First of all, The United States Department of Justice is aware of the major states to which illegal drugs are imported. They have noted that largely coastal regions, including New York, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and California have the largest numbers of drug importation. Many of the major providers are also well known. For example, Columbia provides 90% of our nations cocaine followed by Venezuela, another producer. Another country that is known for drug trafficking throughout the United States is Mexico. This is especially an issue because of Mexico’s proximity and the easy access to its (illegal) resources. Though all these major producers and providers are not part of the United States, we as a country are still greatly affected by their dealings. The fact that we know all the major providers shows that this nation is aware of where these illegal drugs are coming from yet still not showing focus in preventing such distribution in these specific areas. However, the Department of Health and Human Services seems to be somewhat moving in this direction. They have asked the Import Task Force to consider creating policies such as limiting countries from which importation can be permitted and limiting legal importation to wholesale shipments rather than separate individual ones. These revisions could potentially better our system and reduce the accessibility of illegal drugs.
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3 comments:
I have always been skeptical of how so many illegal drugs always seem to be coming into our country. I know that there are obviously small ships that are apart of drug trafficing, but I never knew that our government knows where the drugs are coming from and have failed to persue anything about it. I would think that we (the US Government) would be doing as much as we can to eliminate these drugs from coming into our country if we knew the primary sources (which we apparently do). It is disappointing to know this because obviously it will be hard to get drugs off of the streets if they are continuously brought into the country.
The US government and Justice System is focusing too much of its energy on convicting drug dealers and drug users when they should be targeting the producers and suppliers coming in from out of the country. This would reduce the amount of drug dealing and using simply because it would reduce the supply coming in. Even if the US government knows which countries are the main producers of the drugs that enter the US that does not particularly mean that they know how they come into the country. But if they do than their must be a different reason why these openings (or whatever you want to call it) are not being closed.
I have been seeing reports in the news and on TV lately that heroin usage is on the rise again. Apparently many heroin users were initially addicted to prescribed pain meds, typically Oxycontin, but switched to heroin because it is cheaper and easier to get than Oxycontin being sold illegally. It brings up an interesting point about how to best go about the "war on drugs". Perhaps a good place to start is to look at the legal prescription medications that are causing some addictions. Of course limiting illegal drugs from entering the country is ideal; if they aren't here, then there isn't any problem. But so far we've been unsuccessful to that end. In light of that, shouldn't some of our efforts be targeted toward education and prevention?
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