Worth Reading: A Report on Drug Trafficking and Gangs That Terrifies

If you want a fairly complete, and completely terrifying view of the power of organized criminal activity in the United States, take some time to read the National Drug Threat Assessment of the National Drug Intelligence Center.

Yet as good and comprehensive as it is, it reflects one of the fundamental weaknesses and walls that still exist.

The entire report mentions the overlap with terrorist activities exactly ONE time, and that, in a footnote relating to prison radicalization.

While different law enforcement agencies (the DEA in particular) have made drug cases leading directly to Hezbollah, the FARC and the Taliban, this is not mentioned. The FARC is the primary trafficking organization in Colombia, while the Taliban controls most of the heroin heading to Europe. Hezbollah skims from illicit drug laundering from Venezuela to Colombia to Maracaibo and Panama. At least 19 of the 43 designated terrorist organizations have been shown to have direct ties to drug trafficking.

Yet the NDIC is kept completely separate from terrorist analysis, just as terrorist analysts are still largely segregated from anything to do with drug trafficking and organized crime. It is called stovepiping information, as the 9/11 Commission made famous.

This, despite the fact that there is an undeniable and growing link between terrorist organizations and the organized criminal pipeline.

I understand the report was on the threat of drugs in the United States. But, given the existing case precedent and stated desire of different terrorist organizations to attack the United States, I cannot help reading things like the following and wondering what it portends in terms of terrorism.

Mexican DTOs (drug trafficking organizations) are the greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States; they control most of the U.S. drug market and have established varied transportation routes, advanced communications capabilities, and strong affiliations with gangs in the United States. Mexican DTOs control a greater portion of drug production, transportation, and distribution than any other criminal group or DTO.

Their extensive drug trafficking activities in the United States generate billions of dollars in illicit proceeds annually. Law enforcement reporting indicates that Mexican DTOs maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to distributors in at least 230 U.S. cities.

So, we have groups that can cross our border virtually at will and have access to at least 230 cities. How do they manage to coordinate their activities? By using technology that law enforcement and the intelligence can only dream of acquiring.

Mexico- and U.S.-based Mexican drug traffickers employ advanced communication technology and techniques to coordinate their illicit drug trafficking activities. Law enforcement reporting indicates that several Mexican DTOs maintain crossborder communication centers in Mexico near the U.S.–Mexico border to facilitate coordinated cross-border smuggling operations. These centers are staffed by DTO members who use an array of communication methods, such as Voice over Internet Protocol, satellite technology (broadband satellite instant messaging), encrypted messaging, cell phone technology, two-way radios, scanner devices, and text messaging, to communicate with members. In some cases DTO members use high frequency radios with encryption and rolling codes to communicate during cross-border operations.

So, while setting up shop in 230 cities, these organizations can cross our borders and communicate at will to coordinate actions on both sides of the border. Accessing this pipeline would the the ultimate dream of any terrorist organization seeking to attack the United States or any place along the way.

It is striking to me how much good reporting is available, but from the USG and private sources, and still how few of the dots are connected in a way that gives a picture of the whole.

Thank You, I should keep the legalization and decriminalization in mind.

I am for the opening up of the drug market. I have problems with headaches that will increase to migranes. I wish I could just buy the medicines that helped me. But I have to go to the doctor for refills, driving up my medical costs and taking good time from my schedule. When I moved I had to reestablish trust, which resulted in great pains for me. Doctors just don’t want to expose themselves to the lawyers and the feds by giving a patient what they ask for.

There’s something terribly wrong with our system.

Some doctors are a lot more concerned about turning their patients into drug addicts than they are about the government. I know my dad's that way. He just does not want to give his patients narcotics unless they are dying. He'll tell people to learn to live with their pain. He'll rarely prescribe something that is addictive, because he believes that in most cases his patients’ quality of life will be much lower if they become drug addicts than it would have been if they had to live with some pain. He may take it too far, but I have to say I agree with him on that to a great extent. We still have a lot of doctors who are basically licensed drug dealers. I used to work as a public defender and it got to the point that I knew all the local doctors people went to to get their narcotics. These people knew which doctors would write them scripts for anything they wanted. The word would be out on these guys and my drug addict clients would all be going to the same ones. You wouldn't believe how many people are getting drugs this way and selling them on the streets for several times what they paid for them, often with the government covering most of what they paid to begin with. Some of the saddest cases I would see were cases where people with legitimate health issues would become addicted to pain meds they were prescribed and it would get to the point that they were forging prescriptions, stealing drugs and that sort of thing. These addictions can be incredibly powerful. Good people can become so desperate that they'll do bad things to get their fix, and so many of them just can't quit, even after they get in trouble, get sent to rehab or even prison. I don't want the government keep people from getting the pain meds they need, but there is another side to that coin.

Your dad is a rare bird, God bless him. Today's medical culture, highly influenced by the pharmaceutical companies, have been taught that nobody should be in pain for any reason, ever. They dole out pain pills like crazy. They totally addicted my wife after her back surgery. She quit one day, cold turkey, and it was terrible. I've never seen anyone so sick. My son just had 4 wisdom teeth pulled. The oral surgeon prescribed him (he just turned 18) a bottle of 25 Perkasets. Unbelievable. He didn't need any of them, he made it fine on advill.

I've had oral surgery too and been prescribed narcotic pain meds. That's okay I think, a one time script. Normally though I think they give less than 25. If memory serves me correctly usually in those circumstances I've been given ten pills. I've never taken them all though for one incident. They sit in my medicine cabinet and then someday if I get an abscessed tooth or something I'll take them rather than asking for a new script. Those things usually mess with my stomach. There was once when I took them for a few days and got over the upset stomach and I started to see how people could get addicted. It can feel pretty nice to take those. Usually though people only take them for a short period and quit. The ones who take them for longer periods are the ones most likely to get addicted. The longer people take them, the more likely it is they'll become addicted.

Aside from pain meds anti anxiety meds are prescribed like candy these days, benzodiazepines like Xanax. Those prescription are often refilled with regularity and people do get addicted to those drugs. I'm surprised at how many people are prescribed pain meds and benzodiazepines. They'll have anxiety along with their pain I suppose, and a lot of tense muslces too apparently so they'll get muscle relaxers like Soma along with their hydrocodone or Oxycontin and their Xanax. We have so many people walking around, and driving, drunk as can be on all these meds.

Was your wife going to “pain management” doctors? Often they are the worst about just giving people whatever drugs they want and doing it basically indefinitely.

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