History of Drug Trafficking

While drug trafficking has been around for centuries in one form or another, drug trafficking as it is recognized today became prominent starting in the 1960s. Drug trafficking started with the time of the century and the kind of drug that is popular at the time. Drug trafficking is done in all parts of the earth. Countries like Southeast Asia, West Africa, Panama, Central America, and Afghanistan. House Speaker Dennis Hastert states that "The illegal drug trade is the financial engine that fuels many terrorist organizations around the world, including Osama bin Laden."
(http://www.voxfux.com/features/cia_drug_trafficking.html) Showing that American drug addiction is helping fuel the people that are trying to kill them. Afghanistan's output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States.

It attracts criminal organizations because the potential profits are significantly more than from other criminal commodities like firearms, diamonds, and human beings. In the drug trade industry there isn't one main supplier for a certain amount of time because of the violence and illegal factors that are invloved in traficking. Also, depending on the type of drug."All phases of the cocaine trade, including cultivation, processing and distribution have expanded since 1984, and the industry shows no signs of diminishing despite the fact that cocaine supply already exceeds consumer demand." Control of the cocaine industry has traditionally been maintained by a cartel of Colombian traffickers. Colombian groups are the largest, wealthiest, most sophisticated organizations trafficking in cocaine. By 1965, Colombians supplied nearly 100 percent of the cocaine moving through the Cuban networks. Colombians refined the drug and Cubans trafficked and distributed it in the United States.Through the late 1960's and early 1970's they became more involved in cocaine production, and increased their trafficking role.

Heroin trafficking in America first became big in the 1920's, when organized criminals based in New York City's Jewish community began to control the importation and distribution of the drug. By the late 1930's, La Cosa Nostra,Italian organized crime groups, joined the Jewish groups in the heroin enterprise, importing the drug from France, Asia and the Mideast. When these sources became inaccessible during World War II, Mexico became the major U.S. heroin supplier. Mexican heroin production decreased in the late 1970's due to enforcement, eradication and poor weather conditions. However,by 1984 Mexican traffickers provided 32 percent share of the heroin consumed in the United States.

Cocain and Heroin are just a small part of the drug trade business because entering these business opportunities cost tens of thousands of dollars. Unlike Marijuana trafficking which only cost couple of hundred dollars to enter. Throughout its history it has allowed a constant influx of small-scale and mid-size operators as limited suppliers. This is because marijuana sales generate a small profit in comparison to other illicit drugs like Cocain and Herion.

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