Illegal drug trade

“ The very concept of Drug-Free America Week, 1988, reminds us of how far we have advanced in our thinking and actions in the fight to stop illegal drugs. Most people now understand that illegal drug use brings illness, disability, and death. The illegal drug user costs our Nation billions of dollars in lost productivity each year, while undermining our economy and threatening our national security. Drugs ruin lives and destroy families and prey on our young people. Americans everywhere recognize the real and present danger of illegal drug use. ”

“ We arrest drug traffickers and send them to prison. With the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, and the U.S. Attorneys working more closely together, we'll be even tougher on those who traffic in drugs. But attacking the suppliers is not enough. As long as there is an illegal market for narcotics, the drug lords will find a way to meet the demand. That's why we cannot ignore the other half of our strategy. We need to keep up the pressure to prevent drug use. We want no new users, and we want those who are using drugs to stop. ”

“ The old line about drug use being a victimless crime is being replaced with an understanding that the money spent on drugs, even by casual users, ends up financing murderers in South America as well as on our own streets.
On Monday, the members of the White House Conference will be joined by some 2,000 other activists who are dedicated to a drug free America. Whatever recommendations they ultimately make, it is clear there are no easy answers. We must continue to seek every opportunity to stop the sale and use of illegal drugs. ”

“ Article 64
⁠Where in the course of manufacturing, marketing, purchasing, transporting, importing or exporting chemical materials that can easily be transformed into narcotic drugs, State regulations are violated, so that the said chemical materials flow into illegal channels, which constitutes a crime, criminal responsibility shall be investigated for according to law; if the violation is not serious enough to constitute a crime, a penalty shall be imposed according to the provisions of the relevant laws and administrative regulations. ”

“ We should be pleased with the progress we have made together as Americans-in strong law enforcement against drug criminals, in international cooperation to reduce drug production and smuggling, in research to learn more about drugs and what works in treatment, and in education and prevention. Each of these important gains is a battle won in the war against drugs. We have started a crusade for a Drug-Free America. We must maintain awareness of the drug threat and continue the fight until illegal drugs are only a bad memory. ”

“ Develop the utilization of a controlled delivery scheme in addressing the transshipment of dangerous drugs into and out of the country to neutralize transnational crime syndicates involved in illegal trafficking of any dangerous drug and/or controlled precursors and essential chemicals ”

“ Each of the participating governments declared its commitment to vigorous action against drug abuse and illicit drug trafficking. Perhaps even more important, the 138 nations adopted a comprehensive outline of activities all nations can undertake to fight illegal drugs. These activities include the reduction of demand for illegal drugs, the suppression of illicit drug production and trafficking, and the treatment and rehabilitation of drug-dependent people. ”

“ For many years, illegal drug use has been a serious problem facing our country. Drugs cost people their savings and their health, and rob children of their promise. My administration is taking action to confront this danger. We have pursued an ambitious, focused strategy to cut demand for drugs at home, interdict supplies of drugs abroad, and treat more addicts who seek help. ”

“ To combat the illegal import of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, including cannabis, the Contracting Parties shall step up their checks on the movement of persons, goods and means of transport at their external borders. Such measures shall be drawn up by the working party provided for in Article 70. This working party shall consider, inter alia, transferring some of the police and customs staff released from internal border duty and the use of modern drug-detection methods and sniffer dogs. ”

“ The number of children being placed into foster care due, at least in part, to parental drug abuse is increasing, and accounted for almost a third of all child removals in Fiscal Year 2015. Serious drug users are also more likely to be arrested for crimes such as burglary, robbery, and handling stolen goods. Moreover, the drug trafficking that supplies illegal drugs to our country is associated with other illegal activities, including murder and other violent crimes. ”

“ We launched an unprecedented war against the illegal drugs and to destroy their apparatus that permeated every level and sector of society. We waged war on the manufacturers, the financiers, the suppliers, the peddlers, and the entire syndicates and, more importantly, their protectors in government. We have rescued and reformed drug dependents because of their idiotic sense of decency by [launching] interventions and building facilities not only for their rehabilitation, but also to prepare them to reintegrate into society. ”

“ The legal penalties for illegal trafficking of the drug are even more severe. Individuals will face the death sentence if they import or export cannabis of more than 500 grams, resin of more than 200 grams, or mixture of more than 1000 grams. ”

“ Through education and prevention programs in both the public and private sectors, we have taken important strides in reducing the demand for drugs. Indeed, recent figures from the National Institute on Drug Abuse show that, over an 18-month reporting period, overall drug use in the United States fell by slightly more than 10 percent. Cocaine use fell even more dramatically, by about 29 percent. Through more vigorous law enforcement and interdiction efforts, we have also lessened the deadly trade of drug traffickers. They are no match for a united, determined America. ”

“ They are beating us at trade and they are beating us at the border, and they are killing us with drugs. Now I know you are not involved with that, but regardless of who is making all the money, billions and billions and billions – some people say more – is being made on drug trafficking that is coming through Mexico. Some people say that the business of drug trafficking is bigger than the business of taking our factory jobs. So what I would like to recommend is – if we are going to have continued dialogue – we will work out the wall. ”

“ Illegal drugs are involved with the vast majority of violent crimes in America—drug dealers carrying guns, violent criminals on drugs and out of control, gang wars over drugtrafficking turf. One million Americans are arrested every year for breaking the drug laws. Two-thirds of all the men in state prisons have abused drugs regularly.
Unfortunately, most of the people who enter jail as drug addicts leave jail still addicted, or about to become addicts again. When criminals on parole or ex-convicts out of jail go back on drugs, the chances are enormously high they will commit new crimes. ”

“ These proposals send a strong message to drug traffickers and illegal drug users that we have zero tolerance for those who sell or use illegal drugs. For example, we would require businesses and colleges that receive Federal funds to adopt effective antidrug programs. For pregnant women who use illegal drugs, there should be priority treatment to help them and their unborn children. We would give the military a greater role in coordination with our drug enforcement agencies. Criminals on probation or parole would be drug tested, and testing positive might send them right back to jarl. ”

“ The amount which will be smuggled by those of criminal tendencies always will be small as compared with the amount improperly distributed through channels now recognized as legitimate until all the States have passed restrictive legislation founded upon, modeled after, and coöperative with New York State’s legislation; and all this must be backed and buttressed by Federal legislation of a special kind before real and general good can be accomplished in the United States. Illicit drugs rarely find their way into the possession of users who have acquired drug habits through illness or pain. ”

“ The drug trade is practically without legal regulation, although across the drug store counter are dispensed substances at least as dangerous to individuals and public welfare as those which are dispensed across saloon bars—and saloons are regulated very rigidly. ”

“ Illicit drugs: limited illicit producer of cannabis, minor coca cultivation in the Amazon region, mostly used for domestic consumption; government has a large-scale eradication program to control cannabis; important transshipment country for Bolivian, Colombian, and Peruvian cocaine headed for the US and Europe; also used by traffickers as a way station for narcotics air transshipments between Peru and Colombia; upsurge in drug-related violence and weapons smuggling ”

“ The United States and China also face many challenges within our borders. Every year, drug trafficking destroys millions and millions of lives. Today, President Xi and I discussed ways we can enhance coordination to better counter the deadly drug trade and to stop the lethal flow of poisonous drugs into our countries and into our communities. ”

“ And under his direction, nearly two dozen Federal agencies have been brought into the war on drugs; many, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, are more involved in fighting drugs than ever before. Working with the Coast Guard and civilian law enforcement agencies, the military has contributed directly to the interdiction and seizure of major quantities of marijuana and cocaine in the past 2 years.
The Vice President has worked closely with the Attorney General, who has created 13 new organized crime and drug enforcement task forces. ”

“ There was a time, now much-obscured by historical revisionism, when Bohemians freely shared joints at concerts, and hip, small-scale marijuana dealers might turn people on just for the sake of enjoying a long stoned conversation about the Doors and Allen Ginsberg. Now drugs are increasingly verboten, except in a high-stakes, highly-criminal world of highly addictive drugs. Over years of disenchantment and police harassment, a vaguely ideological, free-wheeling drug underground has relinquished the business of drug-dealing to a far more savage criminal hard-core. ”

“ Article 3: OFFENCES AND SANCTIONS 1. Each Party shall adopt such measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally:
(a) (i) The production, manufacture, extraction, preparation, offering, offering for sale, distribution, sale, delivery on any terms whatsoever, brokerage, dispatch, dispatch in transit, transport, importation or exportation of any narcotic drug or any psychotropic substance contrary to the provisions of the 1961 Convention, the 1961 Convention as amended or the 1971 Convention ”

“ The government tries to stop the smuggling of drugs into this country. But as the people want the drug, either because of the high cost of alcoholic stimulant, or the scarcity of it, they are forever devising new schemes for bringing it in, so that the government, while it does prevent the smuggling of some of it, is unable to prevent the drug from getting into the country. Once in the hands of the peddlers in this country it is an easy matter for it to be distributed among their customers. ”

“ Illicit drugs:
transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin and minor transit point for Latin American cocaine to Western Europe; producer of synthetic drugs for local and regional markets; susceptible to money laundering related to drug trafficking, organized crime ”

“ It is very evident from a reading of it that the emphasis of the section is in securing a close supervision of the business of dealing in these dangerous drugs by the taxing officers of the Government and that it merely uses a criminal penalty to secure recorded evidence of the disposition of such drugs as a means of taxing and restraining the traffic. Its manifest purpose is to require every person dealing in drugs to ascertain at his peril whether that which he sells comes within the inhibition of the statute, and if he sells the inhibited drug in ignorance of its character, to penalize him. ”

“ Since for all practical purposes there is thus no legitimate dealing in heroin, any attempt to use an order form to purchase the drug would almost certainly subject the buyer to prosecution under 26 U.S.C. § 4705 (g) :↑ See U.S. Treasury Department, Bureau of Narcotics, Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs 22, 42 (1968) .↑ Even if the hypothetical became a reality, it is doubtful that the incriminating information would get back to the Government via the buyer, who would himself be guilty of a violation of the narcotics laws. See n. 10, supra. ”

“ With The Drug Menace Now Elevated To The Level Of A National Security Problem And No Longer Just A Police Problem, I Am Instructing The Armed Forces Of The Philippines To Field Military Resources For Intelligence And To Field Soldiers In Drug Raids In Support Of Civilian Law Enforcement. Drug Lords Will Be Treated As Enemies Of The State!
In This War With The Drug Trade There Will Be No Compromise And No Quarter, Not For Fear Or Favor. ”

“ So long as a non-addict peddler is willing to take the risk of serving as a wholesaler of drugs, he can always find addict pushers or peddlers to handle the retail aspects of the business in return for a supply of the drugs for themselves. Thus, it is the belief of the author of this report that, no matter how severe law enforcement may be, the drug traffic cannot be eliminated under present prohibitory repressive statutes. ”