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The Four Stages of Production and Distribution in the Illicit Drug Business

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The Four Stages of Production and Distribution in the Illicit Drug Business

The illegal drug trade works through a diffuse network formed by the production and

distribution stages, with the involvement of various steps to bring that product from the source to

its consumers. Knowing these stages is the fundamental for grasping the mechanism of the illicit

drug market and designing useful strategies for the elimination of the problem. This paper

thereafter reports on the four main stages of the criminal drug industry that are supported by

reference materials.

Stage 1: Cultivation and Production

The first stage of the illegal drug business is cultivation and production. It is often the

initial occurrence in places where there is an appropriate climate and geographic features with

crops like coca, opium poppy, and cannabis flourishing. Take, for example, the coca plants that

thrive in the Andes in South America. More precisely, these countries like Colombia, Bolivia,

and Peru are their most suitable habitat. At the same time, opium poppy farming is widespread in

Afghanistan and Southeast Asia (Levinthal & Brusman-Lovins, 2020). Most of the time, the

growers are capitalizing on advanced agricultural methods to ensure high yields and

potency. Farmers could opt for secret ways to bypass the law enforcement authorities, these may

include growing the crops in remote areas or covering them with innocent agricultural

fields. Additionally, these criminal organizations and drug cartels tend to exercise their control

over these regions, organizing production processes and guaranteeing a constant supply of raw

materials (Levinthal & Brusman-Lovins, 2020).

Stage 2: Processing and Refinement

The farmers after the harvest sell their crops to the companies that process and refining to

isolate the psychoactive chemical. This stage encompasses a wide range of chemical reactions
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that generates commodity drugs like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine (Levinthal &

Brusman-Lovins, 2020). The laboratories are run by machines with specialized equipment with

the expertise and services of skilled chemists being employed to complete this task. The case of

cocaine production, the leaves of the coca tree are extracted using the stripping process and then

refined and crystallized to get cocaine hydrochloride (WHO, 2020). On top of this, chemical

substances called opium derivatives go through several refinement and purification stages to

produce heroin, a final stage where it is converted into a suitable form for trafficking (WHO,

2020). Many of these processing units are then located in isolated areas or cities, which makes it

hard for law enforcement to track them down. Besides, the advanced involvement of

transnational criminals guaranties the smooth distribution of precursor chemicals and expertise

across border.

Stage 3: Trafficking and Distribution

After the drugs go through the processing stage, they move on to the next part of the

trafficking and distribution phase in which they are transported from production centers to

customer markets. At this stage, there is an intricate route system and techniques of masking and

smuggling of drugs across different international borders that ensure it reaches the consumer

through legal channels. Trafficking ways are dependent on what type of drug is being trafficked

and also on what geographical factors are involved. To illustrate, the drug known as cocaine is

transferred to the U.S. via Central America and Mexico passing through land, air, and the sea

routes (Boekhout Van Solinge, 2022). Consequently, the drug heroes belonging to Afghanistan

are shipped extensively through the affiliated nations and domestic markets of this continent and

after that to Europe and beyond (WHO, 2020). Trafficking schemes range from goods blag

supplied in legitimate cargo to the use of humans or "mules” who carry drugs inside their bodies
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via their anuses or dental fillings. Organized crime uses various clandestine measures in an

attempt to escape the law, such as compartmentalization of their shipments, codes in their

communication and pay-offs to border officers.

Stage 4: Retail and Consumption

The last step in trafficking of illicit drugs encompasses sales and consumptions, which

means that it is concerned with the distribution of drugs in the market to the real consumers

owing to the different means of sale (Levinthal & Brusman-Lovins, 2020). Smart dealers at street

corners, online stores, as well as private markets offer a wide range of products from what the

trend setting consumers are looking to what the typical consumer needs. The street-level drug

markets proliferate cities finding territories and networks where the dealers sell the drugs to the

local consumers (Baika & Campana, 2020). These markets, which operate mostly in the

shadows, are prone to abuse and various types of violence. Crypto Currency supported dark

internet drug markets have developed as a platform that bypasses the conventional market and

engages in drug transactions (Baika & Campana, 2020). On these sites, there is a great variety of

prohibited substances, attracting buyers and sellers who carry out deals on the sly. Clandestine

sites, as example, are "shooting galleries" for injecting drug use or "crack houses" for smoking of

crack cocaine, they cater to marginalized and public health issues. Similarly, the increasing

number of homeless populations and street encampments can be correlated to the presence of

serious crimes, violence, and infectious diseases.

Conclusion

The illegal drug market consists of a number of joint-up segments such as growing and

manufacturing, trafficking, and distribution. The entire process is composed by complicated

operations and systems that enable the existence of transnational criminal networks and their
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application of advanced tactics. Having insight into these stages provides a crucial fact to design

tactics for curbing trafficking and longer term effects for example a social and economic

distressing.
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References

Baika, L., & Campana, P. (2020). Centrality, mobility, and specialization: A study of drug

markets in a non-metropolitan area in the United Kingdom. Journal of Drug

Issues, 50(2), 107-126.

Boekhout van Solinge, T. (2022). Global Cocaine Flows, Geographical Displacement, and Crime

Convergence. In The Evolution of Illicit Flows: Displacement and Convergence among

Transnational Crime (pp. 57-81). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Levinthal, C. F., & Brusman-Lovins, K. (2020). Drugs, Society, and Criminal Justice. Pearson.

ISBN.13: 978-0-135-18003-7

World Health Organization (WHO). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

(2020). International Standards for the Treatment of Drug Use Disorders, Revised

edition incorporating results of field-testing.