Drugs currently pose a serious problem of immense reach and their threat is increasingly felt at the local, regional and international levels. One of the most serious cross-border organized crimes, the drug menace is referred to by some as the (weapon of mass destruction) as it could become one of the strategic weapons used by states and a form of modern wars. Despite anti-drug efforts by countries of the world, the menace is exacerbating day in, day out, effectively obliterating development achievements in many countries. The seriousness of the problem could be attributed to its association with other problems such as the spiraling rate of crime and the disintegration of families and the society in its entirety. Internationally, the seriousness of the menace is due to the fact that drugs are mostly produced in one country and consumed in another, aided by the widespread globalization phenomena.
Drug crimes are not confined to drug trafficking and dealing for personal use and benefits, but transcend that to cultivation, manufacture and deliberate smuggling to certain countries. The aim is to launch a secret war against the youth, the basic energy of these countries, in what is known as the “drug wars”.
Indications show that 7.7% of the world population, or 500 million out of 6 billion people, abuse various types of narcotic substances. The daily surge in these numbers stresses the gravity of the problem internationally due to the huge wealth amassed by certain groups. Add to this giant leaps in scientific research to innovate new drugs.
As for the Kingdom, its far-flung regions, high per-capita rates and huge numbers of foreigners have led to a surge in drug quantities entering the Kingdom, despite the harsh penalties (including death) stipulated for drug traffickers and dealers. Consequently, it is incumbent on various agencies to make concerted efforts to eradicate this phenomenon as regards the drug trafficking or the wide-spread individual abuse.
First: the definition of narcotics and their types:
Herbal drugs have been known from time immemorial. Initially, man cultivated them for treating various diseases. However, by the passage of time plants and centers have been set up for the extraction of useful substances to serve medical purposes. Such substances were called natural narcotic substance of herbal origin, such as hashish, opium and cocaine. Later, more effective and highly concentrated substances have been extracted such as morphine and heroin, known as the manufactured natural narcotic substance. Scientists also succeeded in manufacturing drugs from chemical substances with the same properties and effect as the natural and manufactured narcotic substances, but with additional side effects such as depression, hallucinations and dull alertness. These were called synthetic psychotropic substances. The objective of making such types of drugs was primarily to serve and protect human-beings, but they abused these drugs, diverting them to illegal, prohibited uses that are mentally, socially and economically harmful to man.
Meanwhile, narcotics are defined as a collection of drugs that negatively affect the nervous system by stimulation, demoralization, hallucination and imaginations. So, drug abuse leads to addiction, not to mention adverse health and social effects. This is in addition to individual and social economic losses. Meanwhile, all heavenly religions, divine laws and international agreements prohibited such abuses.
Studies on drug addiction showed that drug abuse adversely affects the pituitary and thyroid glands and reproduction. Add to this the harmful psychological effects suffered by addicted abusers.
Based on their sources, type and effect, narcotics are classified as follows:
a\ Natural drugs:
These are derived from natural substances, animal tissues or raw substances in their natural state. These include Hashish, opium, gat and banjo. They affect the central nervous system and their abuse leads to addiction, dull alertness, ecstasy, depression and bad temper. It relieves pain and cause sleepiness, short breath and nervousness.
b\ Semi-synthetic drugs:
These are chemically extracted from natural narcotics such as heroin, morphine, atrophin and dilandid. This type of drugs causes confused reactions, loss of appetite, chain smoking, paleness and weight loss. Addicted abusers also tend to lie, be depressed, secluded and unable to perform any job. They also suffer from purging diarrhea, running nose, profuse sweating and severe pain. Add to this inability to move in the event of withdrawal. Other effects include itching and weakness.
c\ Synthetic drugs:
These are produced and manufactured by chemical means without containing any natural substances. They include tranquilizers, hypnotic and hallucination drugs. Serious effects of this type of drugs include psychological and physical addictions as well as neurological disorders and inability to control motor movement in case of withdrawal. This is in addition to convulsion leading to psychological disorders and ultimately death. They also cause insomnia, nervous tension, hallucination, mental disorder and loss of memory. Also, there are other modern synthetic types of drugs that cause addiction and hallucination and invigorate the body. Abused widely by the youth, they include LSD, crack, ice and ecstasy.
Second: economic impact of drugs and relevant expenditure:
Expenditure on drugs has numerous harmful effects at the individual and national levels, including:
a\ At the individual level:
Drug abuse and addiction directly affect the individual’s productivity due to the mental and physical changes suffered by the abuser leading to lower performance, carelessness, dull alertness and disregard for time, size and color.
b\ At the national economy level:
1.This phenomenon drains a large chunk of the society’s resources, savings and investments in lieu of steering them to beneficial spheres.
2.Illicit drug trafficking leads to wide-scale money laundering as traffickers strive to conceal their revenues. This in turn has harmful effects on the national economy and causes numerous financial and administrative problems.
3.Expenditure on drugs takes place at the expense of economic activity cycle as it is not directed towards the goods and services produced by the production sector. As such, they constitute a deduction from the general expenditure, ultimately leading to national economic recession.
4.Low national income level due to spending a large part of personal and family income on drug abuse and treatment. This in turn leads to decrease in expected family income and affects the standard of living and welfare.
5.Low savings and investment rates and by extension lower economic growth rates.
6.The drugs phenomenon leads to misdistribution of resources in the society as the illicit drug trafficking require the provision of hard currency weather from individuals or the banks. This is turn will increase demand on the hard currency and lower the price of the local currency, subsequently increasing the importation cost and hiking domestic prices.
7.Placing further burden on the state’s budget, earmarking additional funds to combat the phenomenon.
8.Negative impact on the various economic sectors, including tourism, investment and development.
Third: the social impact of drugs and expenditure thereon:
The drug trafficking, dealing and abuse pose grave threats to the social fabric. The UN program for international drug monitoring estimates the social costs of expenditure on drugs as follows:
a\ Tangible social costs:
These include such costs whose reduction would provide enough resources to serve consumption and investment purposes, e.g. if the costs of the heath care provided to drug abusers is reduced, enough funds would be available for government production and services in other spheres.
b\ Intangible social costs:
Including death, pain and suffering such costs could neither be translated into material benefits nor provide resources to serve other uses.
In general, the negative social impact of drugs includes:
1.Abusers suffer from physical and social collapse as well as hypertension, cardiac arrest and epidemics. This in turn hikes health care costs, including medical, nursing, hospital and treatment costs. This is in addition to the costs of psychological disorders, including brain and nerve damage. Add to this the staggering costs of accidents and rehabilitation as abusers are prone to accidents and serious diseases such as AIDS and brain cells damage.
2.The spiraling crime rate due to the abuse of psychotropic substances and stimulants. Such crimes range from violence to robberies and embezzlements to obtain the money needed to buy drugs. This is in addition to cases of sodomy, rape, sexual assault and the use of victims as hostages. In Canada, drugs were detected in urine samples of criminals ranging from 50% to 70% at the time of their arrest.
3.High family violence rates, seriously threatening the social fabric, particularly if the abuser is one of the parents. Add to this the cases of killings and rapes committed under the influence of drugs.
4.The rising numbers of drug trafficking gangs, posing a grave threat to the safety of individuals and the security of the state. These gangs have committed heinous crimes against security men, armed forces personnel and anti-drug officials. This is in addition to intimidating innocent people to work as drug dealers.
Fourth: security impact of drugs and expenditure thereon:
The spread of drugs in the society leads workers and officials to desert the public service to become drug dealers and achieve quick riches. Also many of them accept bribes to condone the smuggling of psychotropic substances into the country, specially custom officers, posing graver threat to the society. In certain cases the enemy tries to obtain state’s military, economic or knowhow secrets by forcing some persons to become addicted abusers to get the information from them. Moreover, the spread of drugs hikes the state of alert among security men leading to an increase in the numbers of security enforcement offices, prison wardens, court staff and hospital workers. This in turn calls for allocating more funds for this sphere instead of spending on productive and beneficial domains.
Fifth: the political impact of the spread of drugs:
1.Drugs are some times likened to weapons of mass destruction that could be used by states to intimidate one another and achieve specific political gains. This is distinctly evident in Britain’s use of drugs as a leverage to force the opening of China’s markets to British products in what was known as the “opium war”. Continuing for several years, this war inflicted numerous losses, notably Britain’s occupation of Den Hi city in Chin Yang district, forcing China to cede Hong Kong to Britain to use it as a military, economic and political base.
2.The role of drugs in the deterioration of relations between the drug producing nations and the drug consuming states. This was evident in the US pressure on Turkey to reduce opium production.
3.Drugs’ contribution to charting the political system of some countries due to their use in election campaign to bring corrupt persons to power. Also, drug dealers finance certain political parties in what is known as the use of dirty money in elections.
4.The use of drugs as a means of espionage, recruiting dealers, traffickers and abusers to work as spies against their countries to obtain strategic military information. A clear example is Israel’s use of some of Saina’s Bedouins to smuggle drugs into Egypt and obtain military information.
5.Drugs are among the major causes behind the spread of terror operations and recruitment of numbers of the terrorist cells.
Sixth: international, regional and local anti-drug efforts:
Most countries of the world have given utmost priority to the spread of drugs due to their negative impact on society and threat to the world economy. Also, various international organizations, particularly the UN, have accorded special attention to the problem. Directed against drug abuse, dealing, cultivation and manufacture, these efforts include:
1\ international anti-drug agreements:
Numerous agreements have been concluded and signed by many countries to combat the spread of drugs. The effectiveness of these agreements was felt after the end of the First World War and the establishment of the League of Nations. The agreement sought to overcome the drug menace either by enhancing the anti-drug effort within their territories or by cooperating with others to confront the problem in its international dimension.
Most important agreements include:
2\ UN agreements for the year 1925, 1931 and 1936:
These are concerned with granting states technological assistance to monitor narcotics and the need for the International Criminal Police Organization cooperation in implementing the technological assistance projects. Articles of these agreements focused on the following aspects: considering addiction a product of corrupt social environment, the need for giving attention to recreational activities, technological assistance in mounting narcotics and hospital treatment for addicted abusers.
3\ the 1948 protocol:
This protocol is concerned with subjecting narcotics not covered by the 1925, 1931 and 1936 agreements to international monitoring, particularly after the emergence of new types of drugs and chemical compounds with adverse psychological effects on humans. Previously narcotic products were limited to cannabis, opium, coca herbs and wild hemp.
4\ the 1953 opium protocol:
It seeks to subject cannabis and opium to wider international control with regard to cultivation, production, dealing and use. Signed in New York, the protocol was enforced on March 8, 1963. It gave the right of opium production for export to the following seven countries: Bulgaria, Greece, India, Iran, Turkey, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
5\ UN 1961 psychotropic substances agreement:
It was signed on March 25, 1961 enforced on December 13, 1964 and revised by the 1972 protocol. It is aimed at organizing a special mechanism for extending technological assistance to states in the field of monitoring drug abuse and widening the scope of existing monitoring agencies to include the cultivation of the plants that provide the raw material for natural drugs. This is in addition to enacting the laws of existing multi-lateral ant-drug agreements, considering addiction as a product of a corrupt social environment and the lack of recreational activities. The agreement also covered monitoring synthetic psychotropic substances. This agreement constituted a landmark achievement in the history of international drug monitoring efforts.
6\ UN 1988 agreement for combating illicit drug trafficking:
It is one of the most important UN agreements concerned with combating drugs. Parties to the agreement have expressed utmost concern with respect to the huge surge in the production of narcotics and psychotropic substances as well as the rising demand and illicit trafficking in these substances. They also expressed particular concern regarding the use of children in drugs production and distribution. The agreement views the problem from the following angles:
-That illicit drug trafficking generates huge profits allowing the criminal cartels to penetrate and corrupt the structure of governments, financial institutions and society.
-The need to deny the illicit drug traffickers the advantage of reaping the proceeds of their illegal activities, ultimately depriving them of the incentive for this illegal activity.
-The need for taking monitoring measures regarding the substances used in the production of drugs and psychotropic substances, to uproot the causes of drug abuse.
-Stressing the importance of enhancing the effective legal means of international cooperation in criminal issues with a view to curbing international criminal activities related to illicit drug trafficking. The agreement included thirty articles governing various aspects, such as crimes, penalties, judicial jurisdiction, expropriation, extradition of animals and reciprocal legal assistance. This is in addition to substances much used in the legal manufacture of drugs and psychotropic substances as well as measures to eradicate illegal cultivation of narcotic plants, illicit demand for drugs and psychotropic substances and illicit drug trafficking via sea, free trade zone and ports.
-This agreement is among the most important treaties confronting illicit drug trafficking. Never-the-less, many countries are still suffering from the problem, the rising numbers of addicted abusers, the surge in drug trafficking cartels and their changing methods and technologies. The defect lies not in the provision of the agreement but rather in the different methods of application within each country due to different social and cultural backgrounds.
b\ regional anti-drug efforts:
The anti-drug efforts were not confined to international endeavors but extended to include regional and particularly Arab efforts such as:
1.The Arab strategy against the illicit use of drugs and psychotropic substances, issued by the Arab Interior Ministers Council in December 1986.
2.The Arab agreement against illicit trafficking in drugs and psychotropic substances, approved by the Arab Interior Ministers Council in its 11th session in January, 1994. Enforced in July, 1996, it was compatible with the provisions of the 1988 agreement.
c\ domestic efforts:
The drug menace is a relatively new problem faced by the Kingdom, surfacing only 20 years ago. Previously, customs promoting virtue and preventing evil acted as a safety valve protecting the Kingdom against destructive phenomena. However, as the Kingdom increasingly turned to economic development, recruiting foreign workers to meet development plans’ requirements and massive imports of goods and foodstuffs, considerable quantities of drugs began to infiltrate into the country with those workers and goods. Such substances were concealed in food and spices packages, home appliances, clothes, toothpaste and even copies of the Holy Quran.
The Kingdom has been exerting strenuous efforts to combat this menace through the general department for combating drugs and the customs department, raising the search percentage to 100% at most entry points. Precautionary measures included imposing the death penalty against drug traffickers and dealers. The Saudi anti-drug system also imposed the death penalty against traffickers, importers, exports or producers of drugs and psychotropic substances.
The Kingdom has also enforced the 2010 preventive plan for fighting drugs, prepared by general department for combating drugs and other agencies. The plan relies on a perspective seeking to improve and protect the society to forestall the spread of drugs in the society, raising the level of awareness among citizens, particularly the youth and youngsters.
Sixth: the armed forces’ role in fighting drugs:
Numerous national agencies participate in the anti-drug efforts, striving to address their negative effects on the kingdom. They include:
1.The general department for combating drugs: it was an affiliate of the Public Security, but it was recently linked to the Ministry of Interior to upgrade its efficiency
2.Customs department.
3.Border guard forces.
4.Scientific laboratories and pharmaceutical organs. This is in addition to the agencies directly or indirectly related to combating drugs and responsible for protection, treatment awareness and information.
5.Charitable and religious societies.
Despite the important role undertaken by all these agencies to combat drugs and curb their spread, the armed forces – on top of its vital role in defending the country’s borders and honor against any external aggression – is the most powerful force to confront major smuggling operations. The following lines highlight this important role:
a\ dimensions of the armed forces’ anti-drug role:
The armed forces is, undoubtedly, undertaking a vital role to combat drugs, preventing their spread in the society. In most countries the role of fighting smuggling is assigned to the forces responsible for guarding the borders as well as the sea and airports and entry points, including:
1.Preventing the entry of all types of drugs into the state’s territory as well as trafficking, dealing, distributing or transporting such substances.
2.Monitoring of trafficking and dealing sources.
3.Coordination with anti-drug agencies such as the general department for combating drugs to unify efforts to arrest traffickers and dealers and seize shipments coming from abroad before crossing the border into the homeland.
4.Contributing with the anti-drug department toward bolstering the border regions, airports and entry points with advanced equipment to upgrade efficiency and conduct easy search of persons, goods and means of transport.
5.The media role in enlightening the citizens about the psychological, physical, social and economic efforts of drugs. Even the armed forces personnel themselves should be enlightened about the serious threat posed by drugs.
b\ Elements needed by the armed forces to fight drugs.
The armed forces need certain elements to discharge their task, including the latest monitoring equipment and methods. The border guard needs radars for ground and coast monitoring. This is in addition to nocturnal vision gear and secret reconnaissance planes. Also needed is coordination with the anti-drug department to conduct year round campaigns and ambushes against suspect drug trafficking and abuse locations.
Dr. Hanan Abdul Latif Mohammad