Cocaine Traffickers Winning the Drug War

Posted by azdrugrehabctr on October 20, 2015 under Addiction Trends | Comments are off for this article

Americans who consume cocaine likely have purchased the drug from a dealer or a friend. They use the drug recreationally or habitually, but very rarely does anyone really consider where the powerful narcotic actually came from. Most of the cocaine that is smuggled into the country comes from Peru and other South American countries. Across the border there are wars, crimes, and murders committed every day so that the cocaine trade can continue. South American governments work tirelessly to combat the drug traffickers, but United States residents and their insatiable demand for cocaine, help to fuel the cocaine trade and war.

In an attempt to deal a severe blow to drug traffickers, many are calling for the ability to better monitor the air space over the Amazon rainforest. Deep within the forest, cocaine manufacturers utilize small planes to deposit money and pick up large packages of cocaine. These transactions do not only deal with cocaine that is destined for the U.S. Countries all over the world receive shipments of cocaine that originated deep within the Amazon forest. Preventing these drop-offs and pick-ups can be essential to putting a dent in the drug trafficking of cocaine, but officials are having a difficult time getting the funding for personnel and tighter control of the area.

“One way of being able to corral and diminish drug trafficking’s speed and efficiency is to get control of the air space. But the government has shown that it’s not interested,” explained retired air force Maj. Gen. Cesar Torres. One reason why Torres and other advocates of more Amazon control are meeting with resistance is because a significant amount of those that are tasked with monitoring the air field are corrupt. While this has not been proven, it is rumored that officials charge the drug cartels $10,000 to land and take off without police intervention.

Despite destroying record amounts of coca plants, the government in Peru still manages to allow more cocaine than ever to be produced. Until the police corruption is handled, the drug cartels will continue to be able to smuggle large amounts of cocaine into the United States and other countries throughout Europe.