Psychology Wiki

Illegal drug distribution

34,191pages on
this wiki



This article needs rewriting to enhance its relevance to psychologists..
Please help to improve this page yourself if you can..

Brain animated color nevit

Drug type
Drug usage
Drug abuse
Drug treatment

MV Gatun Cocaine seizure by USCG

Panamanian motor vessel Gatun during the largest cocaine bust in United States Coast Guard history (totalling 20 tons, worth over 600 million USD), off the coast of Panama.

Illegal drug distribution is a form of antisocial behavior. The illegal drug trade is a global black market, dedicated to cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of those substances which are subject to drug laws. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs by drug prohibition laws.

A UN report said the global drug trade generated an estimated US$321.6 billion in 2005.[1] With a world GDP of US$36 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as slightly less than 1% (0.893%) of total global commerce. Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally.


The Illegal Drug Trade has emerged as a result of drug prohibition laws. In the First Opium War the Chinese authorities had banned opium but the United Kingdom forced China to allow British merchants to trade opium with the general population. Smoking opium had become common in the 19th century and British merchants increased. Trading in opium was (as it is today in the heroin trade) extremely lucrative. As a result of this illegal trade an estimated two million Chinese people became addicted to the drug. The British Crown (via the treaties of Nanking and Tianjin) took vast sums of money from the Chinese government through this illegal trade which they referred to as "reparations". In his book "Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs In China", the Sinologist Frank Dikotter argues that China's opium problem was greatly exaggerated, explaining that while British politicians and Protestant missionaries grandstanded over China's opium problem, Britain was quietly consuming more opium per capita than China.[2]

Mafia groups limited their activities to gambling and theft until 1920, when organized bootlegging manifested in response to prohibition. An example of the rise of the mafia due to Prohibition is Al Capone's syndicate that "ruled" Chicago in the 1920s. The official rise of drug trade started in 1954. The peak of drug selling was in 1979.[3]

Legal penaltiesEdit

Template:Expand section

In many countries, drug smuggling carries a severe penalty, including the death penalty (for example, China and Singapore). In 2010, two people were sentenced to death in Malaysia for trafficking 1 kilogram/2.2 pounds of cannabis into the country.[4] On March 30, 2011, three Filipinos were executed by the Chinese government for drug trafficking.

In the USA, Federal law states that first time offenders be sentenced to a minimum term of imprisonment averaging 1 to 3 years.[5] These sentences have become more noticed in recent years.

Drug trafficking is widely regarded as the most serious of drug offences around the world. However, sentencing often depends on the type of drug (and its classification in the country into which it is being trafficked) and where the drugs are sold and how they are distributed; for example if the drugs are sold to or distributed by underage people, then the penalties for trafficking may be harsher than in other circumstances.[5]

Effects of illegal drug trade on societiesEdit

The countries of drug production have been seen as the worst affected by prohibition. Even so, countries receiving the illegally-imported substances are also affected by problems stemming from drug prohibition. For example, Ecuador has allegedly absorbed up to 300,000 refugees from Colombia who are running from guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug lords, says Linda Helfrich. While some applied for asylum, others are still illegal, and the drugs that pass from Colombia through Ecuador to other parts of South America create economic and social problems.[6]

Violent crimeEdit

In many countries worldwide, the illegal drug trade is thought to be directly linked to violent crimes such as murder; this is especially true in third world countries, but is also an issue for many developed countries worldwide.[7] In the late 1990s in the United States, for example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated that 5% of murders were drug-related.[7] However, after a crackdown by U.S. and Mexican authorities in the first decade of the 21st century (part of tightened borders security in the wake of the September 11 attacks), border violence inside Mexico surged, with the Mexican government estimating that 90% of the killings are drug-related.[8]



Due to its illicit nature, statistics about profits from the drug trade are largely unknown. In its 1997 World Drugs Report the UNODC estimated the value of the market at USD$400 billion, ranking drugs alongside arms and oil amongst the world's largest traded goods.[10] An online report published by the UK Home Office in 2007 estimated the illicit drug market in the UK at £4–6.6 billion a year[11]


Minors and the illegal drug trade in the USEdit

The U.S. government's most recent 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that nationwide over 800,000 adolescents ages 12–17 sold illegal drugs during the twelve months preceding the survey; such adolescents also admitted to know or be linked to other drug dealers across the nation.[13]Template:Failed verification The 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that nationwide 25.4% of students had been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug by someone on school property. The prevalence of having been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property ranged from 15.5% to 38.8% across state CDC surveys (median: 26.1%) and from 20.3% to 40.0% across local surveys (median: 29.4%).[14]



Trade of specific drugsEdit

Template:Ref improve section


4 ounces of marijuana

4 ounces of low grade cannabis

Main article: Legality of cannabis

While the recreational use of (and consequently the distribution of) cannabis is illegal in most countries throughout the world, it is available by prescription or recommendation in many places, including some US states and in Canada.[18] Cannabis use is tolerated in some areas, most notably the Netherlands.


Main article: Tobacco

While the purchase and use of tobacco is legal for adults in most countries throughout the world, heavy taxation in some countries such as the United Kingdom has resulted in an extensive market for its illegal trade. Tobacco products such as name-brand cigarettes may be sold as low as one third of the retail price because of the lack of taxes which would be imposed throughout the legal distribution process. It was estimated in 2004 that smuggling a single truck containing up to 48,000 cartons of cigarettes into the United States could lead to a profit of around US$2 million.[19]


A notable exception to the legal status of tobacco in most countries internationally is the kingdom of Bhutan, which made the sale of tobacco illegal in December 2004,[20] and since this event, a large supply of tobacco has been made available on the black market. In 2006, tobacco and betel nut were the most commonly seized illicit drugs in Bhutan.[21]


Main article: Heroin
File:Field of opium.jpg

Up until fairly recently the majority of the world's heroin was produced in an area known as the Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia).[22] Today Afghanistan is by a very wide margin "the world's largest exporter of heroin".[23][24] In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.[25] This amounts to an export value of about $64 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords and drug traffickers.[26] Another significant area where poppy fields are grown for the manufacture of heroin is Mexico.


Heroin is a very easily smuggled drug because a small, quarter-sized vial can contain hundreds of doses. From the 1930s to the early 1970s, the so-called French Connection supplied the majority of US demand. Allegedly, during the Vietnam War, drug lords such as Ike Atkinson used to smuggle hundreds of kilos of heroin to the U.S. in coffins of dead American soldiers (see Cadaver Connection). Since that time it has become more difficult for drugs to be imported into the United States than it had been in previous decades, but that does not stop the heroin smugglers from getting their product onto U.S. soil. Purity levels vary greatly by region with, for the most part, Northeastern cities having the most pure heroin in the United States (according to a recently releasedTemplate:When report by the DEA, Camden and Newark, New Jersey and Philadelphia, have the purest street grade A heroin in the country).[citation needed]

Penalties for smuggling heroin and/or morphine are often harsh in most countries. Some countries will readily hand down a death sentence (e.g. Singapore) or life in prison for the illegal smuggling of heroin or morphine, which are both, internationally, Schedule I drugs under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.[citation needed] In India, 7620.5 acres of illicit poppy cultivation was detected in 2009-2010.[28]


Main article: Methamphetamine



Methamphetamine is sometimes used in an injectable form, placing users and their partners at risk for transmission of HIV and hepatitis C.[32] "Meth" can also be inhaled, most commonly vaporized on aluminum foil, or through a test tube or light bulb fashioned into a pipe. This method is reported to give "an unnatural high" and a "brief intense rush".[33]

In South Africa methamphetamine is called "tik" or "tik-tik". Children as young as eight are abusing the substance, smoking it in crude glass vials made from light bulbs. Since methamphetamine is easy to produce, the substance is manufactured locally in staggering quantities.


Main article: Temazepam

Temazepam, a strong hypnotic benzodiazepine, is illicitly manufactured in clandestine laboratories (called jellie labs) to supply the increasingly high demand for the hypnotic drug internationally.[34] Many clandestine temazepam labs are in Eastern Europe. The way in which they manufacture the temazepam is through chemical alteration of diazepam, oxazepam or lorazepam.[35] Clandestine "jellie labs" have been identified and shutdown in Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Latvia and Belarus.[36]

In the United Kingdom, temazepam is the most widely-abused legal, prescription drug[citation needed]. It's also the most commonly abused benzodiazepine in Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Russia, People's Republic of China, New Zealand, Australia and some parts of Southeast Asia[citation needed]. In Sweden it has been banned due to a problem with drug abuse issues and a high rate of death caused by temazepam alone relative to other drugs of its group. Surveys in many countries show that temazepam, heroin, cocaine, MDMA, cannabis, nimetazepam, and amphetamines rank among the top drugs most frequently abused.[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]

U.S. Government involvementEdit

Main article: War on Drugs

The U.S. Federal Government is an opponent of the illegal drug trade; however, state laws vary greatly and in some cases contradict federal laws. Despite the US government's official position against the drug trade, US government agents and assets have been implicated in the drug trade and were caught and investigated during the Iran-Contra scandal, implicated in the use of the drug trade as a secret source of funding for the USA's support of the Contras. Page 41 of the December 1988 Kerry report to the US Senate[48] states that "indeed senior US policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contra's funding problem."

Acclaimed investigator and former DEA agent Michael Levine has alleged that the CIA participated in orchestrating the 1980 Cocaine Coup in Bolivia to install an Operation Condor military government, in place of the pre-coup civilian government. The pre-coup government had collaborated with the DEA in bringing leaders of the Roberto Suarez cartel to justice, and Levine alleges that the CIA not only intervened judicially to release the extradited cartel leaders and allow their flight to Bolivia, but also enabled them to collaborate with right-wing military factions in overthrowing the civilian government that had collaborated with the DEA. The drug links of the coup government were obvious to the international community, which led to the coup becoming termed "the Cocaine Coup" by historians. Levine alleges that one of the CIA agents who participated in the coup was Klaus Barbie, the former SS Nazi known as the "Butcher of Lyon," who had previously collaborated with the CIA in Bolivia during the capture and execution of Che Guevara.

Contrary to its official goals, the US has suppressed research on drug usage, although the CIA researched regardless during MKULTRA. For example, in 1995 the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) announced in a press release the publication of the results of the largest global study on cocaine use ever undertaken. However, a decision in the World Health Assembly banned the publication of the study. In the sixth meeting of the B committee the US representative threatened that "If WHO activities relating to drugs failed to reinforce proven drug control approaches, funds for the relevant programmes should be curtailed". This led to the decision to discontinue publication. A part of the study has been released.[49] Several government-sponsored reports by commissioned experts have pointed to public substance abuse treatment as opposed to criminalization as the only effective way to battle the public health crisis caused by drugs; these recommendations have been mostly ignored by US government officials, and in some cases suppressed.

See alsoEdit

International coordination:

Case studies:

US specific:


  1. "UN report puts world's illicit drug trade at estimated $321b". June 30, 2005.
  3. "Organized Crime - American Mafia", Law Library - American Law and Legal Information
  4. Two Friends Sent To The Gallows For Drug Trafficking
  5. 5.0 5.1
  6. Linda Helfrich. Refugees in Ecuador. URL accessed on 2010-05-31.
  7. 7.0 7.1 Drug-Related Crime - Factsheet - Drug Facts. URL accessed on 2008-10-19.
  8. Traci Carl. Progess in Mexico drug war is drenched in blood. Associated Press. URL accessed on May 4, 2010.
  10. World Drug Report - Global Illicit Drug Trends
  11. [1]
  12. includeonly>Syal, Rajeev. "Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor", The Guardian, 2009-12-13.
  13. Results from the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings. URL accessed on 29 October 2010.
  14. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance - United States, 2005. URL accessed on 2008-10-17.
  15. Costs of Marijuana Prohibition: Economic Analysis. URL accessed on 2008-10-17.
  16. Trends in Availability of Drugs as Perceived by Twelfth Graders. URL accessed on 29 October 2010.
  17. includeonly>"Border violence threatens Americans", The Washington Times, April 1, 2010.
  18. Active State Medical Marijuana Programs - Alaska. URL accessed on 29 October 2010.
  19. includeonly>"Cigarette Smuggling Linked to Terrorism", Washington Post, 2004-06-08. Retrieved on 2008-10-17.
  20. includeonly>"Bhutan forbids all tobacco sales", BBC News, 2004-12-17. Retrieved on 2008-10-17.
  21. Articles:Listing Bhutan. URL accessed on 2008-10-17.
  22. See McCoy, A; The Politics of Heroin, Lawrence Hill, 2003
  23. includeonly>"Afghanistan claims title of world's largest heroin producer", 24-7 Press Release, 2008-04-06. Retrieved on 2008-06-29.
  24. "World failing to dent heroin trade, U.N. warns". October 21, 2009.
  25. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007.
  26. UNODC (2008-11-16). Opium Amounts to Half of Afghanistan's GDP in 2007, Reports UNODC. Press release. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
  27. News from DEA, Congressional Testimony, 11/09/05. URL accessed on 2008-10-17.
  29. Street Terms: Methamphetamine Office of National Drug Control Policy
  30. DEA (2008). Maps of Methamphetamine Lab Incidents.
  32. NIDA (2008). NIDA InfoFacts: Methamphetamine.
  33. includeonly>Sommerfeld, Julia. "Beating an addiction to meth", Meth's Deadly Buzz, MSNBC, February 2001. Retrieved on 2008-06-29.
  34. Alex Robertson (2003/10/10). Deadly 'jellies' flood city from Eastern Europe; Police chiefs fear drug-fueled crime surge as home-made tablets hit streets again. Evening Times.
  38. Morrison V (April 1989). Psychoactive substance use and related behaviours of 135 regular illicit drug users in Scotland. Drug Alcohol Depend 23 (2): 95–101.
  39. Sakol MS, Stark C, Sykes R (April 1989). Buprenorphine and temazepam abuse by drug takers in Glasgow--an increase. Br J Addict 84 (4): 439–41.
  40. Lavelle TL, Hammersley R, Forsyth A (1991). The use of buprenorphine and temazepam by drug injectors. J Addict Dis 10 (3): 5–14.
  41. Hammersley R, Lavelle T, Forsyth A (February 1990). Buprenorphine and temazepam--abuse. Br J Addict 85 (2): 301–3.
  42. Hammersley R, Cassidy MT, Oliver J (July 1995). Drugs associated with drug-related deaths in Edinburgh and Glasgow, November 1990 to October 1992. Addiction 90 (7): 959–65.
  43. Forsyth AJ, Farquhar D, Gemmell M, Shewan D, Davies JB (May 1993). The dual use of opioids and temazepam by drug injectors in Glasgow (Scotland). Drug Alcohol Depend 32 (3): 277–80.
  45. Baumevieille M, Haramburu F, Bégaud B (1997). Abuse of prescription medicines in southwestern France. Ann Pharmacother 31 (7-8): 847–50.
  47. Chatterjee A, Uprety L, Chapagain M, Kafle K (1996). Drug abuse in Nepal: a rapid assessment study. Bull Narc 48 (1-2): 11–33.
  48. Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy. 100th Congress, 2d session. URL accessed on 29 October 2010.
  49. WHO/UNICRI (1995). WHO Cocaine Project.

Further readingEdit


External linksEdit

Template:Drug use


Around Wikia's network

Random Wiki