Opium grown in the fields of Afghanistan often ends up as heroin, sold in cities and towns around the world. The following statement indicates the underlying fact of an underground market; drug trafficking. Drug trafficking is a global black market system dedicated to the cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, and sale of drugs. Trafficking occurs in terms of transnational trade, which involves the movement of illegal commodities across borders. The UN estimates that the international drug trade alone is about eight percent of all international trade, about $400 billion annually and around 200 million people use drugs.
Globalization is arguably one of the most influential phenomena of our times, yet critics opine that globalization has resulted in a competitive global market, and unethical practices in business. States have been interconnected globally through a free market system, however it also provoked the emergence of criminal organizations. Globalization exploits LDC through transnational criminal organizations. .
The various factors exploited pertain to: economic, social, and political issues. The instability in LDC are further destabilized by DC through illicit trade. Drug trafficking requires money laundering, which results in the inevitable consequences targeting LDC; consequences pertain health concerns, severe poverty, and unemployment. The essay will focus on the exploitation of West Africa into the illicit drug trade.
Drug trafficking destabilizes the politics of the country as well as governmental affairs, where tax and subsidies become limited and at stake. The development of a country weakens especially in countries with a high risk of the black-market scheme. The risk factors exist in every country, however they are especially crucial in LDC, as they have a higher risk of failing as a state. West African states have been emerging in the drug trafficking business and are targeted by many crime organizations to continue smuggling drugs through trade routes.