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Introduction: Battling the Drug Leviathan
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11507 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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10 / 1986 |
792 Words |
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Dutch Police capture a huge heroin haul shipped from Afghanistan by a Soviet freighter. …A Colombian judge frees an international drug trafficker despite extradition requests from the United States. …A U.S. Drug Enforcement agent is kidnapped and assaulted by Mexican police while the president of both countries are meeting to discuss joint drug control projects. …An eradication campaign that targeted jungle cocaine laboratories in Bolivia apparently proved a big bust - but not of the drug kingpins.
In addition to these recent news events, some statistics paint an ominous picture of the effect of drugs on society in the United States:
· Some 65 percent of Americans entering the work force have used illicit drugs - 44 percent within the last year. Alcohol and drug use costs $100 billion in lost productivity annually. Approximately 19 percent of teenage Americans have used illicit drugs within the past year. Some 20 percent of the total work force uses illicit drugs.
· Several serious train wrecks involving substantial loss of life and property have been attributed by the National Transportation Safety Board to marijuana and alcohol use.
· Cocaine is the third most frequent cause of drug-related emergencies.
· In 1985, some 547 deaths were caused by cocaine - a tripling of the figure for 1981 (New York figures not included).
· Cocaine vendors garner some $15 billion in revenue per year.
Since 1980, the volume of drug smuggling has increased 500 percent. Banks in high-traffic areas have seen their cash reserves jump five- or tenfold. Users pauperize themselves to get the crack, powder, or freebase they crave. They also pauperize companies, from which they embezzle; their families, from whom they steal; and their bodies, which they starve and prostitute to satisfy their addiction.
Internationally, dope is a great money-maker for terrorists. They can dominate the people of a rural area, set up refineries and transportation routes, and sit back. U.S. smugglers will pay them top dollars to get their product. Hostile governments like Cuba harbor the smugglers' boats, refine the raw paste into powder, and take another cut from the profits. Not only do they get ready cash for these services, but they hasten the deterioration of their chief enemy's population.
In addition to facing an enormous number of private boats and planes available for transporting drugs, the United States is endowed with two long and unguarded borders, thousands of miles of coastline, and vast areas of uninhabited land perfect for locating private airstrips and staging areas. It is virtually impossible to seal off the flow of drugs into the country.
Even educational efforts meet overwhelming obstacles. Let's face it: In the popular mind, the people who have the leisure and funds to indulge in expensive drugs are the superstars - television celebrities, hot film properties, the athletes with huge contracts, and recording stars. To be offered coke is to be offered the equivalent
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