drug trafficking

While the problem of drug mules entering the UK is not a new one, there have been some developments towards a more sustainable and effective approach. With the “Sentencing Advisory Panel” recommending handing out shorter custodial sentences for drugs offenders, a step is certainly being taken in the right direction. However, by simply shortening sentences, the judicial system isn’t really grappling with the root causes of the problem and there is still very little appreciation of the harm done to the individuals involved.

After the brutal massacre of 16 youngsters between the age of 15 and 20 last week in Ciudad Juarez, residents of the most heavily militarised city in Mexico are asking the authorities how this could happen. One distraught citizen said in a television interview “We don’t have anyone to defend us or look after us, we pay taxes for all the police and military to come to the city but they are only decoration.” As of march 2009 there were 7500 federal police and soldiers in Juarez, the city with the highest murder rate in the world.

The burned debris of a Boeing cargo plane has recently been discovered in Mali, West Africa. It is not clear the origins of the plane but Colombian and Venezuelan air traffic controllers reported “strange behaviour” from a similar Boeing cargo plane that eventually went missing in south west Venezuela. Traces of cocaine among the remains of the plane suggest that large aircrafts are increasingly being used to smuggle drugs and even weapons to the region from South America.