|
Drug Trafficking - Criminal Penalties For Trafficking, Is The Profit Worth The Risk?, Substantial World And U.s. Trade
threat careful figure perceived
In America, all matters relating to public health receive careful attention. No other country gives such careful study to questions that affect it,
or makes such determined efforts to improve it and raise it to a higher level. In the last few years our attention has been drawn to a condition which has now become a grave menace to our nation's welfare, something which is extraneous, artificial, and wholly uncalled for, yet which is assuming such proportions that we must recognize it as a threatening danger. This is the great increase of the
drug habit. To meet this danger, most drastic laws regulating the sale and distribution of drugs have been in force for a number of years; yet we see these laws, theoretically perfect, totally unable to cope with the situation.
—Ellen N. LaMotte, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, June 1922
While the accuracy of the above statement is deba-table, there's no question that many policy makers see drugs as a major threat to our national well-being and accordingly propose strong measures to combat that perceived threat. Figure 6.1 and Figure 6.2 present contrasting maps of the perceived drug threat in the 1990s and in
the new century.
Additional Topics
The Controlled Substances Act (PL 91-513, 1970, last amended in 2000) provides penalties for the unlawful manufacture, distribution, and dispensing (or trafficking) of controlled substances, based on the schedule (rank) of the drug or substance. Generally, the more dangerous the drug and the larger the quantity involved, the
stiffer the penalty. Trafficking of heroin, cocaine, LSD, and PCP, all Sc…
Only in the illicit drug industry can seizures of between 10 and 30% of production, the forfeiture of a (small) percentage of financial and other assets and the loss, through death or imprisonment, of a percentage of operatives, impose merely an imperceptible or short-term impact on retail price and still allow large net
profits at every stage of the distribution chain. —World Drug Report, …
The United Nations, in its Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking (New York: International Drug Programme, 1998), estimated the total revenue of the world drug trade at about $400 billion. TABLE 6.1 Federal trafficking penalties* SOURCE: "Federal Trafficking Penalties," U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/pe…
The Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, an element of the U.S. State Department, reports data on the amount of land cultivated to raise opium poppy, coca leaf, and cannabis, the hemp plant from which marijuana and hashish are derived (International Narcotics Control Strategy Report [INCSR],
Washington, DC, March 2004). From estimates and observations in INCSR of the lan…
In its report entitled Illegal Drug Price and Purity Report (Washington, DC: DEA-02058, April 2003, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/intel/02058/02058.html), the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reached the conclusion that cocaine was readily available in the United States: "Cocaine prices at the kilogram level remained
relatively low in the primary importation/distribution centers, …
Heroin users represent the smallest group using a major drug: 3.7 million lifetime and 314,000 past-year users in 2003. (See Table 3.3 in Chapter 3.) For traffickers, heroin is a stable commodity. In its 1999 INCSR, the State Department summed up the attractiveness of heroin for traffickers as follows: Though cocaine dominates
the U.S. drug scene, heroin is lurking conspicuously in the wings. …
The ONDCP conducts an annual survey of drug use called the Pulse Check. ONDCP gets reports from law-enforcement and epidemiologic/ethnographic sources across the country (ninety-four sources in twenty-five cities for its 2004 edition of Pulse Check). These sources reported that marijuana was readily available every-where.
Domestically grown, Mexican, hydroponically grown Canadian, and the potent s…
Cannabis will grow indoors under sufficient light. Controlled conditions can also enhance the potency of the products derived from the plants. According to the DEA, a healthy indoor-grown sinsemilla plant can produce up to a pound of high-THC-content marijuana. Indoor cultivation permits year-round production in a variety of
settings. Growers may cultivate a handful of plants grown in a closet or …
Methamphetamine ("meth," or "ice" in its crystal-line rather than powdered form) is the leading drug in the synthetic stimulants category (cocaine being the leading stimulant derived from a plant). According to SAMHSA, 1.3 million people had used methamphetamines in the past year in 2003. The drug was first synthesized in 1919
and has been a factor on the drug market si…
Citing this material
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
More To Explore
|
|
User Comments
about 2 years ago
Drug Trafficking - Criminal Penalties For Trafficking, Is The Profit Worth The Risk?, Substantial World And U.s. Trade