Free Global Drug Trade Essay Example

In 2007, the United Nations reported that the illegal drug trade has proved to be among the largest worldwide rated business at profits of about $322 billion1. This drug trade has acted as a pool for the criminal organizations that want to profit from the possibility of more profits than any other business commodity. Compared to other illegal commodities like firearms that stand at a global estimate value of $1 billion, illicit trade of human beings standing at $32 billion, drug trade has proven to be absolute at $322 billion. This is due to the constant demand for the drugs by the drug addicts all over the world. These illicit drugs include cocaine, heroin (most common), cannabis and the Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) that is inclusive of the amphetamines. The history of the global drug trade is indeed a step towards an understanding of the drug trade today.
500 years ago, the access to the drugs was so limited compared to today where people can access to substances of varying nature that can alter the normal functioning of the human brain such as alcohol, cocaine and even heroin that were absent back then. The drugs invented back then have proved to be quite dangerous to the human body and the governments were quite aware of the otherwise dangerous properties the drugs had. However, the use of the drugs ensured lots of profits in the form of tax due to the demand for them. Despite the media’s intention to outline the destructive power of the drugs to the common man, the government refused to outlaw the businesses due to the high profits. However, the public rose against the drugs circulation when they learnt that the Chinese peasants and some students were hooked on opium2.
Courtwright David T., 2002, Forces of Habit drugs and the making of the modern world (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002), 65.
Mills James H., “Drugs, Consumption, and Supply in Asia: The Case of Cocaine in Colonial India, c.1900---c. 1930,” Journal of Asian Studies, May 2007, 345-362.
Despite the turned opinion over the drugs, tobacco and alcohol were reinstated back to being legal during the Prohibition period but the hard drugs (narcotics) and the marijuana were never legalized3. Marijuana was never legalized despite the fact that the drug has effects that are more or less similar to those of the alcohol and tobacco. After these drugs lost their legal statuses during that period in time, the drugs were still sold in black markets due to the numerous profits that the business factors in. The law clearly outlaws the selling and distribution of the hard illegal drugs to citizens but the crime syndicates picked up the trade where the governments had left of. This was one of the major underground operations that these crime organizations were involved in and their profits were immense4.
Similarly, these crime organizations have further invested and invented even newer drugs due to the fact that there is increased and improved technology than 500 years ago. The drug trafficking operations are on larger scale as one can see that at 2007, the profits made on drug trafficking were about $322 billion. In addition, these profits that were milked out of the illicit drug trade were used to bring up new criminal projects that would benefit the drug groups just as the United Nations office reported in 2007. The knowledge of the fact that the government was the one that first orchestrated the drug trade infers that the government needs to find a solution to that very problem that is destroying many people today just like those Chinese peasants that were enslaved back then by opium.
Kurlantzick Joshua, “Traffic Pattern,” New Republic 228, no. 11(2003): 12.
Jenner Matthew S., “International Drug Trafficking: A Global problem with a Domestic Solution,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 18, no. 2 (2011): 905.

Bibliography

Courtwright, David T. 2002. Forces of habit drugs and the making of the modern world. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Jenner, Matthew S. "International Drug Trafficking: A Global Problem with a Domestic Solution." Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 18, no. 2 (Summer2011 2011): 901-927. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 20, 2015).
Kurlantzick, Joshua. "Traffic Pattern." New Republic 228, no. 11 (March 24, 2003): 12. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 20, 2015).
Mills, James H. "Drugs, Consumption, and Supply in Asia: The Case of Cocaine in Colonial India, c. 1900--c. 1930." Journal of Asian Studies 66, no. 2 (May 2007): 345-362. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 20, 2015).