Drug Trafficking

Drug trafficking involves the commercial trading, smuggling, or distributing of illegal drugs and/or the paraphernalia used to produce or consume these illegal substances. Drug trafficking and corresponding drug use are, and have been, two persistent concerns to law enforcement agencies. Drug trafficking, drug users, and drug offenders involve many different racial groups and vary from street-level dealings to large-scale drug trafficking organizations. This entry describes the history of drug trafficking and contemporary drug transporting and distribution threats to the United States.

America's first drug epidemic can be traced to the 1850s when the Chinese, bringing with them opium, began migrating to the United States to work in the gold mines and on the railroads. Opium began spreading steadily east across the nation, and soon Americans of all ages were addicted to opium as well as other opiates, such as morphine, and newfound drugs, like cocaine and heroin, often used for pain management. Cities and states began passing antidrug laws in an effort to combat the epidemic. Simultaneously, the federal government initiated a movement to limit opium and coca plant production.

By the end of World War II, drugs were seen as only a minor social problem. At this time, the United States could find no legitimate linkage between drugs and racial/ethnic minorities. The decade of the 1960s brought with it drugs like marijuana, amphetamines, psychedelics, and a generation who had long forgotten the first drug epidemic. This generation of recreational drug users believed drugs were part of the “hip” social culture of the time. During the 1960s, the drug culture exploded and opened the United States and the world to major drug trafficking. These new concerns involving illegal drugs and their trafficking caused the U.S. government to create the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973, in an attempt to quell the growing problem.

Drug use was not suppressed as hoped, and use has continued since its peak in 1979. This peak came about due to the resurgence of powder cocaine use during the 1970s and 1980s and the Colombian drug mafia's introduction of crack cocaine in the 1980s. The combination of crack and powder cocaine cast America into its most devastating drug crisis yet. The 1990s saw the War on Drugs, in which there was a push by society to target crack and powder cocaine use and trafficking. New laws, strategies, and tactics were put in place in a strong attempt to crush the drug dilemma of the 1970s and 1980s.

Today, the United States' largest drug threats arise from drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), which are primarily Mexican and Colombian associations and have a clear hierarchy of command. These operations manufacture, smuggle, and distribute multiple illegal substances. This then creates a huge challenge to law enforcement across the country. In the 2008 National Drug Threat [Page 236]Assessment, Mexican DTOs were considered the most insidious organized drug groups threatening the United States today. This is primarily because these DTOs tend to control every aspect of the drug trafficking industry. For example, in Florida, the Mexican DTOs have replaced street-level distribution by African American gangs and have taken over the entire drug market.

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