How Drug Trafficking Effects The US Economy
| There are many people who feel that the war on drugs costs the US too much in terms of tax dollar, law enforcement effort and people’s lives. |
|
In addition, with all the effort that has gone into trying to stop drug trafficking, there is hardly any results to show for it.
Just to give you an idea how drug trafficking affects the US economy -- in 1990 the drug control budget was $9.7 billion while in 2000 the budget had dramatically increased to $17.7 billion. In addition, the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) increased the number of agent from 3,191 in 1990 to 4,561 in 2000. However, this has done nothing to decrease the number of drug users. Instead the number of has steadily increased. Although there are laws, budgets have been increased, and the number of people fighting drug trafficking has increased, drug use in America has steadily been increasing.
Many laws in the US have been changed to mete out harsher punishments to drug traffickers with the aim of reducing drug trafficking. However, the profits that a drug trafficker can make from smuggling and selling drugs far outweigh the fear of punishment. It is estimated that the international drug trade is generation more than $400 billion annually. The whopping profits provide not only provides an incentive to sell drugs but also provides a way for drug traffickers to have a technological edge over law enforcement agents. Drug traffickers have a huge budget that allows them to come up with sophisticated means of producing, transporting and hiding drugs.
In addition, one should not forget that drug trafficking affects the US economy through the treatment of drug abuse. Millions of dollars are spent each year treating drug addiction and this effort is also too little as the number of drug addicts is too high.
The US economy also suffers from productivity losses as drug users are not capable of contributing to the economy.
More Articles :
 |
