This paper was an academic paper written for my Foreign Policy class. It uses standard APA formating. Thank you for reading.
-Joel
Joel Grosjean
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Abstract
In the United States illicit drugs were not always considered illegal. They were, in fact, used by hard-working ethnic groups to ease pain caused from their manual labors (Winslow & Zhang, 2008). Opium, the first illicit drug to be outlawed in the United States, comes from opium poppies indigenes to present day Turkey and the surrounding areas (Forbes Incorporated, 2000). Chinese laborers were the targeted user of opium at the time of its prohibition. Winslow and Zhang extrapolate a correlation between the completion of the transcontinental railroad built predominantly by Chinese laborers and the great depression of 1875-1880 with the outlawing of opium beginning in 1875 and climaxing in 1909 with congressional enactment of the Opium Exclusion Act (2008, p. 488). They further deduced, “…Chinese laborers became an obstacle to the economic survival of white workers” (Winslow & Zhang, 2008, p. 488).
Cocaine
Five years later, the Harrison Tax Act of 1914 prohibited possession of opium and cocaine without a prescription. Given that Black Americans’ were the general users of cocaine during this time period, this act has been considered by some to be a Black Code: a law pointedly designed to infringe the civil liberties of Black Americans (Winslow & Zhang, 2008). According to Winslow and Zhang, by 1922 Supreme Court decisions declared opium and cocaine illegal, driving their market underground and their prices through the roof: “ . . . up to 50 times more than the legal retail drug price” (2008, p. 490). This pricing influx caused users to resort to crime to financially support their addiction.
Marijuana
Lastly, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Mexican population threatened the “whites’ market” by working harder and longer for less monetary compensation – a plight still challenging today’s workforce. Despite the Mexican’s widespread usage of marijuana, legislation was introduced and passed that outlawed it. The outlawing of Marijuana is arguably the most significant of illicit drugs because of is widespread popularity attributed to its low cost ($0.91/oz in 1997) and prolific propagation (Winslow & Zhang, 2008). Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) (to become known as the Drug Enforcement Agency [DEA] in 1973), propagandized this work nearly single handedly. During this time, any woeful action was deemed caused by marijuana including actions previously attributed to other mind-altering drugs (Winslow & Zhang, 2008). William Hearst further engineered Anslinger’s propaganda by referring to hemp (a common industrial material with pharmaceutical purposes) under a surrogate: Marijuana, the Spanish linguistic equivalent. Anslinger’s rhetoric was exemplified through his co-authored article “Marijuana: assassin of youth”; in it he associates Marijuana usage with robbery, murder, suicide, insanity, and “hot jazz” (Winslow & Zhang, 2008, p. 491). Anslinger was successful in passing the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937 that forbad its usage, being deemed a federally forbidden narcotic that launched the DEA into a federally funded, multibillion-dollar-budget agency. There was one notable rival to Anslinger’s act. Alfred Lindesmith, a graduate of University of Chicago, opposed Anslinger’s criminal view of addiction and posed drug addiction as a medical problem (Winslow & Zhang, 2008). Groupthink, however, seized the country and, “Not only was a counter-Lindesmith media campaign launched by Anslinger, but Lindesmith was personally harassed and subject to investigation by the FBN” (Winslow & Zhang, 2008, p. 495). Drug Addiction (1946), a Canadian film largely supporting Lindesmith’s view, was and is still banned in the United States.
Any discussion involving numbers in the drug industry must be prefaced by stating all figures are estimations with minimal empirical data available. Cultivation data, however, have been gathered with appreciable accuracy through image intelligence – using intelligence from resonance missions and satellite photography – and supported by ground confirmation (Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 2006). In contrast, some numerical data has required complex intelligence analysis juxtaposing military intelligence of hostile fiends. This may not be surprising, though, considering the drug market’s clandestine, violent nature that inhibits field research; this challenges harvest estimates. All avenues are not closed, though. Most recently, researchers have found ways to test for drug content in sewer water (MSNBC, 2007). This has been legally ruled to not infringe on personal rights while providing data on drug usage citywide; these reports allude that self-reporting surveys under-report actual drug usage citywide (MSNBC, 2007).
Drug Industry
The drug market is lucrative and has consequently attracted much attention by temerarious investors. Within the drug circle, most of the money is found in the trafficking market because of its associated high risk. The exact financial revenue gained through the drug industry is anyone’s best guess, but the United States estimate that the Mexican drug industry receives $13.8 billion annually through drug sales to the US alone (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2007). Despite large numbers extrapolated to reflect worldwide drug revenues, countries have shown a depreciative economic trend. According to the International Narcotics Control Board, countries that have spiked in drug production have plummeted equally in their economy over the same period: “Though coca bush cultivation increased in Colombia in the second half of the 1990s, economic growth lost momentum and even turned negative towards the end of the 1990s while illicit coca leaf production expanded strongly” (2002, para. 21). This phenomenon has further been exemplified through the economies in Bolivia, Peru, and Myanmar (International Narcotics Control Board, 2002). The opposite trend has also been observed in the prodigious case with Pakistan between the 1980s and 1990s; when it experienced the strongest decline in opium production, its economic growth sailed to 6.3% annually – nearly twice the global level (3.4% annually) (International Narcotics Control Board, 2002). This positive aspect of economic development in conjunction with drug control has been witnessed across many countries.
The drug industry indeed has a lucrative market that assist in short-term economic development for the respective countries, but a dramatic economic plummet quickly follows it. Given our current worldwide expansion (see discussion under Globalization) international policy mandates economic aid to countries embarking on curtailing drug proliferation. This aid offsets immediate economic decline because of losing the short-term advantages of the drug trade: “It is necessary for the international community to help countries in need to bear at least some of those costs and thus enable interventions that should prevent illicit crop cultivation and generate long-term gains” (International Narcotics Control Board, 2002, para. 59).
Drug Enforcement Industry
In the United States the drug enforcement industry is predominately governed by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), though other agencies are passively involved including the United States Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Based off of 2001 figures, the federal government in the United States grants $18 billion toward drug control with a combined $15 billion coming from state budgets; this equates to a daunting $33 billion nationally that is dedicated toward drugs control “some 30 times more than the global income earned by farmers from illicit coca and opium poppy production.” (International Narcotics Control Board, 2002, para. 9). Uniquely, it has been supposed that given our economic involvement on the war on drugs, the United States cannot afford to win because of the consequential job displacement and theoretical economic strain imposed by disbanding the drug enforcement industry – an entity of epic proportions (Ramjohn, 2007, interview).
Unfortunately the drug enforcement industry is also susceptible to corruption. Witnessed since the 1800s in preface to China’s Opium War, corruption is widespread among foreign countries’ law enforcement including a record of using military transportation through part of the illicit trafficking trail (Kyle & Koslowski, 2001). Ironically we naively dismiss any notion that the Unite States law enforcement is prone to corruption. Although I think the United States is better than most countries’, internal corruption is a part of any sociological group with power, demonstrated at such levels as the Watergate scandal and more recently with Enron. This black market of sorts indeed impregnates the drug enforcement industry in unknown proportions.
Money Laundering
Among the key concerns with drug money is how it is hid. Because the drug peddler’s market is lucrative, it becomes vitally important to conceal the cash flow through money laundering: financial transaction to distance itself from criminal activity and often from reporting it as income to the government. Most notably, money laundering is a transnational crime and indiscriminately affects countries and their economies.
This phenomenon, carried under the flag of globalization, is therefore not unique to the illicit drug industry alone. Indeed, much of the drugs do not originate stateside. Afghanistan, for example, leads the world in drug production with its revenue ranged 10%-15% of its county GDP (Eurasianet, 2004; International Narcotics Control Board, 2002). The drug trade clearly spans country borders, and it has become a point of concern within the bigger arena of world politics.
United Nations
Founded in 1945, the United Nations (UN) has played an important, though controversial, role in world politics. It has been recognized by some analysis that our world system is anarchical in form dominated by smaller states without global limits (Kegley & Wittkopf, 2006). This has allowed tyrannous regimes to psychologically discriminate and physically mutilate citizens; this is exemplified through fascias, German’s Adolf Hitler and, more recently, with the treacherous Iraqi Saddam Hussein regime. The UN has provided guidelines for, among other sociological facets, drugs and its enforcement efforts. This has profoundly impacted global politics by providing universalized awareness and joint efforts in interdicting its peddlers. Despite the plaudit efforts of the UN, it is not globally recognized; it is but a Global Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) with a database of affiliate countries thus limiting its grasp on ratifying uniformly accepted global strategies for the war on drugs (Kegley & Wittkopf, 2006).
 Political ApproachesThere are a few approaches available to curb the propagation of drug cultivation. These range in use of Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) to direct diplomatic politics. As previously stated, the United Nations has a major role, though with limited countries: 192 (United Nations, 2006). Indeed, the UN has an entire office committed to fighting drugs (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime). Using such an IGO to handle the political arena greatly simplifies curtailing drug trafficking; unfortunately, not all countries subscribe to such an IGO and require direct negotiations with the offending country. Given that some countries do not perceive the negative impact of illicit drugs, challenges facing many such political interactions. Usual negotiations focus on the negative impact of drugs on the, “…health, welfare, safety, security, and economic stability of all nations” (Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 2008, Demand Reduction, para 1). Afghanistan In Afghanistan, our foreign policy has revolved around the Global War on Terrorism. This has caused increased security as articulated by the White House: “Our strategy in Afghanistan is, one, to provide enough security so civil society can move forward” (Rebuilding Afghanistan, 2008, para 1). This has severely dampened the ability to husband drugs. According to a recent analysis, opium production has decreased 31% over the last year (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2008, New Survey Reveals Steep Drops in Opium Production and Cultivation in Afghanistan). “Afghanistan needs peace, a flourishing economy and the rule of law to succeed as a democracy. Each of these conditions is undone by narcotics production. That is why today's news is so encouraging to the people of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been victimized for too long by the violence, misery, and addiction caused by the illegal drug trade. We look forward to continuing cooperation with the Government of Afghanistan and our allies as we work to defeat the narcotics industry and the terrorist groups that rely on the drug business to kill innocent people and attack democracy and freedom across the globe” (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2008, New Survey Reveals Steep Drops in Opium Production and Cultivation in Afghanistan, para 3). International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEA) The International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEAs) have affected law enforcement in the international arena. This has propagated their foreign policy across national boundaries with substantial effects. Further investigation reveals that ILEA goal is to train professional who will shape the future of law enforcement by promoting the legal process, human dignity, personal safety, and global security (Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 2008). Through the institution of the ILEA’s, countries with lenient drug policies have been challenged. |
Human and Wildlife Smuggling
Among the debated regions of drug’s associated traffic is the role of human smuggling. This is manifested through illegal border crossing often through the ubiquitous Mexican border, though not exclusively. Human smuggling has many international and political implication including social (exemplified through communication barriers), political (exemplified through political relations with rival countries and, recently, election fraud by legally obtaining driver licenses [I.D.]), economic (exemplified through taxation and job displacement), and human rights (exemplified through the sex trade). According to Kyle and Koslowski, human smuggling is lucrative – reportedly $30,000 per person for some services – conducted at the expense of those being smuggled (2005). This has caused smugglers to resort to, among other means, requiring those unable to pay their exorbitant prices to assist in drug trafficking to pay their way. A daunting case is described by Winslow and Zhang: “Prince Nnaedozie Umegbolu, a 12-year-old Nigerian American kid, was made to swallow 87 condoms filled with heroin [while] traveling from Lagos to New York. His Georgia-based African American mother Alissa Walden says her son was made to work as a mule for Nigerian drug dealers because he was desperate to return to the United States” (2008, p. 467). This scenario has also been replicated with wildlife both legally and illegally. A 1993 shipment involving 312 animals from Colombia masked 86 pounds of cocaine and in 1996 U.S. Customs inspectors found live snails packed with heroin (Winslow & Zhang, 2008). Winslow and Zhang say that venomous snakes are used to “guard” illicit drugs (2008).
Other critics, however, find evidence supporting human smugglers intentionally disassociating with drugs (Kyle & Koslowski, 2005). Many human smugglers are reportedly former drug smugglers; their change in product is attributed to drug smuggling being comparatively less lucrative with higher punitive consequences for those caught (Kyle & Koslowski, 2005). Furthermore, drugs are assets that are less liquid – harder to convert into cash. This trend away from drug smuggling, though depressing for the anti-human smuggling campaign, shows favorable efforts toward the war on drugs.
Arms Smuggling
According to the Library of Congress’ federal research division, arms smuggling is closely tied to the drug trade (2002). Although arms trafficking is often conducted through legal means, drug traffickers often utilize the arms trade also; Michael Chandler, explains the traffickers advantage of smuggling arms:
The people who are involved in moving drugs are very often the same people who will use the same infrastructure to move human beings as illegal migrants, traffic in weapons, and smuggle any other high-value items. It’s like being a good trucker. You don’t want to travel the return leg with an empty truck. If you use that sort of analogy, you have drugs coming out one way and that produces money and that buys the weapons and then the weapons go back in (Library of Congress, 2002, pp. 2-3).
Many terrorist networks like the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) and the Irish Republic Army (IRA) are known to engage in arms smuggling along with the drug trade (Library of Congress, 2002).
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