A big share of this multi-billion dollar revenues of narcotics are deposited in the Western banking system.
But an important point is that this “illicit” trade cannot survive unless the main actors involved in narcotics have “political friends in high places.”
Revenues from the CIA sponsored Afghan drug trade are huge. The Afghan trade in opiates constitutes a large share of the worldwide annual turnover of narcotics. (Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a Changing World, Technical document No. 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also United Nations Drug Control Program, Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations, Vienna 1999, p. 49-51, and Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000).
According to IMF estimates, global money laundering is between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP, a big share of global money laundering is linked to the trade in narcotics.
According to 2003 figures, drug trafficking constitutes “the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade.” (The Independent, 29 February 2004).
Hence, the above figures show that most of the revenues linked to the global trade in narcotics are not appropriated by “terrorist” organisations and warlords, as claimed by the U.S. officials and the American President
Comments
if the libs would quit doing drugs it would go away right?
Is that how they fund the secret prison system?
Not directly.
But thank God for the best opium crop in history. Now even School kids can afford Heroin.
Do you know how easy it is for Army requiters to get a kid on smack to join.
It only proves the God is on the side of America.
Go big Red Go
dUde, the fact remains that we need drugs in this counrty to keep the black man down Duh.
Y’know? I was wondering why, with all the unilateral military action from the U.S., no one has bothered to just spray the poppy fields. Thank you for giving me some data to work with.
I hope we are making some money off of the drugs in Afghanistan so that it offsets the money we have had to spend saving the women of Afghanistan from the Taliban Monkey Men!
If I had to wear a Burkha in 110 degree heat I would be looking for anyone to save me. Thank you America, defender of women’s rights.
