How Can Drug Trafficking Be Controlled Essay

, Research Paper

How can drug trafficking be controlled? The Drug Enforcement Agency has tried to limit the drug trafficking problem coming from countries south of the U.S. Also many other law enforcement agencies. The southern hemisphere has given the U.S. a really hard time with the international drug trade.

Where do drugs come from? Most of the marijuana Smuggling routes that come into the United States comes from the south. Columbia is one of the main contributors to the problems of the drug war. Not only does Columbia sell cocaine to the United States, it also sells marijuana. Columbia is responsible for over eighty percent of the cocaine distribution around the world. In Columbia cocaine production is the leading export and moneymaker of the economy. It even passes the production and export of coffee.(Melville, pg. 10) A major reason for this production and selling of drugs in Columbia is the Columbian Drug Cartel.

The cartel is a world-wide organization that makes and sells drugs to make a profit. The reason they are so powerful in Columbia, besides the fact that it brings so much money into the economy, is that the cartel “buys out” the government. The cartel pays out about one hundred million dollars a year to the government to keep the law enforcement on their side. Besides the law enforcement, the cartel has an army of their own so that makes them more powerful than if they didn’t have an army. (www.drugtraffickingcolumbia.com)

CIA agents estimate that drug trafficking from Mexico is on the incline. CIA agents believe that it is the low paying jobs and the standard of living that bring some of these small little farmers to big time drug dealers. The United States Central Intelligence Agency estimate that Mexican traffickers imported One hundred and seventy tons of ephedrine over twenty months. This amount is enough to make about one hundred and fifty tons of speed. Mexico is doing pretty good for themselves with the profit they get from the speed, and that profit doesn’t include the profit the get from exporting about four hundred tons of cocaine they smuggle into the U.S.

Honduras is another country that was and is a major drug exporter to the United States. Drug trafficking is not a new thing to the people of Honduras. It has been going on since 1932 when Tiburcio Carias Andino ruled Honduras. This country was in a bad depression so they needed a way to get out of it so they started exporting drugs. Like Mexico, Honduras’s had a cartel. In 1975, the Medllion cartel was formed. This cartel took over the Honduran government.

In 1984 general Abdenego Bueso Rosa was arrested by the United States military and convicted of attempting to make a ten million dollar cocaine deal to finance the overthrow of the Honduran elected government. Also in 1984, three men in a boat tried to smuggle over one-hundred and fifty million dollars to the United states but the border control caught and arrested them. In 1985 two men flew cocaine to the United States and used the money to buy arms which they flew back to Costa Rica to give to a CIA agent for an “unknown cause.”

November 13, 1987, the largest known shipment of cocaine, 3,600 kilos of it, left Honduras. But when it got within twenty-five miles of Honduras, the CIA captured and seized the cocaine and the one person who was on the plane (the pilot). The CIA also discovered over three hundred secret airports.

On March 7, 1988, a U.S. ambassador arrived in Honduras to personally deliver a letter to the president that said that if they don’t turn over Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, one of the top men involved in the Medillin Cartel, or else the U.S. government would reveal the names of the Hondurian military men involved drug trafficking and hold back the multi-million dollar in financial aid. The president said that he wouldn’t and the United States went in and literally “kidnaped” Matta(www.yahoo.bordercontrol.com). Matta is now in jail and Honduras was banned from getting funds from the United States for a year and then the United States backed down and then gave them their funds back.

There are many ways to smuggle drugs into the country, and there are some so-called “normal” ways of smuggling drugs into a country, but when there is normal there has to be “abnormal.” Some normal techniques that drug smugglers use is to tape them to your leg or your body if it is for personal use or if it is just for small sale. This method has gotten old in airports, rail stations, and docks because they have dogs that are trained to sniff out the drugs on and with people. That is a main reason that people get caught carrying drugs with them is that they just throw it in their bag or wrap it in some clothes and think “Hey I’ll never get caught,” but they do.

The reason drug traffickers deal heroin instead of any other drug is that it is more profitable. For example, the cost of heroin compared to cocaine is ten times greater. The horrible part about the increase in heroin smuggling is that it has increased 75% in the United States from 1985-1995. That increased the amount to, 57% of all heroin is seized in the United States coming from Mexico and Columbia. Much of the Mexican production of heroin comes from the poppy-growing areas near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemalan Poppies which are the natural resource for the heroin.

One incident of an “abnormal” way of smuggling drugs into the country was in Texas, border agents discovered over 5.5 million dollars of drugs mixed in with body parts and other hospital waste inside a truck coming over the border to the united States from Mexico. Even in this big tractor-trailer a dog sniffed out the drugs. The contents of the hospital waste was 2,300 pounds of marijuana and 114 pounds of cocaine. These drugs were compacted in 103 bundles wrapped in duct tape so that if there was any surveillance cameras it wouldn’t show up because of the contents of the tape.(www.bordercontrol.com.)

Another way a man from Columbia tries to smuggle marijuana into the United States is to fill around fifty suitcases of marijuana and bought plane tickets and passports to the United States for fifty people and shipped them off. Ten men and three women were caught and arrested but the other thirty-seven people weren’t. The DEA guessed that the dealer, who was not caught, played the odds game. The odds of everybody getting caught was pretty slim. It seems like this dealer made a pretty good gamble. The 13 people that were caught wouldn’t speak because they were told if they did their families would be in great danger. (www.bordercontrol.com)

The Drug Enforcement Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, The Border Control, and all the other sections of government has given an effort and has really tried and has cut down on drug trafficking. With the new technology and the state-of-the-art defense systems the United States and other countries has slowed down the drug trafficking. If anything they have made it harder for the dealers to bring it into the country. They have made it so hard that many people have started to grow and make the drugs at home. It is safer and it is easier than trying to smuggle it over the border and paying more for it.

Some methods that these agencies have tried to stop drug trafficking are spot checks which are police stops at different places along the border at different times. They ask you what you have in the car and if it seems suspicious then they will search your vehicle fro drug or other materials that they shouldn’t have. These spot checks are useful because most police departments know the roads that are mostly traveled by immigrants and international travelers.(www.ciadrugs.com)

Another way that the government has tried to stop the international drug trade is the search dogs. Search dogs are trained by the narcotics department. Some dogs are trained nationally and some are trained just in their police barracks. These dogs go through at least a year and a half of training before they can go out into the field. These canines are very smart and they can sniff out the tiniest bit of drugs that somebody has in their possession. It is a lot safer too for the police officers because they don’t have to risk their lives going into a car, they can just let the dog go in and smell around. Another reason why dogs are so useful is that they can get where most humans can’t.

Of course the government uses Helicopters and surveillance cameras and other equipment that they won’t release because if they release it, it might not be as effective as before.

Overall the drug trafficking problem is down, but it is still going on. Many people say that it could be worse, but it also could be better. The U.S. has invested millions and millions of dollars in controlling the drug trade and they have done a Farley decent job at it.