Illegal drug trade: Encyclopedia II - Illegal drug trade - Hard drugs

Illegal drug trade - Hard drugs

'Hard drugs' are generally drugs considered to create a high degree of physical dependence (i.e. addiction) or considered to be a serious detriment to society or personal health.

Illegal supply of these so called hard drugs is driven mainly by the economics of drug prohibition coupled with the addiction of their users, with huge profit margins available due to the collision of high demand for the drugs with harsh laws that attempt to prohibit their supply and use. The vast profits on offer mean that the trade is run by highly organized and often violent criminal organizations.

For the purposes of this article, the following drugs will be discussed as hard drugs:

• Cocaine
• Heroin and Opium
• Methamphetamine

Illegal drug trade - Cocaine trade

Because of the extensive processing it undergoes during preparation and its highly addictive nature, cocaine is generally treated as a hard drug, with severe penalties for possession and trafficking. Demand remains high, and consequently black market cocaine is quite expensive. Unprocessed cocaine, such as coca leaves is occasionally bought and sold, but this is exceedingly rare as it is much easier and more profitable to conceal and smuggle the concentrated processed form. Therefore, powdered cocaine (its usual form) is described here.

Most cocaine is smuggled in large quantities in trucks, boats, or small airplanes. Smaller gangs will often send out a mule, often a young woman, with kilos of cocaine strapped to her waist or legs or hidden in her bags. If she gets through without being caught, the gangs will reap most of the profits. If she is caught however, gangs will sever all links and she will usually stand trial for trafficking by herself.

Colombia still produces around 75% of the world's cocaine.

Cocaine comes from the coca plant. The leaves are stripped from the plants and dried, then crushed into a paste, commonly using cement mix (containing sodium carbonate), lime and water. This then allows extraction of the cocaine alkaloid into kerosene. The resulting water immiscible solvent (kerosene) acts to extract water insoluble cocaine alkaloids from the mixture. The plant leaves are usually agitated by stomping on them or, occasionally by using a so-called agitation machine. The cocaine alkaloids and kerosene mostly separates from the water and leaves, and then needs to be strained.

The alkaloids should be extracted from the kerosene by adding a dilute hydrochloric or sulfuric acid mix then strained again. Potassium permanganate is usually added then the mix should be allowed sit for 4-6 hours. The paste is usually further strained and ammonia added. A dubious precipitate will be formed, known as cocaine base.

The base is dried and converted to cocaine hydrochloride (HCl) by soaking it in acetone and straining it. Adding diluted hydrochloric acid or Ether (cutting) should cause a precipitate to form which is usually dried under heat lamps, resulting in concentrated cocaine hydrochloride.

Organized criminal gangs operating on a large scale dominate the cocaine trade. Most cocaine is grown and processed in South America, particularly in Colombia and Peru, and smuggled into the United States and Europe, where it is sold at huge markups.

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Cocaine is often adulterated or "cut" with a variety of substances prior to sale. Common adulterants include Mannitol, a sugar based baby laxative, Benzocaine to cause a numbing effect, Methylphenidate or (ritalin) -- a drug which when taken by way of insufflation, mimics many of the euphoric and "speedy" effects that are attributed to cocaine.

Purity of cocaine varies widely over a range of approximately 10 to 90 percent - with larger quantities generally being more pure, and smaller quantities generally being less pure.

Illegal drug trade - Crack Cocaine trade

Crack cocaine in the United States is usually more prevalent in lower income urban communities which are often predominantly Hispanic or African-American. This is largely due to the way a drug is marketed rather than its specific effects. Crack cocaine is often sold in $5 hits, a piece of which will fit into a small glass vial (pipe). The small amounts and low price make crack an easy sell in crowded poor neighborhoods.

Crack is more addictive and more dangerous than normal powder cocaine because when it is smoked it delivers a stronger high because it reachs the blood stream quicker. Powder cocaine does not burn well and cannot be efficiently smoked, whereas crack cocaine can easily be absorbed through the mucus membranes in the nose. This has to do with the structure of the molecule and whether a hydrochloride bond is present or not. In the cases where it is not present the cocaine is known as under slang as freebase. Almost every drug can exist in either a salt form (as in with a hydrochloride bond) or a freebase form, but only freebase cocaine takes the slang name.

True freebase cocaine is difficult to manufacture and involves explosive chemicals to process. Before the 1980s it was the only form of “rock” cocaine. Crack in contrast is safely and easily made and is manufactured from imported powdered cocaine usually in small batches by urban dealers. Using a simple process involving baking soda and water the dealers can make a rough “freebase” of the cocaine. Because baking soda is added in the process crack cocaine is actually less pure – whereas a true freebase is more pure.

Crack cocaine is associated with street gangs that distribute it; the money earned from its sale is used for, but not limited to, the following: drug-wars, illegal firearms, and turf-wars.

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Illegal drug trade - Heroin and opium trade

Opium is the dried latex resin of the opium poppy. Most of the world's illegal opium has been grown in Afghanistan and the Golden Triangle region of southeast Asia for a long time. Although, in recent years, a growing amount comes from Latin America, particularly from Mexico and Colombia (in the latter country it has displaced to some extent the cocaine trade because it is easier to refine into a marketable product, heroin), and production has also taken root in the Caucasus Mountains.

The legal production of opium for the variety of opiate-based products used by the medical market is more than 50% of global opium production and takes place mostly in Tasmania and India. In these countries, it is used strictly in its natural form, which contains a number of active ingredients. It is smoked, eaten, or prepared as a drink to produce the opiate effects. It is also widely used as local medicine in its native countries; the resin requires minimal processing involving boiling in water, filtering, and drying. Illicit trade in opium is relatively rare, since major smuggling organizations prefer to further refine opium into heroin. A given quantity of heroin is worth much more than an equivalent amount of opium; therefore trade in opium is comparatively rare, since heroin is much more profitable.

Heroin is manufactured through the chemical processing of opium, and smuggled into the United States and Europe. Purity levels vary greatly by region with, for the most part, Northeastern cities having the most pure heroin in America. According to a recently released report by the DEA, Elizabeth and Newark, New Jersey, have the purest street grade heroin in the country.

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Illegal drug trade - Methamphetamine trade

Since the early 1970s, outlaw motorcycle clubs such as The Hells Angels, The Pagans and the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang have been active in the manufacture of crystal methamphetamine in North America. However, in the last two decades they have been joined by large scale operations based in Mexico and Asia, and small scale meth labs which have popped up throughout North America, which often create environmental hazards for those living near them due to the amount of toxic chemicals used in methamphetamine production. The proliferation of small scale meth labs began in California, then spread to the rest of the Western United States, and from there spreading to the midwest and now throughout almost all of the country, paralleling the epidemic in meth abuse which currently is taking place in all sections of the United States except for the Northeast, as well as spreading into most of Canada. A wide variety of groups are involved in the distribution of methamphetamine, from the aforementioned prison gangs and motorcycle gangs to street gangs, traditional organized crime operations, and impromptu small level networks made up of users. The government of North Korea is said to promote the manufacture of crystal meth, and allegedly plays a role in distribution networks throughout Asia as well as those in Australia and even in North America. Regardless, meth trafficking is not exclusively dominated by cartels along the lines of Colombia's cocaine cartels or Pakistan's heroin cartels....

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Because of physical dependence, the high cost of illegal addictive drugs is one of the major causes of crime. Some estimates placed the value of the global trade in illegal drugs at around four hundred billion U.S. dollars in the year 2000.

Major consumer countries include the United States and European nations, although consumption is world-wide.

As with legal commerce, the illegal drug trade is multi-layered and often multi-national, with layers of manufacturers, processors, distributors, wholesalers and retailers. Financing is also important, generally involving money laundering to hide the source of the illegal profits. All of these are made more complex by their illegality, but the normal laws of economics still apply, with the efforts of law enforcement regarded by the drug trade as an extra business cost.

The drug trade is a very fragmented industry with the most popular product, cannabis, being grown locally by many individuals with little collaboration. Similarly, drugs like LSD with very low profit margins are sold more for philanthropic reasons than for profit. The main organized drug cartels deal with cocaine, heroin, and MDMA, and it is these that are the primary focus of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Largely manufactured drugs also induce the foundation of satellite organizations that supply some of the needed chemical precursors. In places where alcohol is illegal, such as Saudi Arabia, it may also be the subject of illegal trading. In the United States during Prohibition, trade in alcohol was dominated by the Cosa Nostra.

Some prescription drugs are also available by illegal means, eliminating the need to manufacture and process the drugs. Prescription opiates for example, are sometimes much stronger than heroin found on the street. They are sold primarily via stolen or unscrupulous prescriptions sold by illegitimate medical practices and occasionally from Internet sale. However, it is much easier to control traffic in prescription drugs than in illegal drugs because the source can often be readily found and neutralized.

Legal drugs like tobacco can be the subject of smuggling and illegal trading if the taxes are high enough to make it profitable.

Because disputes cannot be resolved through legal means, participants at every level of the illegal drugs industry are liable to compete with one another through violence. Some of the largest and most violent drug trafficking organizations are known as drug cartels. For this (and other reasons, namely the inability for governments to control, regulate and tax distribution), many have argued that the illegality of popular drugs worsens the problems around these substances.

The most well known recent groups were the Cali and Medellín cartels in Colombia and the Juarez, Tijuana and Tamaulipas cartels in Mexico.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Hard drugs", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki