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On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced one of the gravest assaults in its history. Simultaneous
attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought home the threat of terrorism more
strikingly than any previous event.
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Terrorism on American soil
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Terrorism, however, is not a new phenomenon in countries around the world. From the Middle East to Europe and
Asia and from Great Britain to South America, terrorist acts have destroyed and damaged lives around the
globe for centuries. What is new, though, is that fewer nation-states are willing to fund acts of terrorism.
Terrorist organizations are turning to alternative methods of funding for their activities. One lucrative
revenue stream is the sale of illegal drugs.
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Drug traffickers themselves have also grown increasingly accustomed to using terrorist acts to sustain their
activities. As profits from the sale of illegal drugs have increased over the years, the individuals and
organizations involved in trafficking have used more drastic means to secure their fortunes and keep law
enforcement and governments at arms' length.
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Colombian Narco-Terrorists destroyed that nation's Drug Enforcement Headquarters
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Al Qaida and the Taliban: A Drug Connection?
United States intelligence confirms the presence of a linkage between Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and
international terrorist Osama bin Laden. The al-Qaida organization, which is recognized as a terrorist
entity by the U.S. Department of State, was openly led by bin Laden. The relationship between the
Taliban and bin Laden is believed to have flourished in large part due to the Taliban's substantial
reliance on the opium trade as a source of revenue.
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The Taliban depends on money from opium production
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While not always involving the same groups, drugs and terror frequently flourish in the same
environments. Political instability, geography, money, and violence breed both terrorism and
drug trafficking. It is small wonder then that opium production and terrorism flourished in
Afghanistan, just as coca production and terrorism flourish in other countries, such as
Colombia.
Afghanistan is the major source for the cultivation, processing, and trafficking of opium
and cannabis products. Afghanistan produced over 70 percent of the world's supply of illicit
opium in 2000, until for political, economic, and public relations reasons the ruling Taliban
party outlawed opium production.
Morphine base, heroin, and hashish produced in Afghanistan are trafficked worldwide, after
being extracted from opium in that country. These products have a major impact in Europe.
For example, 80 percent of the products derived from opium found in Great Britain originate
in Afghanistan. Opiates are also consumed in the regions in which they are grown and produced,
as well as being smuggled to consumers in the West.
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Afhanistan produced more than 70% of the world's opium supply in 2000
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Production, Trafficking, & Money Laundering
Production
Production, trafficking, and money laundering are the three major activities of the illegal drug
trade. The growing and manufacture of illegal drugs most often takes place in remote areas and
ones that are difficult to get to. Mountainous areas are where opium, coca and cannabis are
grown and where the clandestine laboratories for producing methamphetamine are found. These are
the principal drugs of the international illicit drug trade. Today these drugs are produced in
countries around the world from Colombia to China. The areas where opium, cocaine, and cannabis
are grown now are the same areas that produced them centuries ago.
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Seized methamphetamine lab equipment
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Production, Trafficking, & Money Laundering
Production
The drugs trafficked have one or more of the following effects on the user: euphoria, relief from
pain and hunger, stimulation, the ability to counteract sleep, and mind altering experiences.
Most of the drugs that are abused today had their start as medicines.
These drugs can be classified into two groups, botanical (natural) and chemical (synthesized).
The three main botanical drugs-opium, cocaine, and cannabis-have their origin in medicines used
since the dawn of history.
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Hydroponics and "grow-lights" allow marijuana to be grown indoors
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Trafficking
The trading of drugs dates back to the dawn of history. Many medicines found markets hundreds or
even thousands of miles away from the site of their production. Opium was one of the most valued
drugs traded.
Traffickers not only fill a demand for illegal drugs but they also seek to attract additional
users to increase their business. They transplant native drugs to new areas to provide safer
environments for production and they grow additional drug crops to increase profit. Mexican and
Colombian traffickers now produce heroin from the growing of opium. Dealers will set up
methamphetamine laboratories in any country where they can operate and where the raw materials
are available.
Smuggling makes use of all means of transportation possible. Deception is the key to effective
smuggling. For example, the Medellin cartel in Colombia was building a submarine to take cocaine
into the United States. Violence and terrorism are the stock and trade tools of the traffickers.
Profit margins are vast and are the primary motivation of traffickers.
The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 stopped legal access to opium, cocaine, and cannabis in the
United States. Other countries were slow to follow suit, only banning opium growing and smoking
in the 1960s to 1980s. The black market then supplied the needs of the world's addicts. As
demand for popular drugs has changed, so, too, have the trafficking routes for those drugs.
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Mexican police prepare to raid a drug smuggling aircraft
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Money Laundering
Money laundering is the taking of money from illicit drug dealing, giving it to banks or businesses,
and then having them return the money as legal. At first this process was simple-deposit the money
as proceeds from a business and then send it to other accounts or physically move the money. By the
1980s, the DEA and the Department of Justice began to shift some of their energies from interceding
in drug smuggling to tracking the profits of drug dealing. Limiting the amount of undocumented money
that can be deposited in a bank at one time to $10,000 and having banks know their customers has
helped, but it has not stopped the money laundering business. The international trafficking of
illegal drugs is estimated at 300 to 500 billion dollars or more.
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Terrorists and drug dealers can not operate without the help of money launderers
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The Costs of Drugs
Over 22,000 individuals died from drug-induced causes
in the United States in 2002, seven tiems more than
those killed in all of the September 11 attacks. Direct
costs include those for drug treatment, health care,
cost of goods and services lost to crime, law enforcement,
incarceration, and the judicial system fees. Indirect
costs are those due to the loss of productivity from
death, human suffering, drug abuse related illnesses,
victims of crime and crime.
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The total lifetime costs associated
with caring for babies that were prematurely exposed
to drugs or alcohol range from $750,000 to $1.4 million.
These figures take into account the hospital and medical
costs for drug exposed babies, housing costs, and outside
care costs.
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Children and Drugs:
The Terrible Toll
Drugs exact a terrible toll on children-the children of drug-using
parents, abused and neglected; young workers in the
trade, processing and selling; caught in the cross-fire,
the innocent bystanders; and too often, users themselves.
Around the world, children live in environments rife
with the horrors of drugs. Violence, filth, danger,
and addiction threaten them on a daily basis: in the
jungles of South America, children work side by side
with adults in chemical-filled pozo pits, stomping coca
leaves for conversion into coca paste; in California,
they live in homes where methamphetamine is manufactured;
in Southeast Asia, they work in the poppy fields; in
Miami, they sell drugs at their mothers' behest.
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A Thai man, known only as "Tee,"
high on methamphetamine and covered in his own blood
after cutting himself in a rage, takes 19-year-old college
student Pathcarapan Tiyawanich hostage in a siege which
lasted over three hours before authorities overpowered
him and freed the girl in central Bangkok. (Getty Images)
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Cost of Drug Impaired Driving
The deadly connection between alcohol and driving is overwhelmingly
evident. Over 18,000 deaths per year are direct result
of substance abuse. This includes alcohol and illegal
drugs, as well as prescription and over the counter
medications. When improperly used in combination with
driving, these drugs and medications have caused thousands
of deaths and many more injuries.
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This photograph represent the
damage that driving under the influence causes. If
you think this car is demolished, just imagine what
the people in them look like... enough said.
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The Cost of Drugs on the Environment
One of the often overlooked and/or ignored costs of illegal drugs
is the cost of drug production on the environment. From
the clear-cutting of rain forests in Central and South
America for the planting of coca fields, to the destruction
of national forests in the United States for the growing
of marijuana, to the dumping of hazardous waste byproducts
into the water table after the manufacture of methamphetamine,
illegal drugs have an impact on the environment with
far reaching consequences. These activities have consequences
fro the health of the groundwater, streams, rivers,
wildlife, and the farmers living in those areas. Illegal
drug production contributes to deforestation, reduced
biodiversity, and increased erosion. It affects hydrological
processes and contributes to air polluction and global
climate change.
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Terrorist and insurgency groups in Colombia
with links to the drug trade regularly bomb pipelines
in that country in an effort to overthrow the government
and terrorize the population. (Corbis)
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Lost Talent
Drugs have had a devastating impact on American society
for more than a century. The human toll of drug abuse-the
lost talent and potential of those who have died from
drug addiction-immeasurable. From famous people
that many of us recognize, to unknown adults and young
people, this cost of drugs is the greatest of all.
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Drugs and the Body
"In the past 30 years, advances in science have
revolutionized our understanding of drug abuse and addiction.
Drug addiction is a brain disease." Nora D. Volkow,
M.D. Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National
Institute of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services.
Why Study Drugs of Abuse?
The consequences are vast and varied and affect people
of all ages. Consequences include: low birth weight,
developmental deficits or delays, and childhood obesity,
children neglected by drug-using parents, poor school
grades, violence, unplanned pregnancies, work performance
suffers-absenteeism, injuries, poor health,
high turnover, poor physical and mental health, problems
thinking, remembering and paying attention.
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Breaking the Cycle
Law Enforcement
Drug law enforcement in the Unites States dates to the late 1800s
when local laws began to be passed to prevent the spread
of opium dens in certain cities. The firest such law
was passed in San Francisco in 1875. Federal laws began
to emerge with the growing rates of abuse of and addiction
to early miracle medical cures, known as patent medicines.
The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 established the first
federal law controlling the production and distribution
of opiates and narcotics. Today, drug law enforcement
is a complex and worldwide effort. DEA maintains offices
around the U.S. and in more than 50 countries around
the world. Investigations of drug cartels involve many
different agencies and foreign governments and may take
years to execute fully. From little more than 300 agents
in the 1970s to close to 5,000 agents now, DEA works
to break the supply chain the feeds the illegal drug
market in America.
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Training in firearms is an integral part of
the DEA Basic Agent Training curriculum. Each new agent
must demonstrate a high degree of proficiency with all
weapons in the DEA arsenal and a complete understanding
of when deadly force may be employed.
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Prevention
The goal of drug abuse prevention is for the potential user to understand
the damage caused by and the dangers of drug abuse.
Prevention stresses that the best way to stop drug abuse
is not to start using drugs. The Administrator of the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA),
Charles G. Curie, states that "Prevention is the
key to stopping another generation from abusing drugs
and alcohol." Prevention involves everybody, including
children, adults, and the community at large. It is
important for all member of society to work together
to encourage a Drug Free America.
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Families play an integral role in keeping
young people drug free. Getting involved in your child's
life can make a huge difference in the parent-child
relationship. Having interaction with your child's friends
and their parents helps to increase your level of awareness
of your child's activities. Most importantly, it is
essential to set a good example for your children. (CSAP)
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Treatment
Over the years, the value of treatment for alcohol
and drug dependence has been recognized as an essential
part of an overall strategy to reduce the drug problem.
As knowledge grows about the effects of drug use on
the body and the brain, treatment methodologies have
also evolved. What is clear is the need for treatment
programs to address the many issues associated with
an individual's drug use: the physical and psychological
effects of drug abuse; co-existing mental health problems;
the user's family situation; the realities of a user's
environment; the user's race, gender and sexual orientation;
the potential for a drug user to re-enter the world
as a productive member of society; and the user's spiritual
and emotional needs.
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Treatment often incorporates individual and
group counseling to address shared and special needs.
Treatment proceeds over a continuum, with stages of
change, and critical importance on discharge planning
and aftercare. (NIDA)
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