The public expresses a complex view on drug trafficking, combining admiration for personal recovery stories with concerns about policy approaches. Many call for reform, advocating for legalization and harm reduction over punitive measures, while also acknowledging historical contexts and the geopolitical implications of drug production. There is a blend of hope for change and caution regarding the consequences of labeling countries as major drug producers.

Governments of drug-producing countries

International Drug Policy Makers

Law enforcement agencies

Public health organizations

Community addiction recovery advocates

Read through some [EMCDDA Risk Assessment Reports](https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications-database_en?f%5B0%5D=field_series_type%3A611), they usually have some information on trafficking. E.g. seized 3-MMC primarily comes from India but there are scattered European labs as well (Slovakia).

hexachoron

[deleted]

FYI because I had to look it up- Mandrax is methaqualone, also sold under the names Quaalude and Sopor

sunnie_day

It would be fascinating to create a flow-chart, like, click on a substance, see the main areas of origin and then the main routes of trafficking. Like, which seaports are used predominantly and where is the biggest market.
It could include yearly incarcerations and lengths of sentences too.

Sortih

ketamine is mainly produced in China but used to mostly be produced in India

IAMALWAYSSHOUTING

Fent comes mostly from Mexico not China anymore

AstroPhysician

Most Amphetamine paste comes from Poland and Holland.

In the US, large majority of the Meth from comes from Mexico. Fentanyl comes from Mexico and Canada. MDMA comes from Canada from Holland. Heroin use to come from South America, but since Fent is the dominant opioid currently, it's thin'd out the market. Tougher to find real H in the certain areas of the US now.

It was to my understanding that South Africa is the main producer of illicit Mandrax while the precursors mainly come from India and China. Recent reports of illict Mandrax production are limited, soonest I've found (in my 2 minutes google search) was in 2018 when the Indian government destroyed 25k KG of the substance

420smokekushh

oh also a lot of LSD comes from Russia and Poland, but there are domestic labs in most countries too

Not as academic, but the show Trafficked is fascinating. I also love Drugs, Inc. for the street level insight.

Zoleft

Its basically just about hiding it. Tons of cargo are pulled all around Schengen and can't all be checked. Alternatively, just put a middle aged white women into an Mercedes A-Klasse and put a "Sylt"-Sticker on the back and not a single borderguard in Germany will even think about checking the car.

MobofDucks

As a Dutch person: we have a massive import and export market, with countless container ships coming into Rotterdam from all over the world. There simply is no way to check all of them for illicit cargo, especially if it's well-hidden. Once it's in the Netherlands, moving it across Schengen countries (including Switzerland) is pretty easy, especially if you make sure not to draw attention and move illicit goods along with legitimate products to ensure your entire reason for hauling stuff around rings no alarm bells. So the game isn't about bribes here, it's about staying under the radar. The Dutch government regularly prides itself in yet another 'biggest drug bust ever' but that is by no means a good thing, as it only means that the criminals are willing to take ever bigger risks because apparently we just aren't paying enough attention.

&amp;#x200B;

Edit to clarify: I'm a law abiding citizen, so no actual smuggling experience, but I do have the experience of travelling all around Schengen and I can assure you, nothing ever gets checked. I've been pulled over crossing a border twice (Germany to Denmark and Slovakia to Czech Republic). Both instances they only wanted to see my driver's licence and car registration as I drive a pretty old and thus unusual car. Never has my luggage been checked. Imagine doing this in a super common car, wearing decent clothes. Nobody is every going to check anything within Schengen borders.

britishrust

There have been cases of corruption in the police forces in Zürich and Geneva, it's not like it doesn't exist at all.

And as mentionned below: there are billions of $ of goods and over a million people that cross the border between Switzerland and the EU per day, how do you want to check all of it? It's just physically impossible.

Lejeune_Dirichelet

I'll answer about weapons, not drugs, but it's probably similar.

Sweden has a lot of illegal, smuggled weapons. Not as in every moron has one, but as in gangs have no problems getting their hands on guns. How do these guns get in? Well, often someone just drives them in. The critical factor is that most of Europe has no border checks of goods or people. You can drive from Lisbon to Stockholm without being subject to any checks. 

Weapons smuggled into Sweden often originate in former Yugoslavia, where the wars of the 90s left more than enough weapons to supply every gang in the EU. If someone goes to Bosnia and picks up a couple duffel bags with weapons and ammo, all they have to do is cross into Croatia without being caught and from there it's easy to drive to Sweden. There are some sporadic customs checks at select locations, for example the bridge between Sweden and Denmark sees some cars checked. But the traffic volume there is way too high to check most cars so most smuggling surely goes undetected.

Then there's the postal route, which I know also applies to drugs. A lot of illegal stuff can be ordered online and there's again the volume problem - even if the packages are coming from outside EU, the customs can only check a small fraction of them, with pretty much no checks if they're EU packages. You can't generally get an automatic rifle that way but some parts for a gun or a smaller quantity of some drug? That is definitely possible.

The US-Mexico border isn't just about bribery either. It's a long border that can be illegally crossed in many places despite the great effort the US expends to secure it. The outer EU/Schengen borders are even harder to secure because they're longer than the US-Mexico one and many parts have poor visibility. US-Mexico is mostly desert, while borders such as Poland-Russia, Bulgaria-Macedonia or Lithuania-Belarus are forests. Say, [this is a photo from just inside Poland and the treeline is in Russia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Powiat_go%C5%82dapski_Granica_Polska-Rosja_001.JPG). Not exactly a border where you'd see someone approach an hour before they get there.

CreepyOctopus

I would assume most drug dealers would actively take as many steps as possible to ensure no officials were involved at all!!

From reading the news and documentaries on these things, they are smuggled in. So on private boats, in containers under different labelling, in the boots of cars, etc. 

The whole point is to avoid the officials.

Consistent-Koala-339

I don’t think criminals work differently in Europe compared to other countries. Bribing happens here as well. Intimidating is another known method. There are several cases of customs employees working in the ports who are either bribed to cooperate or intimidated. Lately there are stories of farmers being forced to ‘lend’ a barn to drugs crime organizations as well. According to many police reports criminals are likely to target vulnerable people. For example people with debt problems. Offer them a one time gig to earn some extra cash and after that they have leverage so people are sucked into the world of organized crime.

I've rewad about 50 true crime books about drugsmuggling in Europe, so I will explain this per topic.

&amp;#x200B;

1. Smuggling routes. You have basically the harbours of Rotterdam and Antwetrp as cargohubs used for drugs. Then you have important routes like The Afghan- Iran -Turkey-Bulgariar route for heroine. And you have important links in Albania, Napels and Marseille
2. Smuggling is done in numerous ways. The South America coke smuggling business is done by cargo mostlly though for smaller volumes mules are send with condomlike balloons in their stomach filled with coke. With cargo shipping their are different ways, either you hide tyhe coke in a product like letting liquid coke being absolved in clothing or other chemicasls. Alternatively you ship it with other cargo of which fruit (because its a product that easily rots and should be handled fastly) is quite popular. Either the South American fruit companies are dummies set up by crime organisations in SA or the drugs is put their without the original company knowing a thing.   
In such cases you  can do three things: 1. You bribe the handlers of the cargo 2. You send your own crew to illgeally tresspass at the harbor and get it out 34. you bribe costums or police involved with check-ups. Less used ways is to fake cargoducoments, to send mules in the containers themselves or to use imitate containers
3. Another technique used is to bribe a crew on a cargoship to hide the coke on board. What they can do is ogffload it with personal items once docking somehwhere, this is risky. Alternatively you can dispose cokepackages at sea when for example bribed fishermen are tthere or you can throw away packages of coke in a harbour that can be collected by radiowavessignals by divers
4. The falternative ways of smuggling are with non commercial traffic llike big personal sailing yaughs that  sail around the world
5. Getting the stuff effectively into Sweden or Switzerland is using the right mules. One of the best ways is just use big holidaying families that bring wife and kids and have their car or campercaravan packed to the rafters with stuff. Customes is mostly less likely to turn everything over though potentially they still can.

So how do people get caught brining in drugs, well mostly because they hgave drawn attention in a wrong way. This can be in looks, in giving vague stories tto customs, this can be by hacked communications or withnesses or badly filled in forms, or being in in contact with people with the wrong  background.  My theorie is that for the avarage joe is dead easy to smuggle drugs within Shengen zone and never get caught, all it takes is planning and discuiipline.

SLAVAUA2022

Ship it to more corrupt countries in the Schengen area and you're fine. Once inside Schengen territory, goods can move freely and are very rarely checked.

Let's say you get your drugs into Rotterdam or Hamburg by ship, you can just put em on a truck and drive them all the way to Abisko if you want.

Tipsticks

In Estonia, low corruption does not really help that much as a surprising amount of drugs are locally produced (a few fentanyl makers, first one discovered in 2017; opportunistic cannabis growers) or just ordered online in smaller amounts (MDMA, LSD, cocaine, some cannabis) and no-one can really check all packages to such degree.

As others have said, there is no real problem with transporting anything within the EU. Of course some things get smuggled over from Russia, but we are not talking about cars full of drugs here, but more like one bottle that was missed. Most of the drugs either enter EU elsewhere or are just produced here. 

Our drug users and drug use patterns are also very different than that of the US.

HedgehogJonathan

There are of course lots of corrupt people in those countries too.

Most corruption indexes are based on "perceived corruption".

In Denmark we recently had a scandal where employees in Mærsk, the shipping conglomerate where busted for working with drug import. Relatively high level too.

In another story, the dockmen in one danish harbour had been infiltrated by bike gang members through the union.

People are corrupt, don't believe that because it is hidden, that they aren't.

codebro_dk_

I doubt these countries have less corruption when it comes to drug trafficking than other European countries, I'd say probably worse than some Eastern and Southern European countries. Especially in Sweden, everything regarding drugs is very taboo.

Wingiex

coldcanyon1633

🇺🇸👍🏻🙋🏼‍♂️ America first.

DfreshD

https://preview.redd.it/iyunsn2x7fpf1.png?width=720&amp;format=png&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=b9663a8e1e9e1cc9c5e82544a9bc9ff69d75f564

Genesis44-2

 if they want to look "normal" have someone waterskiing the whole way...

[No one who speaks Venezuelan can be an evil man. ](https://s3.amazonaws.com/v.comb.io/0eRSXTSI/ANh4LO.mp4)

PitchLadder

Y'all clear this with kash? Was probably his shipment to begin with.

want-some-stew-ob

This is awesome

![gif](giphy|3PVoBMTySLbtcaQap2|downsized)

Large_Signature_2749

rjlets_575

Blahblahblurred

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailydot.com/irl/cocaine-around-world/%3famp

Drug price is ridiculously higher IN the consumer market (Europe and the US) and where authorities can not stop it. 

Still if you see the list price in Colombia is the lowest even cheaper than Peru, but in Colombia they are a ship or two from Miami. So drug cartel are based there. No sense for them to be placed in Peru... We are too far away. So no 

More money at stake =&gt; More competition =&gt; More territorial disputes =&gt; More violence

Edit: Aclaration about other variables.

Iricap

Because we don't really make the drugs, we make the supplies with which the drugs are made. That's not to say there's no drug manufacturing going on, but those countries you listed are much more involved in that part of the process, we mainly grow coca leaves.

Sechecopar

RexAdPortas

In Mexico’s case, its probably because most of the profit in the cocaine trade is at the Distribution level (importation and transport to the US).....Mexico basically controls this step in the trade.  The big business is in distribution not production (colombia used to handle production and distribution in the past until the caribbean routes were mostly “shut down”) . Just my theory....

Aypoxi

its because police and politicians are so easy to buy ... I remember a few years ago they found 1 ton of cocaine in a politician's party warehouse, a week later no one was talking about it ... she got like 39% votes and lost by a 1% margin on a 2nd round. Almost 80% of the press is owned by a same company. This is because political parties are not obligated to disclouse who their sponsors are. Peru is doing well cuz we have tight macroeconomic policies, but in terms of corruption we are in the worst 10 of the world.

jajemon

I’m pretty sure it’s because the state and the police are “secretly” the cartel, they have a monopoly on it in the region, so there’s no competition, and therefore no obvious violence to compete for territory and customers. Any violence that does crop up is secretly handled by the state and kept out of the public eye. They say here there are underground bunkers built  specifically for manufacturing cocaine underneath the ground of the amazon forest in Peru, but that it’s kept very under wraps. Everyone here talks about it when drugs come up.

Also, there’s much less drug use of cocaine and heavy drugs here. There are users, but it’s a smaller percent of the population than in Mexico or Columbia, because it’s prohibited and confiscated a lot to the point it’s too expensive for people to do it here. Most of the customers of Peru’s illegal drugs are from other countries. Pot is pretty common here despite being illegal, and people chew on the coca leaves, but that’s pretty much it. I’ve not run into any cokeheads on the streets in Lima, just borrachos.

In Colombia’s case, the high “homicide rate” isnt so directly related to the drug trade anymore (ie competition to control production and shipment routes).....this was all consolidated among the FARC and Paramilitary organizations some time ago.  

rather its because of social issues related to extortion, street crime, land conflicts, poverty, criminal gangs, etc......many of the problems are a spillover effect from the drug trade of the past, but not so directly related as before (in the 80s and 90s the homicide rate was far far higher, because Colombia basically had complete control of the drug trade, and it was much more fractured)

"Colombia are among the most dangerous places on Earth". According to which source?

Drug violence in Peru exist and is widely known by us the locals. However, we tend to look away from any problem if it's not happening in the capital, namely, Lima.

Currently, military forces are fighting against narc-terrorist forces in the VRAEM, which is a Valley located in the provinces of Cuzco, Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Junin. However, since nobody cares about anything if it's not happening in Lima, they overlook this problem.

marieclaw

First, Peru's crime is not as violent or public as other countries in the region(until last year for obvious reasons). Second, Narcos try to maintain a low profile. Third, narco violence is usually concentrated in Peru's jungle where the population is very low.

YoYe1

carloandreaguilar

¿En Colombia todavía hay carteles de la droga y narcoterrorismo? Mucho Narcos amigo, hay bandas criminales y disidencias de grupos guerrilleros pero está lejos de ser lo que fue en los 80s o 90s.

cida_hanal

ifyoureplyyoulose

Simply because we are not close to gringoland.

saronyogg

Peru has long had a problem with political violence with the moist guerilla Shining Path, ,but lately cartels have started operating in Peru as well. great article [here](https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0403/p06s01-woam.html)

Doctorpayne

Oh we do have a lot of violence, we just don’t report on it too often because, well, because it ain’t news to be honest. Happens just too often. Imagine if were to report on every robbery heppening in the country, there would be no air time to report anything else.

LatinoInAustralia

journeyman369

Because we produce the drugs but the money stays in the cartels

cokemilo420

malomalito

opium wars  Great Britain cultivated opium in India and sold it in China.  China objected. War broke out.  GB forced the sales of opium to continue

Brad_from_Wisconsin

It would probably bring things like sanctions from other countries, as they do not want illegal drugs in their country. But historically that does not always work out, which can lead to things like the Opium wars, in which Britain won against the Qing dynasty of China in an effort to force them to legalize Opium (along with other treaties), so Britain could produce Opium in India and sell it for a good amount of money in China

Hannizio

Two replies here refer to the Opium Wars. They were a historically significant period where the cross-border drugs trade was important to international relations. At the time ordinary people did not understand Opium and it's effects which was one of the main reasons that the wars occurred.

More recently, in Afghanistan, western governments have paid farmers to grow Opium poppies. This was partly to provide a supply of morphine for medical use in the west. Also, it was partly to prevent those farmers from moving to the illegal part of the opium trade.

There is a legal trade in cocaine. It is used as a topical anaesthetic in dentistry. However, the market is very small.

RobThorpe

The UK is the world’s largest exporter of legal marijuana grown through the British Sugar to supply pharmaceutical companies.

Google it , it is wild.

Behaveplease9009

If the country had a powerful outside patron, absolutely. Syria’s main export until recent events was Captagon, a stimulant pill trafficked to other middle eastern countries. Given that both Iran and Russia were propping up the regime, it lasted longer than might have been otherwise expected. I’m not sure this would work for a South American country exporting cocaine to America though. There would definitely be some attempts to address that situation both covertly or eventually in the open. Look what happened to Noriega. If you’re going to be a narco state in Latin America, you probably need something else happening for you geostrategically.

sextus_fabulous

Technically, regardless of legality, it is an export. Some of the profits of that drug trade will end up within the “export county”’s economy. Those manufactures in the ground and mules all get paid and buy goods and services. On some level even that drug money gets taxed. Maybe it isn’t taxed from income if it’s illegal but through some sort of sales tax, property tax, or something else. Black markets are still markets and interact with other markets.

Jesse1472

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