit drug trafficking is huge in scope, with many consequences for the developing and developed world. With the approximated yearly value of around 300 to 400 billion USD, intercontinental drug trafficking overshadows the value of numerous legalized commodities in the worldwide economy (Fritsvold, 2012). This huge underground criminal market also undermines key institutions, gives revenue to entrenched organized criminal groups, infiltrate the financial sector, corrupts law enforcement, destabilizes regions widespread with unrest, and complicates national security matters (Jenner, 2011).
Recent years have intensely reconfigured intercontinental drug trafficking. Whereas the US is considered to be the biggest consumer of illegal drugs, recently, the country has witnessed a diffident shift away from penal prohibition policies (Fritsvold, 2012); many states have relaxed marijuana regulations, and there have been uncertain de-escalation of penalties at the federal level (Chepesiuk & Chepesiuk, 1999).
The previous ten years have similarly witnessed a substantial increase in cocaine usage in Europe, which created the region as a hub in the worldwide market for illegal drugs. Additionally, the main source of the globe’s opium has mainly been transferred from the Golden Triangle to the Golden Crescent and Afghanistan; that change has significantly impacted the political economy and extensive conflicts in the region. Initially delegated to traffic drugs into America by Colombian cartels, Mexican drug trafficking groups have been emerging as possibly, the leading force in the drug business in the modern world (Jenner, 2011). Those deep-seated illicit groups established control over long-lasting trafficking paths into America.
International drug abuse and trafficking in the US virtually affect all aspects of people’s daily lives. The economic cost is huge, approximated to nearly 215 billion. Some of the damages caused by drug addiction and abuse are mirrored in the overworked justice system, a strained health system, environmental distraction and lost productivity. The results of illegal drug abuses are very common, causing emotional and physical damage to the users and negatively affecting their coworkers, families, and others with whom they have contact (Jenner, 2011). Drug abuse negatively affects the health of users, normally resulting in disease and sickness. In most cases, users die prematurely from drug-related illnesses and drug overdoses. Most of the users are productive workers whose deaths leave the organizations paralyzed; others are parents whose parents leave their kids in foster care and relatives (Chepesiuk & Chepesiuk, 1999). Violations of drug law constitute a significant percentage of imprisonment in federal, local and state facilities and represent the most common arrest categories.
The consequences of illicit drug use impact the entire criminal justice system, taxing resources at each stage of the arrest, adjudication, incarceration, and post-release supervision process (Fritsvold, 2012). Even though diversion programs and drug courts in numerous jurisdictions have played a key role in alleviating this problem, drug abuse and drug trafficking in the criminal justice system remains prevalent.
Injury, illness, and premature mortality result in imprisonment and incapacitation all serve to decrease national productivity directly. Public financial resources spent in criminal justice, as well as healthcare due to illegal drug trafficking and abuse, are resources that would in one way be available for policy initiatives (Chepesiuk & Chepesiuk, 1999). There is the greatest loss of productivity related to premature mortality. In the year 2005, there were around 26,858 deaths that were undetermined-intent or unintentional- in 2004, 95% of those poisonings were caused by drugs (Galindo, 2022). Even though it is hard to place cash on the value of human life, a rough estimate of productivity loss can be made on basis of the present discounted value of a person’s lifetime earnings.
There are similarly losses related to health productivity. A person admitted to the healthcare facility or entering a residential drug for treatment becomes incapacitated and is forced to come out from the labour. TEDs data indicate that there were roughly 1.8 million admissions to state-licensed hospitals and clinics for illegal drug abuse and dependence in 2007 (Rousseau, 2017). The loss of productivity in this area is huge.
There is roughly 25 percent of criminals in local and federal correctional facilities. More than fifty percent of these criminals are in federal hospitals imprisoned on charges related to drugs representing approximately 620,000 individuals who aren’t in the labor force (Rousseau, 2017). The costs of their imprisonment thus have two elements: the outcome of their nonproductivity and keeping them behind bars.
Solution
The solution is to set up government agencies designed to reduce drug supply and demand. For example, the Inter-US Drug Abuse Control Commission and Violence Commission, both working under the sponsorships of the Organization of States in the US, the Training, Treatment and Rehabilitation of Drug Abuse and Certification Program for Prevention, together with the same multifaceted mechanisms, must be strengthened to assist the governments in expanding drug prevention programs (Galindo, 2022). Strengthening sanctions on traffickers is significant because it puts punitive measures on the traffickers so that they become fearful of such trade. Regional governments ought to upsurge the usage of sanctions on private and public individuals involving themselves in illegal activities, including suspending non-migrant who do not have visas and those who are on the mission of drug business (Galindo, 2022).
The government should also aggressively expand collaborative efforts in order to counter corruption and money laundering with the Caribbean government and Latin America. Justice Department and the US treasury attempts to trace and indict money laundering presently do not have adequate personnel resources and a matched implementation mechanism that match the existing challenges (Galindo, 2022). If these attempts and requirements are strengthened and supported, American bilateral relations become a priority.
Interpretation of Statistical Data
The statistics of the three types of research are valid because the researchers used past research and genuine articles to collect information about the trends of international drug trafficking in different parts of the world. The authors performed a content analysis of those trends in order to determine how drug trafficking has been happening in the selected parts of the world. The statistics can be unreliable because there were no internal consistencies, alternate form method, and intra-rater reliability. The authors can be said to have been unbiased because they used the qualitative research method, which only focuses on previous research about the topic. As such, they were no way they could tamper with the results of those past studies about the topic.
Bagley’s (2015) findings indicate that the passage of California Proposition that attempted to legalize the possession, distribution and cultivation of marijuana in the state would signal the culmination of America led-war on drugs and permit Mexico as well as other nations in that region to deviate from prohibitionist stratagem which has produced violence related to drugs in the Caribbean and Latin America recently.
Nevertheless, several political leaders from Latin America openly oppose marijuana legalization in California and are forcefully against the decriminalization or legalization of hard drugs in America and the entire world. As a result, Proposition 19 was lost at the polls by 52 percent against 48 percent amongst California voters. Undiscouraged, the Marijuana proponent’s validation in California is likely to put another Prop-19 style initiative. The strength of this research is that the researcher used qualitative data, which is considered to be cost-effective and generalizable. The saved some cash that would have been used to conduct research in the field, making it costly. The weakness of this research is that the researcher focused on the Caribbean and Latin America, which does not reflect the true picture of international drug trafficking globally. Based on this, future research must focus on different reports worldwide and capture them in the studies in order to show the real picture of international drug trafficking.
Giommoni et al. (2021) findings indicate that between 2011-2016, the IDS dataset has around 13,021 records of seizing coca spinoffs and 8052 records of seizing opium and its spinoffs, indicating 11,652 and 19,155 networks in heroin and cocaine trafficking networks. The resultant cocaine network consisted of 817 edges and 147 countries and whereas the heroin network encompassed 137 nations as well as 437 edges. The strength of this research is that the researcher used qualitative data, which is considered to be cost-effective and generalizable. Generalization is considered to be an important component of the broader research process. Ideally, it permits researchers to take what they have discovered on a smaller scale and link it to the bigger picture. The limitation of this study is that seizing did not fully represent the actual flow of drugs. Where seizing accounts for a higher percentage of inflows in many nations, they have limitations and just account for a smaller percentage of total flows. There are also uncertainties regarding the presumptions about the consumers and purity of the drug. The lack of data homogeneity available across nations forces the researchers to depend on regional values. Based on this, future research needs to seize accounts worldwide to identify the actual drug flow in the world. The researcher should ensure that data is homogenous in future research to avoid depending on information from one region and assume it represents the whole world.
Robles et al. (2013) findings show that the interaction of drug trafficking organizations with national and local governments has transformed with political liberalization in the nation and entry of many political parties and actors, complicating drug trafficking operations. Due to profound structural and domestic changes, the number of persons participating in international drug trafficking has increased. Unlike the groups and organizations taking part in legal markets, drug cartels normally don’t compete on prices but rather compete to monopolize distribution channels into the US by force. The increasing competition between international drug trafficking factions has led to an unprecedented increase in violence in the nation.
Ethical Outcomes of Solutions
The positive ethical outcome of the solution is that strengthening sanctions on traffickers by executing punitive measures on the traffickers will prevent them from involving themselves in such illegal business. Punitive measures are meant to scare and cation them that they will face dire consequences if they happen to be involved in drug trafficking. On the other hand, a negative ethical outcome is that punitive measures tend to go against humanity. Thus, the concerned agencies that deals with drug traffickers ought to use humanitarian measures while dealing with them because they do not really deserve capital punishment.
The first ethical issue related to a positive outcome is that punitive measures might be dismissed as unnecessary. Secondly, the government agencies cannot deal with drug traffickers until the case is heard and determined, which may delay the process of prosecuting the criminals. The first ethical issue related to negative outcomes is that it is likely to lead to more drug trafficking because of the less punitive rules. Secondly, the governments might find it hard to end international drug trafficking due to poor coordination.
Conclusion
Drug trafficking flows have worldwide dimensions connecting continents and regions, at some point with drastic results for the nations they affect. Stressing the main societal and monetary costs of international organized delinquency, the campaign has been established to help in raising awareness on matters such as counterfeiting of goods, environmental crimes and drug trafficking. Recent years have intensely reconfigured intercontinental drug trafficking. Whereas the US is considered the biggest consumer of illegal drugs, the country has recently witnessed a diffident shift away from penal prohibition policies.
References
Bagley, B. (2015). Drug trafficking and organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean in the twenty-first century: challenges to democracy. Drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence in the Americas today, 1-19.
Chepesiuk, R., & Chepesiuk, R. (1999). Hard target: the United States war against international drug trafficking, 1982-1997. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Fritsvold, E. D. (2012). International drug trafficking. Oxford University Press.
Galindo, J. (2022). An Improved Strategy to Fight Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime and Corruption in the Hemisphere. Retrieved from https://theglobalamericans.org/reports/improved-strategy-fight-drug-trafficking-organized-crime-corruption-hemisphere/
Giommoni, L., Berlusconi, G., & Aziani, A. (2021). Interdicting international drug trafficking: a network approach for coordinated and targeted interventions. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 1-28.
Jenner, M. S. (2011). International drug trafficking: A global problem with a domestic solution. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 18(2), 901-927.
Montagne, M. (1990). The social epidemiology of international drug trafficking: comparison of source of supply and distribution networks. International journal of the addictions, 25(5), 557-577.
Robles, G., Calderón, G., & Magaloni, B. (2013). The economic consequences of drug trafficking violence in Mexico. Poverty and Governance Series Working Paper, Stanford University.
Rousseau, R. (2017). West Africa–the Region’s Pivotal Role in International Drug Trafficking.
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