Transcript caravan for sale at the Belgian coast

Chapter Thirteen
The Drug Business
The Historical Background of the
Drug Business
•
•
The earliest “war against drugs” in the United
States was in response to opium
At a time when the practice of medicine was
quite primitive, opium became the essential
ingredient in innumerable remedies dispensed
in Europe and America for the treatment of
diarrhea, dysentery, asthma, rheumatism,
diabetes, malaria, cholera, fevers, bronchitis,
insomnia, and pain of any kind
History Cont.
•
As the primary ingredient in many
“patent” medicines—actually, secret
formulas that carried no patent at all—
opiates were readily available in the
United States until 1914
History Cont.
•
Around the turn of the eighteenth
century, a German pharmacist poured
liquid ammonia over opium and obtained
an alkaloid, a white powder that he found
to be many times more powerful than
opium
–
He named the substance morphium
History Cont.
• By the 1850s, morphine tablets and a
variety of morphine products were readily
available without prescription
• In 1856, the hypodermic method of
injecting morphine directly into the
bloodstream was introduced to American
medicine
• In the 1870s, morphine was exceedingly
cheap, cheaper than alcohol
History Cont.
•
At the turn of the twentieth century,
diacetylmorphine was synthesized,
creating the most powerful of the
opiates—heroin—marketed as a
nonhabit-forming analgesic to take the
place of morphine
History Cont.
•
Opiates, including morphine and heroin,
were readily available in the United
States until 1914
China and the Opium Wars
•
•
•
The American response to drugs in the
twentieth century is directly related to
international affairs and trade with China
The British East India Company enjoyed a
government-granted monopoly over the China
trade
Opium was first prohibited by the Chinese
government in 1729, a time when only small
amounts of the substance were reaching
China
Opium Wars Cont.
• In 1782, an attempt by a British merchant
ship to sell 1,601 chests of opium resulted
in a total loss, for no purchasers could be
found
• By 1799, however, a growing traffic in
opium led to an imperial decree banning
the trade
Opium Wars Cont.
• As consumption of imported opium
increased and the method of ingestion
shifted from eating to smoking, official
declarations against opium increased, as
did smuggling
• The outlawing of opium by the Chinese
government led to the development of an
organized underworld
Opium Wars Cont.
• In the 1830s the shippers grew bolder,
entering Chinese territorial waters with
their opium cargo
• In 1839, in a dramatic move, Chinese
authorities laid siege to the port city of
Canton, confiscating and destroying all
opium waiting offloading from foreign ships
Opium Wars Cont.
• In 1840, a British expedition attacked the poorly
armed and organized Chinese forces
• The Second Opium War began in 1856, when
the balance of payments once again favored
China
• In the 1870s, the British opium monopoly in
China was challenged by opium imported from
Persia and cultivated in China itself
The “Chinese Problem” and the
American Response
• By the 1860s Chinese immigrants were
clustering in Pacific Coast cities, where
they established Chinatowns—and
smoked opium
• In 1887, Congress responded to
obligations imposed on the United States
by a Chinese-American commercial treaty
by banning the importation of smoking
opium by Chinese subjects
The “Chinese Problem” Cont.
•
•
•
Domestic anti-Chinese legislation raised the ire
of China against the United States
In 1901, Congress enacted the Native Races
Act, which prohibited the sale of alcohol and
opium to “aboriginal tribes and uncivilized
races”
In 1905 Congress banned the sale of opium to
Filipino natives except for medicinal purposes
and three years later banned sales to all
Philippines residents
The “Chinese Problem” Cont.
•
•
•
Reverend Brent, supporter of the IRB,
proposed the formation of an international
opium commission to meet in Shanghai in
1909
A second conference was held in The Hague
in 1912, with representatives from the United
States, China, and ten other nations
The conference resulted in a patchwork of
agreements known as the International Opium
Convention, which was ratified by Congress in
1913
The Harrison Act
•
The Harrison Act provided that persons
in the business of dealing in drugs
covered by the act—including opium
derivatives and cocaine—were required
to register yearly and to pay a special
annual tax of $1
The Harrison Act Cont.
•
The statute made it illegal to sell or give
away opium or opium derivatives and
coca or its derivatives without a written
order on a form issued by the
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
The Harrison Act Cont.
•
Persons who were not registered were
prohibited from engaging in interstate
drug trafficking, and anyone who
possessed drugs without first registering
and paying the tax faced a penalty of as
long as five years imprisonment and a
fine of as much as $2,000
The Harrison Act Cont.
• Concern over federalism—constitutional
limitations on the police powers of the
central government—led Congress to use
the taxing authority rather than the police
authority of the federal government to
respond to the problem of drug control
• The Commissioner of Internal Revenue
was in charge of upholding the Harrison
Act
The Harrison Act Cont.
• In 1915, 162 collectors and agents of the
Miscellaneous Division of the Internal Revenue
Service were given the responsibility of
enforcing drug laws
• In 1919, a narcotics division was created within
the Bureau of Prohibition, with a staff of 170
agents and an appropriation of $270,000
• The powers of the narcotics division were clearly
limited to the enforcement of registration and
record-keeping regulations
The Harrison Act Cont.
• Beginning in 1918, narcotic clinics opened
in almost every major city
• Following WWI, the medical profession
stopped dispensing drugs to addicts,
forcing them to look to illicit sources and
giving rise to an enormous illegal drug
business
The Business of Heroin
• Like any other business that is
international in scope, heroin trafficking
requires extensive transportation
networks, but since the commodity is
illegal, these operate in the shadows of
global trade
• Drug barons base their operations in
remote safe havens
The Business of Heroin Cont.
•
Most of the heroin smuggled into the
United States originates in such areas
where the opium poppy thrives—parts of
Asia known as the Golden Triangle, the
Golden Crescent, Mexico, and, more
recently, Colombia
The Golden Triangle
•
•
The Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia
encompasses approximately 150,000 square
miles of forested highlands, including the
western fringe of Laos, the four northern
provinces of Thailand, and the northeastern
parts of Burma
Burma is the world’s second largest producer
of opium and accounts for about 90 percent of
the total heroin production of the Golden
Triangle
The Golden Triangle Cont.
• Transnational organized crime groups in
Myanmar operate a multibillion-dollar
criminal industry that stretches across
Southeast Asia
• In 1826, the British introduced opium use
into their colony of Burma
The Golden Triangle Cont.
•
•
French colonial officials in Golden
Triangle used paramilitary organizations
and indigenous tribes against various
insurgent groups, particularly those
following a Marxist ideology
The French withdrew from Southeast
Asia in 1955, and several years later the
United States took up the struggle
against Marxist groups
The Kuomintang (KMT)
• With the defeat of the Chinese Nationalist
forces in 1949, the Third and Fifth Armies
of Chiang Kai-shek stationed in the remote
southern province of Yunnan escaped
over the mountainous frontier into Burma’s
Shan States
The Kuomintang (KMT) Cont.
• In 1961, the People’s Republic of China
drove the KMT into the Thai portion of the
Golden Triangle
• In 1961 and 1969, U.S.-backed airlifts of
KMT troops to Taiwan were the last official
contacts between the KMT remnants on
the mainland and Chiang Kai-shek’s
government
The Kuomintang (KMT) Cont.
•
The remaining troops, about 4,000
strong, became known as the Chinese
Irregular Forces (CIF)
The Shan United Army/Mong Tain
Army
•
•
The Shan States, an area somewhat
larger than England, lie on a rugged, hilly
plateau in the eastern part of central
Burma, flanking the western border of
China’s Yunnan Province
They contain an array of tribal and
linguistic groupings. The largest group is
the Shans
The Shan United Army/Mong Tain
Army Cont.
•
The Burmese government’s heavyhanded approach to the Shan States set
the stage for revolution
The Shan United Army/Mong Tain
Army Cont.
•
Originally known as the Shan United
Army (SUA), the Mong Tai Army (MTA;
Mong Tai is Shan for “Shan State), under
the leadership of Chang Chifu, who is
half-Chinese, half-Shan and better
known as Khun Sa, resorted to opium
trafficking in order to purchase arms and
support its independence movement
The Shan United Army/Mong Tain
Army Cont.
• The SUA/MTA came to dominate the opium
trade along the Thai-Burma border where about
400,000 hill tribesmen had no source of income
other than heroin
• In the 1980s the Thai government succeeded in
driving the MTA out of Thailand and back into
Burma, but the group continued to dominate
opium traffic, taxing drug caravans crossing their
territory
The Shan United Army/Mong Tain
Army Cont.
•
Golden Triangle traffickers began to
recognize the value of switching from
heroin to amphetamine: It made
unnecessary the cultivating vast field of
poppies and the manufacturing could be
accomplished in small one-room
laboratories
The Shan United Army/Mong Tain
Army Cont.
•
•
•
In 1994, a joint U.S./Thai operation
(“Tiger Trap”) closed the Thai/Myanmar
border in areas where the MTA operated
Khun Sa began secret negotiations with
Myanmar and in 1996 a deal was made
As a result, the amount of Southeast
Asian heroin entering the United States
dropped dramatically
United Wa State Army
• Until 1989, another formidable private
army in the Golden Triangle served the
Burmese Communist Party (BCP)
• In 1989, its ethnic rank-and-file Wa
tribesmen—fierce warriors whose
ancestors were headhunters—rebelled,
and the BCP folded as an armed force
United Wa State Army Cont.
• United Wa State Army (UWSA) uses
heroin—and more recently
methamphetamine—trafficking as a
means of funding efforts against Burmese
control
• Since the surrender of the SUA/MTA, the
USWA has reigned supreme in narcotics
production in Burma
United Wa State Army Cont.
•
•
In 2000, Myanmar negotiated a truce
with the Wa which gave them autonomy
in their state and the Wa reached an
accommodation with China
In 2005, eight senior leaders of the
United Wa State Army (UWSA) were
indicted in the United States on charges
of heroin and methamphetamine
trafficking
Thailand
•
Whether the source is the BCP, CIF,
MTA, SSA-A, or the UWSA, opium in the
form of morphine base or of almost pure
heroin, as well as methamphetamine, is
usually brokered in Thailand, which has
modern communications and
transportation systems
Thailand Cont.
• In 1991 a military coup—one of 17 since
1932—overthrew the democratically
elected Thai government
• In 2001, a democratically elected prime
minister initiated a vigorous campaign
against the trade in methamphetamine, a
major drug problem in Thailand
Thailand Cont.
• At the center of much of Thai drug trafficking are
ethnic Chinese organizations such as the Triads
• According the U.S. Department of State (2008),
ethnic Chinese groups dominate the drug
syndicates operating in areas controlled by the
UWSA and the SSA-S
• The central role that the Golden Triangle played
in the heroin trade has been significantly
diminished, in part because of economic
pressure from China
The Golden Crescent
• The Golden Crescent of Southwest Asia
includes parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
• Pakistan has been a producer of opium for
export since the earliest time of Muslim rule and
the later British Empire
• Much of the heroin trade in and from Pakistan is
controlled by a consortium of three Quettabased families, referred to as the Quetta Alliance
The Golden Crescent Cont.
•
•
The Pashtuns: a tribal group that
founded Afghanistan
Opium is the cash crop that has
traditionally enabled feuding tribes in
Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s Northwest
Frontier Province to purchase weapons
and ammunition
The Golden Crescent Cont.
•
By 1998, the Islamic fundamentalist
Taliban movement, made up primarily of
Pashtuns, controlled most of the country,
and Afghanistan became one of the
world’s largest producers of heroin
The Golden Crescent Cont.
• Until 2001, the country was the world’s
second largest grower of the opium poppy,
producing about one-third of the heroin
entering the United States, and about 80
percent of the heroin consumed in Europe
• Afghanistan now produces 90 percent of
the world’s opium and the drug trade
represents more than half of the country’s
gross domestic product
The Golden Crescent Cont.
•
The United States has pressured
Pakistan to move against poppy
cultivation, but the infusion of hundreds
of thousands of Afghan tribesmen into
Pakistan has made this difficult, if not
impossible
Mexico
• Mexico is the source of “black tar” or
brown heroin, which gained a foothold in
the American drug market after the demise
of the “French Connection”
• In the five years after the collapse of the
French connection, Mexico became the
major source of U.S. heroin
• Black tar“ heroin is a less refined but more
potent form of the substance
Mexico Cont.
• The poppy is not native to Mexico but was
brought into the country at the turn of the
twentieth century by Chinese laborers who
were helping to build the railroad system
• The vast and remote border between
Mexico and the United States makes
patrolling very difficult and facilitates the
transportation of drugs into Texas,
California, Arizona, and New Mexico
Colombia
•
•
Since the 1980s Colombia has become a
major poppy grower and Colombians
have become major heroin wholesalers
By 1998, Colombian heroin accounted
for more than 50 percent of the drug
smuggled into the United States
Cocaine
•
•
Cocaine is an alkaloid found in significant
quantities only in the leaves of two
species of coca shrub
In the middle of the nineteenth century,
scientists began experimenting with the
substance, noting that it showed promise
as a local anesthetic and had an effect
opposite that of morphine
Cocaine Cont.
• By the late 1880s, a feel-good
pharmacology based on the coca plant
and its derivative cocaine was promoted
for everything from headaches to hysteria
• After the turn of the century, cocaine, like
heroin, became identified with the urban
underworld
Cocaine Cont.
• From 1930 until the 1960s there was
limited demand for cocaine and,
accordingly, only limited supply
• During the late 1960s and early 1970s
attitudes toward recreational drug use
became more relaxed, a spin-off of the
wide acceptance of marijuana
• Cocaine soon became associated with a
privileged elite
The Business of Cocaine
•
For many decades, coca leaf was
converted to cocaine base in Bolivia and
Peru, then smuggled by small aircraft or
boat into Colombia where it was refined
into cocaine in jungle laboratories
The Business of Cocaine Cont.
•
Some Colombian traffickers set up
laboratories in other Latin American
countries and even the United States in
response to increased law enforcement
in Colombia and the increasing cost of
ether, sulfuric acid, and acetone in
Colombia
The Business of Cocaine Cont.
•
In the past, because the quality of
Colombian coca was significantly less
than that grown in Peru and Bolivia,
Colombia had not been a major coca
producer
The Distribution of Heroin and
Cocaine
• The organizers who arrange for the
importation and wholesale distribution of
heroin and cocaine typically avoid physical
possession
• Importation often entails little or no risk of
arrest—heroin or cocaine can be secreted
in a variety of imported goods, and
possession cannot be proven
Distribution Cont.
• The enormous profits that accrue in the
business of drugs are part of a criminal
underworld where violence is always an
attendant reality
• Below the multi-kilo wholesale level,
cocaine or heroin is an easy-entry
business, requiring only a source,
clientele, and funds
Distribution Cont.
• The sale of heroin and cocaine/crack is
carried out by thousands of small-time
operators who dominate particular local
markets
• Control is exercised through violence
Methamphetamines
• Amphetamines are synthetic drugs, and
their effects are similar those of cocaine
• First synthesized in 1887, amphetamines
were introduced into clinical use in the
1930s and were eventually offered as a
“cure-all” for just about every ailment
• Legally produced amphetamine is taken in
the form of tablets or capsules
Methamphetamines Cont.
• Illegally produced amphetamine is
available in tablet and powdered form
(called “ice”) that is sometimes smoked
• There are three basic types of
amphetamine, but the methylamphetamines have the greatest potential
for abuse because they are fast acting and
produce a “rush”
Methamphetamines Cont.
•
The main active ingredient in
methamphetamine, phenyl-2-propanone,
referred to as P2P, is widely available in
Europe, and bulk shipments of P2P from
Germany are often the source of illegal
methamphetamine produced in the
United States
Methamphetamines Cont.
•
The illegal activities associated with
methamphetamine production and
hazardous waste encompass more than
the clandestine lab cooks and workers
Methamphetamines Cont.
•
The distribution of methamphetamine
has been a main staple of outlaw bikers,
although there has been an increase in
the involvement of Mexican gangs
operating in southern California, where
they produce methamphetamine in
unpopulated desert areas
Cannabis/Marijuana
• State laws against marijuana were often
part of a reaction to Mexican immigration
• In 1937, Congress passed the Marijuana
Tax Act, which put an end to lawful
recreational use of the substance
• The source of marijuana, the hemp plant,
grows wild throughout most of the tropical
and temperate regions of the world,
including parts of the United States
Marijuana Cont.
• Hemp has been cultivated for several
useful products
• Hashish, which is usually imported from
the Middle East, contains the drug-rich
resinous secretions of the cannabis plant,
which are collected, dried, and then
compressed into a variety of forms—balls,
cakes, or sheets
Marijuana Cont.
• There is little or no pattern to marijuana
trafficking in the United States, although
some areas have apparently gotten
hooked on the business
• The marijuana business has a positive
impact on the legitimate economy
supported by the cultivators—everything
from grocery stores to car dealerships,
depend on marijuana
Barbiturates
• There are about 2,500 derivatives of
barbituric acid and dozens of brand names
for these derivatives
• Lawfully produced barbiturates are found
in tablet or capsule form
• Illegal barbiturates may be found in liquid
form for intravenous use because lawfully
produced barbiturates are poorly soluble in
water
Barbiturates Cont.
•
•
At relatively high dosages they are used
as anesthetics for minor surgery and to
induce anesthesia before the
administration of slow-acting barbiturates
There is no apparent pattern to the illegal
market in barbiturates, and traffickers
may sell them as part of their portfolio
Methaqualone
•
•
Methaqualone was first synthesized in
1951 in India, where it was introduced as
an antimalarial drug but found to be
ineffective
Eight years after it was first introduced
into the United States, methaqualone’s
dangers became evident
Methaqualone Cont.
• Although the drug is chemically unrelated
to barbiturates, methaqualone intoxication
is similar to barbiturate intoxication
• Methaqualone is now illegally
manufactured in Colombia and smuggled
into the United States
Phencyclidine
•
•
Phencyclidine is reported to have
received the name PCP—“peace pill”—
on the streets of San Francisco
There are more than one hundred
variations (analogs) of the substance
Phencyclidine Cont.
•
In the 1960s, PCP became commercially
available for use in veterinary medicine
as an analgesic and anesthetic, but
diversion to street use led the
manufacturer to discontinue production
in 1978
Phencyclidine Cont.
• It is now produced easily and cheaply in
clandestine laboratories in tablet, capsule,
powder, and liquid form and sometimes
sold as LSD
• Like methamphetamine, PCP has been
distributed by outlaw motorcycle clubs
Ecstasy
•
Ecstasy, the common name for 3, 4MethyleneDioxyMethAmphetamine or
MDMA, is a synthetic drug with a
chemical structure similar to the
stimulant methamphetamine and the
hallucinogen mescaline
Ecstasy Cont.
•
Ecstasy did not receive a great deal of
attention until its “rediscovery” in the late
1970s that ecstasy received a great deal
of attention because of its purported
ability to produce profound pleasurable
effects
Ecstasy Cont.
•
Although most MDMA/ecstasy consumed
domestically is produced in Europe—
primarily the Netherlands and Belgium—
a limited number of MDMA labs operate
in the United States
Ecstasy Cont.
•
In recent years, Israeli crime syndicates,
some composed of Russian émigrés
associated with Russian OC, have
forged relationships with Western
European traffickers and gained control
over a significant share of the European
market
LSD
•
In 1949, LSD was introduced into the
United States as an experimental drug
for treating psychiatric illnesses, but until
1954 it remained relatively rare and
expensive, because its ingredients were
difficult to cultivate
LSD Cont.
• LSD is colorless, odorless, and tasteless,
and it is relatively easy to produce
• LSD was popular for a time during the
1960s, when it became part of the “hippie”
culture
• Current use appears limited, and
distribution patterns are not well known
Analogs and Designer Drugs
• There are many chemical variations, or
analogs, of the drugs discussed in this
chapter
– For example, semi-synthetic opiates such as
hydromorphine, oxycodone, etorphine, and
diprenorphine, as well as synthetic opiates
such as pethidine, methadone, and
propoxyphene