Always Have, Always Will

Always Have, Always Will

Illegal drug use is one of the biggest problems in today’s society. Drugs have been around for hundreds of years, but today, so many people use illegal harmful drugs more than ever before. Thousands of families are destroyed, thousands of kids are put into foster care, and world wide millions are dying from a drug addiction, or a drug related problem. In my investigation, I will research how illegal drugs enter our country, where the drugs mainly come from, and what we have done to try and slow down drugs from entering into the United States.

Recent studies have shown that, “the Andean Region, currently is the sole source of the world’s cocaine production and the main source of heroin entering the United States” (Illegal Drugs 1). The Andean region consists of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile. In particular, Colombia has been the largest major drug exporter of the Andean regions. “Since the 1970's, Colombia has been home to some of the most violent and sophisticated drug trafficking organizations in the world. What started as a small cocaine smuggling business has, in the last thirty years, blossomed into an enormous multi-national cocaine empire” ( Columbian Cartels 1).

In the early 1960’s, Columbian’s began to export Marijuana. In the early and mid 1970’s, Columbian marijuana traffickers “began exporting small quantities of cocaine to the United States hidden in suitcases. At that point, cocaine could be processed for $1500/kilo in jungle labs and could be sold on the streets of America for as much as $50,000/kilo” (Columbian Cartels 1). This is when the big cocaine epidemic began to make everyone perceive Columbia as the infamous drug trafficking country which we still refer to as today. By the 1990’s heroin had hit the seen in Columbia (Drug Trafficking Empire of Columbia 1), which allowed them to make almost twice as much as they were exporting cocaine.

Columbians have profited so much from their sales; they were able to obtain some conventional and expensive ways to import illegal drugs into the United States. In the early 1970’s, Colombian drug lords such as Pablo Escobar would export drugs into the United States by boat or by air travel. More recently, Colombians have found more expensive and secretive ways to import drugs into the U.S. “Traffickers today have enough capital under their control to build sophisticated smuggling equipment, such as a high tech submarine that was recently discovered by the Colombian National Police. Colombian cocaine traffickers had hired engineering experts from Russia and the United States to help with the design of the submarine, which apparently would have been used to secretly ship large quantities of cocaine to the United States” ( Columbian Cartels 1). Columbia provides 75% of the world’s cocaine.