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Fragile states are said to threaten international security by providing hospitable environments for transnational crime. “Failing states are inextricably linked to the increasing power of international criminal networks and ‘illegal’ economies,” the United Kingdom's Prime Minister's Strategy Unit contends. This connection makes intuitive sense: Weak regimes may lack the capacity or will to combat crime, while the corruption, insecurity, and weak rule of law found in many fragile states play to criminals' advantage. This chapter evaluates the connection between state weakness and transnational crime, paying special attention to six sectors of crime: narcotics production and trafficking; human trafficking; small arms trade; money laundering; environmental crime; and maritime piracy. It argues that the relationship between transnational crime and weak states is more complicated than popular mythology suggests.

This chapter describes what is known about drug markets, and the nature and extent of harms that arise from them. It begins with a brief theoretical discussion about the structure, prices, availability, and product quality of illegal markets. The discussion of harms distinguishes between drug production and international trafficking on the one hand, and wholesale distribution and retail marketing of drugs on the other. Each affects a specific set of communities and nations in a particular fashion.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the global expansion of psychoactive substance use. It then discusses current international drug control treaties, the implementation of the treaties, the dominant role of the USA, and the effects of the international drug control system.

After a short introduction to law enforcement in the law of the sea, this chapter considers each maritime zone in turn, beginning with those closest to the state's land territory (ports and internal waters) and the territorial sea (straits, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone, and the high seas). For each zone addressed, particular issues for law enforcement in relation to maritime security threats are discussed, notably in relation to transnational crime (such as drug trafficking and people-smuggling), piracy and armed robbery, marine pollution, and IUU fishing. It is shown that there has been greater recognition of enforcement powers to respond to maritime security threats, and this recognition has usually come at the expense of sovereign interests in certain maritime areas and over vessels.

This chapter focuses on drug use and the drug trafficking that sustains it. Because alcohol is also a drug and is closely associated with addiction worldwide, attention is paid to its use and abuse as well. Following an introductory discussion of the nature of addiction, the chapter describes drug trafficking as a global enterprise with an effect on every continent. It examines two approaches to the problem of the drug trade. The first, which is favored by the US government, involves a declaration of war on the suppliers and users of drugs. The second approach is geared toward reducing the demand for drugs through harm reduction; this approach is favored in Europe and is rapidly gaining proponents elsewhere. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the principles of harm reduction and implications for the social work profession.

This chapter discusses the cooperative efforts undertaken by the United States and Cuba during the 1990s in addressing the dilemmas of drug trafficking. This chapter provides a brief overview of the role of drugs and their criminality in Cuba's prerevolution history. The chapter also discusses the Castro regime's drug policies from the early years of the revolution until the fall of the Soviet Union. Focus is centered on the 1990s, especially on the important cases of U.S.-Cuban drug interdiction, beginning with the 1996 joint seizure and search for the Limerick. The concluding discussion offers an analysis of U.S-Cuban cooperative efforts including the state of cooperation during the George W. Bush administration.

Tackling the other contentious border issue today, this chapter articulates the facet of the proposed harm reduction agenda that sweeps aside the current protocol in which undocumented immigration, drug trafficking, and the amorphous terrorist threat define our U.S.-Mexico border agenda and push us toward militarizing the border to no avail in stopping entries. The drug reform proposal couples decriminalization of certain less harmful drugs with an increased regulatory emphasis on the demand side in the form of funding addiction and treatment programs.

This chapter discusses the characteristics of the wholesale heroin market by examining some of the major drug trafficking cases between Burma and China since the mid-1980s. It takes an in-depth look at the rise and fall of a heroin kingpin, Tan Xiaolin, and mid-level heroin traffickers, Jiang Jiatian and Yang Jufen. It examines the role of southern China in wholesale drug trafficking, especially Guangdong and its vicinity. It concludes that the Chinese high-level drug market is very similar to the high-level drug trades in the United States, the Great Britain, and Canada, but very different from those in Mexico and Colombia, especially in terms of monopoly, violence, and corruption. Drug markets in countries like the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and China, under strict enforcement, tend to be small, nonhierarchical, poorly organized, with less violence and corruption, and exist on the margins of society. In lax enforcement countries such as Mexico and Colombia, drug trafficking organizations tend to be larger, better organized, more likely to use violence and corruption. Members of these organizations “can lead very comfortable lives, publicly enjoying their wealth and circulating in high society in the company of high level politicians.”

This chapter discusses the rise of entrepreneurial traffickers (both upper-and lower-level) in the Chinese drug market. First, it examines the relationship between organized crime groups and drug trafficking and distribution. It then moves on to the social organization of the drug trade by exploring issues such as fragmented trafficking process, hierarchy and division of labor, mobility within the drug trade, and self-preservation measures. It finds that China’s heroin trade consists mostly of highly fragmented stages and mutually isolated groups of entrepreneurs. In fact, all traffickers were involved in particular segments or specific stages of the drug trade, picking up their consignment at one point and moving it to the next. There were no organizations or traffickers that operated in multiple markets or exerted influence beyond their point of delivery. This is not to say that drug trafficking is not organized or coordinated among these entrepreneurs. Careful planning and execution are fundamental to operational success; and redundancy is kept to a minimum since every task is carried out by “trusted” partners. However, such organized behavior should not be confused with the concept of a formal organization, which implies operational regularity and existential continuity.

This chapter examines drug trafficking and drug policies in the European Union, focusing on the interconnections between Latin America and Europe. The author explores the general trends in the EU drug market and focuses on the various institutions involved in drug policies

This chapter discusses how authorities in China are combating the drug trade. It focuses on measures adopted by the Chinese authorities, especially community mobilization, harsh punishment, and the professionalization of the drug enforcement police force. It also examines how Chinese officials are working with authorities from the United States, Burma, and Hong Kong to stem the flow of drugs across international borders. It finds that despite meager budgets and poor equipment, Chinese law enforcement agencies have been striving to gain an upper hand in their war against drugs. China’s struggle against illicit drugs will remain an uphill battle in the foreseeable future, considering the country’s growing wealth and urbanization, and adding to the mix poor neighboring countries with a long history of opium cultivation and a weak government. China will have few choices but to increase its investment in building drug enforcement infrastructure and training its police forces.

This chapter examines drug trafficking in Argentina as well as the role of Argentina in the regional and international drug industry, focusing particularly on consumption. The work also examines the drug policies of the Argentina government.

This chapter analyzes the major trends in drug trafficking and organized crime in the region. It explores the consequences of the U.S.-led war on drugs in the Americas and provides an excellent overview of the major tendencies and obstacles that exist.

This chapter introduces the concept of banishment. It discusses the return of banishment through the stories of three individuals in Seattle, who supposedly violated the trespass law and drug traffic loitering ordinance. It then analyzes the return of banishment, which is widely considered as an archaic legal practice. Another archaic legal practice discussed in this chapter is the revival of police power. The chapter also explains why the study focuses on the rise of banishment in Seattle and provides an outline of the chapters that follow.

This chapter studies the role of The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) and its impact on drug policy. The work provides an exhaustive analysis of the evolution of CICAD and how this institution operates.

This chapter focuses on low-level drug traffickers. Using a survey of 578 convicted drug traffickers inside a Chinese prison and in-depth interviews with a small number of drug inmates, it examines the individual and group characteristics of these convicted drug traffickers. It explores what they were convicted for, what were their sentences, and how they entered the drug business in the first place. It also analyzes one particular method of drug trafficking between Burma and China, the “ants-moving-house” method. In response to law enforcement crackdowns on large-scale heroin trafficking activities and to take advantage of the strong supply of willing risk takers, many traffickers in China move only small quantities of heroin by mule. The chapter discusses what the routes are, where and how mules are recruited, and the social organization of this particular method of heroin trafficking.

This book starts with a discussion of the case of the Herran Olozaga brothers, which demonstrates that cross-border drug trafficking in Latin America was anything but an enterprise of the poor. On the contrary, it demanded a certain know-how as well as financial capital and international connections. In view of such requirements, it is little wonder that a considerable number of drug traffickers who operated in the region during these years were of immigrant origin. Furthermore, the incident involving the Herran Olozaga brothers assumes added significance precisely because it did not represent an isolated event in mid-twentieth-century Cuba. All through the era of Prohibition in the United States, from 1920 until the mid-1930s, the island served as a source of contraband alcohol for its northern neighbor, and illegal drugs were sent from Cuba to be processed in European laboratories.

This chapter provides a historical analysis of the war on drugs in Colombia. This work analyzes the judicial, legal, and institutional aspects of the different “wars” against drug trafficking that have occurred in Colombia since the 1970s. The chapter examines various strategies, such as Plan Colombia.