Drug Trafficking Across the Border Research Paper

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Large quantities of drugs have slipped across the border in large propane tanks, hazardous materials containers, canned food, and drums of jalapeno peppers. One example of the increasingly innovative ways traffickers are smuggling drugs occurred when traffickers smuggled drugs from Mexico, into the United State, and then further into Canada concealed in a special mold of porcelain toilets. Clearly, the present DEA budget is no match for the virtually limitless resources of the drug traffickers disposal (Hamowy, 1987).

According to Massing (2000), governmental agencies would need to spend $783 million more annually, to cut cocaine consumption by one percent. Similarly, prohibition efforts would need to be increased by $366 million, while domestic law enforcement would need to be increased by $246 million, to decrease consumption by one percent. In contrast, relying solely on treatment, the government would only need to spend an additional $34 million to attain that same one percent decrease. According to the RAND study, treatment was seven times less expensive than local law enforcement, ten times more effectual than prohibition, and twenty-three times more cost effective than trying to hunt down the drug cartels. A look at cocaine demonstrates how ineffective current strategies have been.

The DEA has found that despite all of their efforts, both at home and abroad, one only has to look at the stability of cocaine pricing, over the last three decades to see what little progress they have made. Pricing for cocaine has remained low and stable, indicating that the DEA's efforts have done little to disrupt the plentiful supply of this drug into America ("Drug trafficking," 2004).

A New Strategy is Needed:

The last three decades has clearly indicated that the current approaches concerning the war on drugs are not working.

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Drug trafficking has only increased, despite the increased fiscal and manpower resources of the DEA. Stricter laws and penalties have little to no effect on the problem, thanks to the hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue that makes up the illegal drug industry. Law enforcement simply are out resourced in this arena. As such, a new strategy is needed.

More focus needs to be turned to treatment programs. Currently, many major insurance providers do not cover the cost for inpatient treatment for drugs ("Enforcement vs. prevention," 2010). However, as Massing (2000) notes, treatment is exponentially more effective than any other drug trafficking prevention strategy. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) concurs that simply focusing on law enforcement efforts is an ineffective means of curbing the drug problem in the United States. As part of the treatment of users portion of this strategy, the ONDCP suggests implementing programs to help support early intervention opportunities in healthcare. Treatment for substance use disorders should be integrated into healthcare. The ONDCP wishes to see an expansion of support for recovery programs ("Drug control strategy," 2010). All of this will help break the cycle of drug use in families and reduce the demand for illegal drugs. If America cannot stem the supply of drugs into the country, by significantly reducing the demand, and therefore the profitability of this market, will cause traffickers to look to other countries. Effective strategies must include going after the source of the problem, the use ("Law enforcement," 2010). The increased competitiveness would likely also see a culling of drug cartels, in addition to reduced resources to evade the DEA efforts. Only a two-pronged approach, such as this, can effectively see an improvement. The current strategies will.....

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