The world market for the drug

The world market for the drug
One of the phenomena that most disturb the economic and civil life is represented by the international drug market.
Like all the figures in a clandestine activity, what is the use of drugs, the number of consumers, ie the customers of the world drug market, it is very uncertain escapes in large part to the statistics the number, however, very high , consumers of drugs of various kinds in the most backward countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is believed that Pakistan holds the dubious distinction of the highest number of heroin users, while cocaine prevails decidedly in the U.S. and tends to spread to Europe and the rest of the world. In the U.S., the crack has spread (= mixed with cocaine baking soda or yeast), which won its low price and upset the poor suburbs of North American cities.
Most of the production of opiates and cocaine is divided between three large geographical areas, where it can add 2 children:
1. The Near and Middle East countries in the region called the Golden Crescent (= Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan + India, Nepal) produce about 1,500 tons of opium, of which at least one-third is converted into heroin. Turkey, which was a major producer of opium, has decreased its production to the government's initiative and under pressure from the international organizations. L 'Afghanistan, which is also the second largest producer after Burma, has seen its production decline during the years of civil war, but now tends to recover the lost ground.
2. Southeast Asia: the so-called Golden Triangle (= mountainous region straddling Myanmar, Laos, Thailand) produces a total of 3000 to 3500 tons of opium. A few years ago, opium cultivation has experienced a strong recovery in the Chinese province of Yunnan, bordering Laos and Burma and that was in the past an important manufacturing center.
3. Latin America produces almost all of coca, grown mainly in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala. Peru is by far the world's largest producer, but Colombia monopolize the raw material processing and marketing of cocaine. In recent years, the American military intervention against areas controlled by drug dealers, if he got one hand some successes, however, to produce a finished dissemination and a strong overall increase in coca cultivation in most euro area countries.
4. Former Soviet republics of Central Asia Uzbekistan + + Azerbaijan
5. Africa south of the Sahara: especially the western one (Nigeria) and Kenya.

In general, the cultivation of plants from which drugs are derived is the child of poverty and underdevelopment: the small farmer fruit it gains greater than those that would be from the coffee, cocoa or tobacco from which it took its place.
The cultivation of coca causes a strong erosion of the soil, and is accompanied in general, such as opium, to the destruction of vast areas of forest, in search of new land to be used in this activity.

Many argue that the illicit drug industry is the sector of the world economy that has seen the most spectacular development in recent years. In many countries, governments themselves have to manage at least part of the drug trade or to turn a blind eye in exchange for a slice of earnings  production and trade of drugs contribute heavily to political corruption → Burma, Peru
Especially in small and poor countries, the production and the drug trade tend to play an important economic role and give work to many people  difficulty in converting to other activities and in combating this phenomenon → Bolivia, Peru, Burma, Colombia, Pakistan , Morocco, Afghanistan, Thailand, Panama, Lebanon, Nigeria
In many drug-producing countries, when it is not the same government to manage it, the powerful groups who organize the cultivation, processing and trade tend to form a state within a state, protecting your business with armed militias → Colombia
In other cases, the drug proceeds are used to fund ethnic secessionist movements or guerrillas → Afghan Islamist groups, Kashmiri and Sikh in India, Indonesian and Filipino rebel groups, Somalis and Kurds in Turkey, Croatia
Often drug trafficking goes hand in hand with that of arms: this is what happens in the Balkans.
Sometimes (eg, Burma, Afghanistan, Colombia, Sicily), competition for control of the drug market gives rise to acts of terrorism, massacres and outright wars between different groups of drug traffickers. These large organizations illegal, from time to time or allied bloody rivals, they need well-protected bases of official complicity, banks and financial institutions complacent, willing to help launder money of their trade, to invest in real estate, in government bonds and in equities, industrial and commercial activities, or in the 'purchase of sophisticated weapons with which to sow terror when their power is threatened by governments.

The fight against serious drug phenomenon requires a strong international collaboration and an ability to understand and address the issues that are at the basis of consumption.