History

1921 photograph of Chinese Maritime Officers with 300 lb (140 kg) of smuggled morphine
shipped in cylinders of sodium sulfate from Japan.
See also: Opium Wars
The trade of drugs has existed for as long as the drugs themselves have existed. However,
the trade of drugs was fully legal until the introduction of drug prohibition. The history of
the illegal drug trade is thus closely tied to the history of drug prohibition.
In the First Opium War, the United Kingdom forced China to allow British merchants to
trade in opium with the general population of China. Although illegal by imperial decree,
smoking opium had become common in the 1800s due to increasing importation via British
merchants. Trading in opium was (as it is today in the heroin trade) extremely lucrative. As
a result of the trade an estimated two million Chinese people became addicted to the drug.
The British Crown (via the treaties of Nanking and Tianjin) took vast sums of money from
the Chinese government in what they referred to as 'reparations' for the wars.
In the United States, a 1791 tax led to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.
Foreign intervention
Some governments that criminalize drug trade have a policy of interfering heavily with
foreign states. In 1989, the United States intervened in Panama with the goal of disrupting
the drug trade coming from Panama. The Indian government has several covert operations
in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent to keep a track of various drug dealers. Opium
production in Afghanistan is a current problem in the development of a licit economy for
that country.

Violent resolutions
In the late 1990s in the United States, the FBI estimates that 5% of murders were drug-
related.[1] In addition, drug smuggling can lead to harsh penalties, including the death
penalty, in certain countries (for example, Singapore).
Many have argued that the arbitrariness of drug prohibition laws from the medical point of
view, especially the theory of harm reduction, worsens the problems around these
substances.

Minors and the illegal drug trade

The U.S. government's most recent 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health
(NSDUH) reported that nationwide over 800,000 adolescents ages 12–17 sold illegal drugs
during the twelve months preceding the survey; such adolescents also admitted to know or
be linked to other drug dealers across the nation. The 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey by
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that nationwide 25.4%
of students had been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug by someone on school property.
The prevalence of having been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property
ranged from 15.5% to 38.7% across state CDC surveys (median: 26.1%) and from 20.3% to
40.0% across local surveys (median: 29.4%).[3]
Despite over $7 billion spent annually towards arresting[4] and prosecuting nearly 800,000
people across the country for marijuana offenses in 2005 (FBI Uniform Crime Reports), the
federally-funded Monitoring the Future Survey reports about 85% of high school seniors
find marijuana “easy to obtain.” That figure has remained virtually unchanged since 1975,
never dropping below 82.7% in three decades of national surveys.
Trade of specific drugs
The price per gram of heroin is typically 8 to 10 times that of cocaine on US streets
Generally in Europe (except the transit countries Portugal and the Netherlands), a purported
gram of street heroin, which is usually between 0.7 and 0.8 grams light to dark brown
powder consisting of 5-10%, less commonly up to 20%, heroin base, is between 30 and 70
Euros, which makes for an effective price of pure heroin per gram of between 300 and 2000
Euros.
The purity of street cocaine in Europe is usually in the same range as it is for heroin, the
price being between 50 and 100 Euros per between 0.7 and 1.0 grams. This totals to a
cocaine price range between 500 and 2000 Euros.
According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, anabolic steroids are relatively
easy to smuggle into the United States. Once there, they are often sold at gyms and
competitions as well as through mail and internet operations.
Cannabis
In World Drug report 2006 UNODC focused on The New Cannabis, distribution of
stronger marijuana with more THC and its health effects.
Most of the high grade cannabis sold in the U.S. is grown in hidden grow operations
indoors. The number one producer is California with an annual revenue of nearly 14 billion
dollars in production, Tennessee is second with nearly 5 billion in production, Kentucky is
third with around 4.5 billion, Hawaii is fourth with close to 4 billion, and Washington is
fifth with a little over a billion. [