The legal control of drug trafficking : a comparative study

Abstract

The term drug, when associated with the words traffic, smuggling or addiction, is understood to refer to substances called "dangerous drugs" in Britain and in Malta, "narcotics" in the United States, "drogen" in Germany, "stupefacenti" in Italy, "stupefiants" in France and "addiction-producing drugs" by the World Health Organization. Almost all such drugs are used in medicine, mainly as analgesics, but are abused of for the excitement or euphoria they produce, leading to addiction. The use of drugs is by no means a new social habit. We have to remember, first, that alcohol is also a type of drug, and second, that it as been abused on an international scale since thousands of years ago. The chewing of coca leaves by the native peoples of South America dates back at least to 2500 B.C., while the smoking of opium has already been popular in the Far East thousands of years back; similarly one cannot establish how many hundreds or thousands of years ago did African tribes use cannabis for the first time. Both the people from the Far East and those from Africa "abused" these plants for social purposes. South Americans misused coca-leaves by chewing them for the purpose of stimulating their minds; the Greeks, like the Aztecs, used to create mystical effects during some of their religious ceremonies through the use of hallucinogenic herbs and plants. The Egyptians were renown for compounding many mind altering potions. During the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) a host of new drugs was brought about through the skills of chemistry and pharmacy; the mass production of some of these drugs resulted in an increased demand for such drugs. There are many different kinds of laboratory-produced drugs, and although they can be harmful if they are used in the wrong way, certain drugs are misused deliberately because they have particular kinds of effect. So there are two main sources of drugs. Some occur in nature and have tobe extracted from the plant or vegetable matter in which they are found. Other drugs are manufactured in the laboratory by chemists md these are known as "synthetic" drugs. Drugs which cause addiction can be of both kinds.