The Marijuana Mecca
Opium and heroin smuggling attracts much attention since it is so dangerous. However, marijuana smuggling dwarfs the heroin traffic in volume.
Some authorities believe 1,000 tons of marijuana cross into the United States from Mexico every year.
Imported (smuggled) Mexican marijuana, or "Mary Jane," sells for $35 a kilo (2.2 pounds) in Tijuana. Across the border in the United States it brings $50-$57. Last summer in Massachusetts it wholesaled for $200-$300. Middlemen retail it for $5 a bag, containing 2.5 grams. Or, the original kilo in Tijuana may eventually make 2,500 marijuana "joints" or "reefers" that sell for $1 each! Thus, the smuggled 1000 metric tons of "pot" would be enough to make 2,500,000,000 "reefers" worth $2.5 billion!
It's big business! More than 70,000 people a year are arrested for marijuana violations in Los Angeles County alone! From 1960 to 1968 marijuana violations skyrocketed to 700 percent for adults and over 2000 percent among juveniles!
Marijuana has become a "gold mine" for smugglers and peddlers since the middle and upper classes have begun to adopt it as their new "thing."
Said one probation officer in Los Angeles, "There's not one kid I've talked to who does not use it or hasn't used it."
Obviously, for marijuana to be so omnipresent it can't all be smuggled in secretive cloak-and-dagger episodes. Some is "home grown." From 1967 to 1968 the number of marijuana plants seized in California leaped from 72,772 to 1,327,260 — an increase of over 1,500 percent!
Many in Southern California wander around and plant a few Marijuana seeds here and there in out-of-the-way places where other people will unwittingly water them. Others plant them in their own flower or vegetable gardens.
What Is Being Done?
In view of the seriousness of the worldwide smuggling of narcotics, one would think many governments would be engaged in massive efforts to stem the flood. You might be surprised to learn that there has been very little real international cooperation until recently.
In 1969 Operation Intercept was launched along the Mexican border and dramatically cut the flow of drugs. This was followed by Operation Cooperation, a combined American-Mexican venture to smash smuggling at its source. In January 1970 the United States made an important agreement with France. Paris pledged a stepped-up campaign against drug traffickers. Also, President Nixon has beefed up the undermanned Customs Bureau.
Perhaps the most important measure taken thus far is a stepped-up war on organized crime in the United States by the Attorney General's office.
However, the big drug crackdown has proved to be a big disappointment. Ironically, increased governmental concern appears to have boosted drug traffic at least temporarily. Smugglers, fearful that traditional sources and channels may soon be closed, have been moving large shipments of drugs while they are able.
Even if production of opium in Turkey could be controlled, or wiped out, there is already enough that has been stored to meet the world's demand for several more years! The backlog of heroin stored in the United States has been estimated to be over 7,000 pounds — enough to supply 150 million shots of heroin!
The chief international effort to control narcotics comes from the United Nations. The U. N.'s Commission on Narcotic Drugs is the world's watchdog on narcotics. However, the U. N. agencies are toothless — powerless to deal with narcotics traffic. The United Nations is merely a collection of diverse, independent governments. The U. N. can exhort nations to comply with narcotics control efforts, or attempt to persuade them, but it has no power. It cannot FORCE individual nations to "toe the line."
In truth, today the responsibility for cutting back and controlling narcotics production and trafficking devolves upon each individual national government. But most of the world's nations dismiss the whole situation as "an American problem" and give it little more than lip service!
However, now that many European nations recognize a burgeoning narcotics problem, they have begun to become more interested in policing the narcotics traffic.
It has been suggested that the real solution to the narcotics traffic is to reform all drug addicts. If the individual addicts can be cured, reformed, rehabilitated, the drug traffic will die out because there is no market.
The problem with this "solution," however, is that the overwhelming majority of heroin addicts who have been treated and weaned away from dope have gone right back to it when they had a chance — well over 90 percent of them!
The fact is, a society which tends to foster drug addiction is in a very poor position to cure drug addiction.
The modern social system, with its ghetto areas, crime, hypocrisies, immorality, lack of real purpose, is largely responsible for causing young people to "turn on" with drugs as an escape.
Therefore, the solution to the problem of drug addiction and narcotics smuggling also involves the rehabilitation of society itself!
That means new education programs, especially for young people in our cities. That means reconstruction programs to rebuild miserable ghetto areas, to eradicate rat-infested tenement houses, dilapidated apartment buildings, environments which cause people to want to "escape." It means educating the idle affluent in higher values and a better purpose in life.
Indictment of Morality
Drug traffic and abuse show no signs of letting up for one basic reason — there is something wrong with modern society around the world. The explosion in drug abuse and smuggling is an indictment of the immorality of our modern age — the immorality of many national governments who really do little or nothing to stop the sinister trade — the immorality of the peddlers and pushers who make money from the miseries of the "junkie" — the immorality of the growing numbers who turn to drugs for excitement, thrills, fun, and pleasure.
Every figure involved in the dope traffic stands to make a fantastic profit. There is an innumerable string of payoffs all the way down the line, from the Turkish farmer to the pusher in the big city streets or at the neighborhood school.
To stop the dope traffic — to smash the international dope racket — will require more than strict national laws and effective policing of borders and ports of entry. Although strong law enforcement efforts are definitely needed, they alone will not solve the problem. International cooperation is also needed, but it is very slow in coming and thus far has accomplished very little.
Before the dope syndicate can be crushed, our whole modern society needs changing, so that the values and morals of individuals are upgraded. The drug scene is essentially an immoral scene — a big "cop-out" on life. If young people in the big cities and in the countryside were taught strong basic morality from childhood — if they were educated in the home, school and churches to be strong minded, courageous, effective citizens with high moral standards — then they would not fall victim to drugs. They would know better than to fool around with heroin, or acid, or pills, or any other narcotic. They would not allow themselves to be tempted!
So, until there is a sudden about-face in the direction young people are going, and .'the direction society itself is taking — until there is a sudden renaissance of morality and high personal values — until young and old alike admit there is more to life than merely making money or having "fun," society will continue to be deluged by drugs, with more and more lives being wrecked, devastated, and ruined in the process!
The current explosion in dope smuggling and abuse portends a frightening future filled with more fanatical, wild-eyed hippie clans, more lazy, inert, ambitionless blobs of humanity drifting through life, a weakened, escapist society, millions of sick and burned-out lives, and increasing hopelessness.
Drug abuse exists only because corruption is rampant around the world and personal integrity and morality is at an all-time low. Only when there is a vast RENEWAL of morality and personal character development will the drug traffic cease to flow. Though this may seem like a simplistic solution to some sophisticated intellectuals, they must confess that nothing else has worked, and the prognosis for the future is not good.
Moral Instruction Needed
When it comes to instruction of morality, modern schools and even churches have "copped out." Many modern homes, as well, have abdicated their part in this responsibility. Is it any wonder, then, that increasingly young people are trying drugs, seeking, searching for some meaning in life?
In a society where morality is threatened, where morality is not taught vigorously throughout youth, the difference between right and wrong becomes blurred and obscured. Young people begin to wonder, "Why shouldn't I smoke pot, drop acid, or shoot heroin?" And the older generation, lacking strong morals itself, has no ready, convincing, solid answer!
A child's character and moral standards are largely determined by his early home life. Children more likely to take drugs are those from broken or unhappy homes, homes where the parents did not spend enough time with their offspring, or went to the opposite extreme and "spoiled" them. But children from solid, stable, balanced homes where high standards of morality are practiced, and where love is expressed, are much less likely to go the drug route!
The solution to the drug problem lies largely with you. What kind of home is YOUR home? If you want to protect your children from drugs, then you need to write for our free booklets: New Facts About Marijuana; Hippies — Hypocrisy and Happiness; and The Plain Truth About Child Rearing. We would be most happy to send your copies to you as soon as we receive your request.