Top 5 Facts about Drug Smuggling

The DEA, or Drug Enforcement Administration, is the branch of the U.S. government responsible for combating the sale, distribution and use of drugs within the United States. Founded in 1973, the agency employs over 10,000 people, just under half of which work as Special Agents; field operatives tasked with tracking down and arresting drug smugglers and dealers…and they do a bang up job. In fact, DEA agents arrest over 30,000 people every year. That’s the equivalent of arresting the entire population of Walla Walla, Washington.

One of the worst parts about drug related crimes is the financial toll they take on the government agencies that are attempting to eradicate them. Take health care, for example. The U.S. health care system spends over $11 billion annually treating and caring for drug users. While drug dealers are racking in dough, the state is spending over $8 billion on inmates locked up for drug related crimes. These numbers pale in comparison to the $193 billion that, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is goes to to crime-related costs and lost work-related productivity. Add it all up and you have a massive financial problem.

Imagine a world where drug related arrests are down and state and provincial revenues are up. This world exists in Colorado, California and six other U.S. states, with Canada ready to follow suit in 2018. Why the change of pace? Well, it turns out that legalization is great for the economy! So great in fact that the Cato Institute, an American think tank, estimates that legalizing marijuana across the United States could lead to more than $8 billion in additional sales tax revenue. It will also help eliminate illegal drug trafficking, which in turn will help keep people out of prison; thus helping the government save money on exorbitant inmate housing costs.

It appears that geographical location plays a part in which kinds of drugs people are using. According to a study done in the U.S. and published in 2013, marijuana is the most popular drug, with “users making up at least 5% of the population in every region;” with the highest rates of usage being found in the Pacific West and the Northeast. Similarly, cocaine is particularly prevalent in New England, crack and hallucinogenic drug usage is higher in the South Atlantic region and the Midwest is quite fond of pain pills. While this fact is solely a reflection of the United States, it is not uncommon for drugs to be regionally based in other countries as well.

No other country in the world is as closely associated with a particular drug the same way Colombia is with cocaine. Pablo Escobar’s reign of terror in the '70s and '80s gave the country a black eye that it is still trying to recover from. Unfortunately, Colombia still has a lot of work to do. In the 2010s, cocaine production and distribution accounts for 1% of the country’s GDP. In 2015, the UN estimated that more than 300,000 of Colombia’s citizens make their living from coca leaves. In fact, Colombia makes more than $10 billion annually from the sale of cocaine and remains the world’s largest cocaine producer, meaning the country is still king when it comes to the infamous white powder.