Today modern societies are actively interconnected by the Internet and cell phones. Transactions can be made rapidly in response to information available through current modern communications. Unfortunately, drug dealers also frequently use this enhanced communication system to communicate with their suppliers as well as drug customers. In addition, some drug dealers set up sophisticated systems to manage drug smuggling and sales, although there are still street corner drug dealers who sell drugs in public and take the risks associated with open sales.

In addition, international trade is vital to the economy of the United States, Canada, and other Western countries. At the same time, increased trade with other countries sometimes involves criminal elements of these societies, who seek to purvey illegal and dangerous drugs.

It is also important to note that drug abuse is not limited to the United States and Canada but is a worldwide problem. According to the World Drug Report 2006, published by the World Health Organization, 200 million people, or 5 percent of the people in the world, have used illegal drugs in the past 12 months. There are an estimated 25 million people who are addicted to drugs in the world, about 0.6 percent of the global population ages 15-64 years.

As in the United States, the most popular drug worldwide in 2004 was cannabis (marijuana), used by 162 million people. The next most abused type were amphetamines (including amphetamines and methamphetamine and excluding Ecstasy), abused by 35 million people globally, followed by abusers of opiates (16 million people), and of this number 11 million were heroin abusers. Cocaine was abused by 13 million individuals worldwide.

In considering drug seizures worldwide in 2004, cannabis represented 53 percent of all seizures. (The World Health Organization includes marijuana, hashish, and hashish oil within their definition of cannabis.) Opiates represented 15 percent of all drug seizures around the globe. Amphetamine-like stimulants (such as amphetamines, methamphetamine, and Ecstasy) represented 10 percent of all seizures, and cocaine represented 9 percent of global drug seizures. Together, these categories of drugs represented 87 percent of all world drug seizures in 2004.

The majority of the global opium production in 2005 occurred in Afghanistan (89 percent). An estimated 16 million people, less than 1 percent of the global population (0.4 percent), abuse opiates. According to the World Health Organization, 54 percent of the world's abusers of opiates live in Asia, followed by 25 percent in Europe, 14 percent in the Americas (North America and South America), 6 percent in Africa, and 1 percent in Oceania (Pacific Ocean countries, including Australia).

The greatest uses of opiates occur along the drug trafficking routes from Afghanistan. Some countries have a very high rate of abuse; for example, according to a World Health Organization estimate, there are 1.2 million opiate abusers in Iran, or 2.8 percent of the country's population, ages 15-64 years. Rates are also high in Kyrgyzstan (2.3 percent of the 15- to 64-year-old population) and Kazakhstan (1.3 percent).

In considering worldwide cocaine abuse, according to the World Health Organization, about 13.4 million people, less than 1 percent of the global population (0.3 percent), abuse cocaine. The highest abuse in 2005 was seen in North America, which had nearly half of all the worldwide cocaine abusers. The largest cocaine market (40 percent of all cocaine users in the world) was the United States, followed by western and central Europe. An estimated 2.8 percent of the population in the United States ages 15-64 abused cocaine in 2004, followed by 1.1 percent in western and central Europe.

References:

1)         Johnston, Lloyd D., et al. Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2004. Vol. 2, College Students and Adults Ages 19-45. Bethesda, Md.: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, 2005.

2)         United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2006. Vol. 1, Analysis. United Nations, June 2006.

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