Effective Drug Control: Toward A New Legal Framework

The black market in psychoactive substances runs rampant in urban, suburban and
rural areas alike throughout the United States, and on a global scale the trade in
prohibited drugs generates over $400 billion a year, 396 with as much as $500 million
laundered through the U.S. financial system each year. 397 What are essentially small,
illegal corporations are sprouting up in an increasingly sophisticated black market, with
salaries, per diem and meal allowances, manufacturing setups and inventory. These
clever operations go to great lengths to avoid detection. 398
The trade in marijuana, a substance known for its pacifying qualities, has grown
more violent as highly organized, well-armed groups that once focused on cocaine and
heroin are now dealing in marijuana, as well. The increase in price due to higher
potency, varieties grown indoors domestically has made dealing in the drug more
attractive to gangs who use violence to maintain control of their markets. 399
Drug dealers are increasingly moving into rural areas, where crimes rates are
rising in comparison with most cities. Rural areas with incomes below the poverty level
and few job opportunities are ripe for the prohibited drug trade and limited law
enforcement resources in poor counties allow drug dealers to maintain flourishing
business. Junior high and high school students in rural areas are using more crack
cocaine and even more methamphetamine, with heroin use rising to comparable levels
among young people in metropolitan areas. 400
Towns along the U.S. border with Mexico are being taken over by violence
arising from the drug trade, as the powerful Mexican cartels have “turned the streets into
battlefields and plazas overtaken by gunmen firing grenades and assault weapons.” 401
The murder of a journalist from Nuevo Laredo had a chilling effect on news
organizations along the border, as the editor of one newspaper admitted, “We censor
ourselves. The drug war is lost. We are alone. And I don’t want to put anyone else at
risk for a reality that is never going to change.” 402
Mexican drug dealers are taking advantage of the high rates of Mexican
immigration to factory and farming towns in the United States, using those towns as
distribution centers for methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and other drugs. The dealers
use the cover of working immigrants to blend into the community and recruit drug
couriers from the immigrants who cannot find jobs or have lost theirs. 403 Mexican cartels
have largely taken over marijuana production in the U.S., concentrating their cultivation
efforts in California rather than trying to smuggle it from Mexico. Mexican cartels are
known to be growing marijuana on Forest Service lands throughout the West. 404
With such high profit margins, corruption is rife among underpaid government
officials and police. It is estimated that Mexican drug gangs make $3 billion to $30
billion annually by smuggling cocaine across the U.S. border. The gangs are believed to
have police, politicians and judges on their payrolls. This was evident when the entire
police force of the state of Morelos was suspended after the chief of detectives was
arrested on federal drug trafficking charges. 405 Drug gangs also put pressure on law
enforcement either to accept kickbacks or risk retribution. 406