Investigating issues is an important component of working in the U.S. criminal justice system. For this assignment, you identify the historical issue in criminal justice that you will address in the F

Annotated Bibliography; Drug Trafficking

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For a long time, illegal trafficking and drug abuse have been a nightmare in the united states. Individuals seeking to abuse the drugs find them with ease, which means that drugs are available at their disposal making the situation even worse. In the leading is the abuse of prescription and non-prescription opioids, and it continues to be a public health challenge of today. This has been evident with the increase in heroin users, and its rapidly spreading effects as well as those of other opioids. The rise is clearly reflective of the growing number of people who are transiting from prescribed opioid drugs to the search for affordable and readily available alternatives such as heroin (Bryan, 2018). The statistics given by the United Nations has shown that drug trafficking is a global problem, remaining a challenge in both developed and developing country although gravity tends towards the developing nations. In the measurement of the flow in metric tons, heroin remains to be highly addictive and originating from other countries, it eventually finds its way into the United States. The major means of drug trafficking into the united states is effected through border crossing (Qureshi, 2016).

The main US border implicated in the US drug trafficking is the Northern, Coastal and Southern border sectors. The Southern border, the one between US and Mexico poses major public health safety challenge for drug leakage which comes from neighboring Mexico and especially opioid drugs, from where high illegal opium cultivation takes place. Control of entry of the illegal product into the united states remains a focus, however, leakages result in high drug trafficking into the country. In addition, drug pilferages from other countries into the US poses a challenge into the fight against the vice, especially migration or traveling of people from countries whose governments are not committed to the fight against drug trafficking. Mexico government has increased its vigilance to wipe out the plant cultivation in current efforts which saw a drastic decrease in the number of plants being planted in 2014. The US government has well increased its border heroin seizures with specific interest focusing on the US-Mexico border. Moreover, Mexican drug trafficking organizations are the leading international suppliers of all hard drugs including cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine that in one way or the other finds their way across the border into the US (Bryan, 2018).

Drug trafficking is an exercise that is being carried out in a well-organized and coordinated manner, by individuals or illegal groups that network and coordinate throughout the country. In this way, the groups acquire a form of immunity against legal entities as tracking of the drug trafficking becomes a bit challenging. Drug trafficking and abuse are not selective and it has been evident in both genders as well as in the young. The American Addiction Center statistics have supported these facts, although more men of middle age have been implicated. A report released in 2016 showed that 84.9% of drug traffickers are men of an average age of thirty-six years. Of the total number of offenders, approximately seventy percent are American citizens with half the number having no or little criminal history (Bryan, 2018).

There is an increasing effort to combat drug trafficking in the US so as to minimize its public health risks and burden. DEA, the drug-fighting agency greatly focuses on the cartels from the Mexico who control a large share of the cartels smuggling drugs into the US and thus attributed with being more responsible for drug distribution in the country. A current emerging threat is Africa, as transit shipping points of South America being a target for drug organizations and traffickers majorly from regions of Africa and Asia. The growing number of people who are being sentenced for in the US between 2011 and 2015 could be suggestive that there is an increase in the vigilance of fight against drug smuggling by the government or a drastic increase in drug smuggling. In 2015 more than six thousand arrests in connection to heroin trafficking were recorded, with the arrests involving conspiracy, distribution, and possession with intended sell contributed the highest number (Arslan, et. al, 2015).

Reports released in 2016 continue to indicate opioids drugs as the leading drug being trafficked, with methamphetamine and cocaine being responsible for more of the cases. In addition, these reports also implicate Western and Southern district of Texas, District of Arizona, Southern District of California and District of New Mexico as the areas experiencing high cases of drug trafficking (Kim, & Indeo, 2013).

Transportation of drugs occurs through land, air or sea. It has been found that drug trafficking among the native Americans is not s challenge but drugs always find their way int the country. Majority of the drugs happen by land which contributes fifty-nine percent of the total trafficking attached to border patrol seizures. Agencies effort to combat the border control has made the smuggler resort to other means, such as maritime to avoid the crackdown. Other modalities that been exploited in the recent days include smuggling in of drugs in watercraft and container vessels. In addition, other means are through the use of old aircrafts such as private jets or use of commercial jets through body packing or mules. Attempts to nub these drugs are facing a challenge since the smugglers limit the amount transported via the methods of evading authority detection (Burns, 2014).

Although DEA and other government agencies in the US continue to be more vigilant in efforts to wipe the country of the tide, especially preventing drug crossing via borders, drug operation progressively evolve. Organizations are using encrypted technology and social media platform to the community in the process of shipment and recruitment of new members into the cartels. The new development in technology and smuggling techniques make it difficult for government agencies to monitor criminal activities and cracking down widespread operations such as the Mexican drug cartels. Drug trafficking has a huge impact on the economic development of a country. The federal government loses hundreds of thousands of American through death or adverse events as a result of drug use. In addition, millions of money are allocated each year to fight drug smuggling epidemic (McSweeney, et. al, 2014). Moreover, there is a high lasting financial impact on the health of the affected people and anyone around them.

References

Bryan, B. (2018). Heroin, Opioid, and Painkiller Abuse. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

Qureshi, W. A. (2016). The Manufacturing and Trafficking of Narcotics: An Overview of Global Laws. J. Marshall L. Rev., 50, 813.

Arslan, M. M., Zeren, C., Celikel, A., Ortanca, I., & Demirkiran, S. (2015). Increased drug seizures in Hatay, Turkey related to civil war in Syria. International Journal of Drug Policy, 26(1), 116-118.

Burns, L. (2014). World Drug Report 2013 By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime New York: United Nations, 2013 ISBN: 978‐92‐1‐056168‐6, 151 pp. Grey literature. Drug and alcohol review, 33(2), 216-216.

McSweeney, K., Nielsen, E. A., Taylor, M. J., Wrathall, D. J., Pearson, Z., Wang, O., & Plumb, S. T. (2014). Drug policy as conservation policy: narco-deforestation. Science, 343(6170), 489-490.

Gavrilova, E., Kamada, T., & Zoutman, F. (2017). Is legal pot crippling Mexican drug trafficking organisations? The effect of medical marijuana laws on US crime. The Economic Journal, 129(617), 375-407.

Kim, Y., & Indeo, F. (2013). The new great game in central Asia post 2014: The US “New Silk Road” strategy and Sino-Russian rivalry. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 46(2), 275-286.

Dolliver, D. S. (2015). Evaluating drug trafficking on the Tor Network: Silk Road 2, the sequel. International Journal of Drug Policy, 26(11), 1113-1123.