Warming-up.

What is a drug?

What is drug trafficking?

What is the difference between a "legal recreational drug" a "prescription drug" and an "illegal drug"?

Why do you think people take drugs?

Do you think drugs lead people into crime?

Do you think that users of hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine have first used alcohol and tobacco?

What do you know about drugs?

What are some dangerous drugs?

What drugs do you think are useful?

What drugs are addicting?

     Read the following text. Do you agree with the view on the drug trafficking problem it gives?

Make sure you understand the meaning of the following words and word-combinations:

drug trafficking

major characteristics

abandoned buildings and vehicles

threats of retaliation and intimidation

unscrupulous activities

socially-bonded drug trafficking

hierarchical

well packaged, highly priced and disguised

to utilize surveillance technology.

Drug trafficking as a multinational phenomenon

Drug trafficking, also known as drug distribution, is the crime of selling, transporting, or illegally importing unlawful controlled substances, such as heroin, cocaine, marijuana, or other illegal drugs.

Drug trafficking can be a complex activity with no easily defined structures and behaviors. However, there are seven major characteristics that can be used to define the structure and behavior of drug traffickers. These are communication, organisation, movement, environment, transactions, security, and motivation.

(a) Communication refers to how information is exchanged among drug suppliers, drug users and drug traffickers. This includes pagers, face-to-face, landlines, cellphone, middle-men, postal mail, e-mail, and computers.

 (b) Organization refers to the relationship, grouping and operational hierarchy of drug traffickers. The drug traders could be independent individuals, loose knit groups or highly organized criminal organizations.

(c) Movements include the transportation of drugs from one location to another and the quantities of drugs. This may involve using private vehicles, commercial airlines, private airplanes, private boats, public transportation, rail, people and animals.

(d) Environment refers to places or locations where drug trafficking occurs. This could at a house, apartments, entertainment places, commercial places, public areas, lodges, abandoned buildings and vehicles.

(e) Transactions include how drugs are packaged, priced and disguised. Drugs may be sold openly or secretly.

1. f) Security includes the protection drug traffickers put around them to ensure they operate freely. Drug traffickers seek security to protect themselves from other offenders and protection from law enforcement. They will use threats of retaliation, intimidation, surveillance of approaches (lookouts), armed guards, identification checks and screening.

(g) Motivation is basically the reason for continued existence. Some traffickers are purely involved to make a living and for survival. Others use it to make large profits and to fund other unscrupulous activities.

TYPES OF DRUG TRAFFICKING

The characteristics indicated above can be used to form and describe the different types of drug trafficking and their markets. Basically, drug trafficking can be organised into three groups: Freelance drug trafficking, socially-bonded drug trafficking, and corporate-style drug trafficking.

1) Freelance Drug Trafficking

This involves independent traffickers with no obvious tie to any group or organisation. They are not very sophisticated and use common everyday technology to communicate. In the locations where they operate in, they have no formal hierarchy or division of labour.

2) Socially-bonded Drug Trafficking

Socially-bonded trafficking is based on socially constructed ties. The ties could be based on family ties “family business”, race, ethnicity, nationality, kinship and neighborhood communal business”. They may also be based on ideological or cultural commitments such as groups of Rastafarians or a network of distribution of designer drugs known as the "ravers". These traffickers are in small groups which share a common feature that binds members of the group together. They sell drugs together. The group may have or may not have a name.

 3) Corporate-style Drug Trafficking

These are well organised criminal groups with a sole motive of making large profits. They use sophisticated technology to block law enforcement. The structure of such groups is large, stable and hierarchical. However, employees are usually kept in the dark about the operations of the organisation, who is involved, and they are closely supervised. Employees are only provided with small amount of drugs to supply so as to limit the amount they could steal. Those in the positions of power may share similar characteristics such as ethnicity, or kinship. This group of traffickers usually moves large quantities of drugs. Their places of operation vary depending on economies of scale. Their drugs are well packaged, highly priced and disguised. The transactions are hardly open. They use threats of retaliations, hire armed guards, employee lookouts and utilize surveillance technology.

Questions to discuss.

1. Is there any difference between "soft" drugs such as marijuana and "hard" drugs like crack, heroin, cocaine etc?
2. Is ecstasy a soft or a hard drug?                                                                  
3. Should there be punishments for dealing drugs?
4. Should there be punishments for using drugs?
5. Should drug dealers get the death penalty?
6. If heroin were legal, would there be less crime? For example, burglary and robbery.
7. Do you think that marijuana should be legal for medical uses with a prescription from a doctor?