addiction
Support this blog by clicking on the ads, thanks for your support!
gambling
ALCOHOL
The illegal drug market in the United States is one of the most profitable in the world. As such, it attracts the most ruthless, sophisticated, and aggressive drug traffickers. Drug law enforcement agencies face an enormous challenge in protecting the country's borders. Each year, according to the U.S. Customs Service, 60 million people enter the United States on more than 675,000 commercial and private flights. Another 6 million come by sea and 370 million by land. In addition, 116 million vehicles cross the land borders with Canada and Mexico. More than 90,000 merchant and passenger ships dock at U.S. ports. These ships carry more than 9 million shipping containers and 400 million tons of cargo. Another 157,000 smaller vessels visit our many coastal towns. Amid this voluminous trade, drug traffickers conceal cocaine, heroin, marijuana, MDMA, and methamphetamine shipments for distribution in U.S. neighborhoods.
Diverse groups traffic and distribute illegal drugs. Criminal groups operating from South America smuggle cocaine and heroin into the United States via a variety of routes, including land routes through Mexico, maritime routes along Mexico's east and west coasts, sea routes through the Caribbean, and international air corridors. Furthermore, criminal groups operating from neighboring Mexico smuggle cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, amphetamine, and marijuana into the United States. These criminal groups have smuggled heroin and marijuana across the Southwest Border and distributed them throughout the United States since the 1970s. In addition to distributing cocaine and methamphetamine in the West and Midwest, these Mexico-based groups now are attempting to expand the distribution of those drugs into eastern U.S. markets.
Likewise, the use of the drug 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), also known on the street as "Ecstasy," has increased at an alarming rate in the United States over the last several years. Israeli and Russian drug trafficking syndicates and Western Europe-based drug traffickers are the principal traffickers of MDMA worldwide. MDMA, primarily manufactured clandestinely in Western Europe, is smuggled into the United States by couriers via commercial airlines, as well as through the use of express package carriers. Finally, criminal groups based in Southeast and Southwest Asia smuggle heroin into the United States. Using New York City as a major distribution hub, these criminal groups move heroin up and down the eastern seaboard and into the Midwest.
Besides these criminal groups based abroad, domestic organizations cultivate, produce, manufacture, or distribute illegal drugs such as marijuana, methamphetamine, phencyclidine (PCP), and lysergic acid diethyamide (LSD). By growing high-potency sinsemilla, domestic cannabis growers provide marijuana that easily competes with other illegal drugs. With demand for methamphetamine remaining high, especially in the West and Midwest, so, too, does the number of illicit laboratories that supply methamphetamine to a growing number of addicts. Additionally, a small number of chemists manufacture LSD that is subsequently distributed primarily to high school and college students throughout the World.
