Consumption, production and trade of illicit drugs have a wide variety of adverse socio-economic and political effects

@prashanthamine

Mumbai: The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has in its briefing paper in November 1994 titled “Illicit Drugs: Social Impacts and Policy Responses” studied the issue socio-economic impact of drug abuse and trafficking threadbare.

Peasant growers of drug crops can make from 10 to 50 times more in supplying the illegal drug market than they can in any other agricultural pursuit. The retail value of drugs, at around 500 billion US $ a year, now exceeds the value of the international trade in oil and is second only to that of the arms trade.

The consumption, production and trade of illicit drugs have a wide variety of adverse socio-economic and political effects. These activities can at times undermine the legal economy (for instance by contributing to an overvalued exchange rate). Illegality provides what has been called the ‘Crime Tax’, the difference between the legal and illegal markets. This ‘tax’ is reaped principally by traffickers, but they pass on a sufficient proportion to peasant growers to create incentives for drug crop production.

India is a large producer of licit Opium, and Bolivia and Peru produce between them about 20,000 tonnes of legal Coca leaves each year for traditional or medical uses. Nevertheless, the main producing and trafficking countries are known to be Afghanistan, Bolivia, Colombia, Iran, Pakistan, Peru and Thailand. In Bolivia for instance, the Coca-Cocaine economy has generated more revenue than any other single export in recent years.

Poor farmers in many drug producing countries have earned more money, experienced social mobility, exercised more power over their destiny and that of their destiny, and that of their children than perhaps at any time in this century. Poverty and absence of attractive alternative economic opportunities are the main factors contributing to growers’ continued involvement in drug production.

History of drug trafficking dates back to the two Opium wars between British and the Qing dynasty of China from 1839 to 1860 (21 years), the British who were later joined in by the French in the second Opium war with the Qing dynasty in China. The First Opium War was fought between the British and the Qing dynasty for 2 years between September 4, 1839 to August 29, 1842. In the Second Opium War that was fought between October 8, 1856 to October 24, 1860 in which the French joined the British forces.

The trigger for the First Opium War was the Qing dynasty’s campaign against the British merchants forcibly selling Opium in China. The British shipped Opium from Calcutta (Kolkata) to the Chinese port city of Canton (Guangzhou).

The maritime vessels that the Qing dynasty had were no match to the modern technologically advanced western naval fleets. The easily defeated Qing dynasty was forced to grant favourable tariffs, trade concessions, reparations and territories to the Europeans.

The two Opium wars weakened the Qing dynasty and the Chinese Imperial government and forced China to sign port treaties that forced it to surrender administration and all trade at port cities like Shanghai to the Europeans. China was forced to give up sovereign rights over Hong Kong to United Kingdom.

China was forced to legalise Opium in 1858, thereby opening up its local markets to opium brought in by the British. The naval defeats left an indelible mark on the Chinese psyche. It is probably the only known case in the history of forced trafficking that has led to promoting addiction amongst the masses.

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If the Opium wars were forced addiction, a few large, vertically integrated, multinational illicit drug distribution organisations existed as early as the 1930’s.

The illegal drug economy may at times act as a safety-valve to compensate for the shortcomings of the formal economy. In Bolivia in the mid-1980’s, the Dollars brought-in by the traffickers were welcomed by the Central Bank in order to ease the foreign exchange shortage in the country.

Traffickers infiltrate bureaucracies, buy public decisions, and conduct business through violence and intimidation. Traffickers, not consumers, commit most drug-related homicides. They are able to use billions of dollars at their command to attempt to corrupt, subvert or eliminate institutions and people who stand in their way.

In the Golden Triangle (Laos, Myanmar, Thailand), traffickers’ border operations concentrate at points of least resistance and change from year to year. When the Colombian government cracks down on its drug operators, they take-up temporary residence in Bolivia, Miami, Panama or Peru and direct their operations from there.

Highest per capita spending on drugs is reported from Canada and United States. Consumer spending on narcotics is thought to exceed the combined Gross Domestic Product’s (GDP’s) of more than 80 developing countries. Eastern Europe has also experienced an increase in demand for illicit drugs due to the socio-economic crisis, high unemployment and easing of border controls.

Illicit drugs affect an individual’s health, financial position, productivity and social relations. Drug use can cause birth defects, poor parent-child relations and neuro-biological collapse from overdose with accompanying hospital costs. It can also adversely affect the classroom performance and psychological development of adolescents.

In terms of society’s interests, acute or chronic consumption is clearly more harmful than occasional consumption, and use of drugs by many people is more harmful than use by a few.

The most harmful psycho-pharmacological effects of drug use, particularly those associated with crack cocaine, involve people becoming irrational, excited, agitated or impulsive. Users may become unable to control their anger and vent it in the form of physical assault, including homicide.

The economic-compulsive dimension of drug-related crime is associated with criminal acts to obtain funding for personal drug consumption (through burglaries). The systemic dimension refers to the activities of drug syndicates, associations, gangs and smugglers involved in protecting their product from law enforcement officials or from each other by whatever means necessary.

A fourth dimension could be added to this analysis is the – “corruption criminality” connection, which occurs when administrative and political personnel such as drug enforcement agents and border patrol officers themselves become allied with the drug trade.

It is commonly believed that peers can have an even stronger influence on drug use during the formative years of youth. As families come under pressure either through parental failures, rapidly changing cultures or economically imposed hardships, children look for alternative forms of association, such as youth gangs.

Some youth gangs have become “family” for street children in Bangkok, Lima, Los Angeles, New York, Sao Paulo and other cities. To survive, these children frequently turn to drugs, violence and theft, all of which may be attached to ritualised ceremonies of belonging and obligation.

In Colombia, despite the destruction of the Medellin syndicate, drug production continues as usual. Medellin’s markets, resources, stocks and many of its personnel have been incorporated into the rival Cali syndicate, making it now the world’s leading cocaine trafficker.

Alternative development in its many guises (like crop substitution, socio-economic development, integrated rural development) has been attempted most vigorously in Bolivia and Thailand. Alternative development is more politically acceptable than more direct ways of reducing illicit drug supplies, since it promises new income opportunities within a context of socio-economic development, states the UNRISD report.