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Drug Mules

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Drug Mules
Olujimi Akindeinde

English 101

Drug mules

The problem of illicit drugs or narcotics, its manufacture, its use, and its transportation or trafficking across international borders is becoming a major world problem. With the rise in production of illegal drugs, the use of drug mules has become more common. This essay will explore briefly the impact of drug trade in the world economy, the definition of drug mule and its origin, how drug traffickers recruit them, the type of people who become drug mules, and how drug mules transport drugs across international borders. Also, the essay will look into how authorities apprehend drug mules and the penalties for transporting drugs as a drug mule.

Drug production and exportation has become a major source of income for some third world countries. Reid Smith pointed out in his 2008 article, A detailed history of the Afghan Drug Trade, that Afghanistan has become the world’s leading growth region for the poppy seed pods that yield the base opium gum, which is used to make heroin. Quoting the United Nations in 2005, Niklas Pollard pointed out that the annual worldwide illegal drug sales are greater than the gross domestic product of eighty-eight percent of the countries in the world. Jessica Calefati pointed out that in 2008 there were 10,530 seizures of illegal drugs by the United States Customs at airports and seaports in the New Jersey-New York area, and that by 2010, the number of seizures has increased by about 40 percent to 14,547. What Pollard and Calefati failed to mention in their various articles is the method of transporting the illegal drugs. International drug cartels use many avenues to transport their products across international borders, and chief among them are the drug mules.

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a drug mule is a person who delivers or smuggles illegal drugs. It is a slang term derived from the usage of mules to carry burdens. A drug mule normally


Cited: Lexis Nexis Academic. 26 Dec. 2010. Barnes, Edward. Undertaker for the Mules. Time 150.7 (1997): 2. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. 22 Dec. 2010. Mcclelland, Susan. Drug Mules. Maclean 's 116.30 (2003): 25. Academic Search Complete “Mule.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010. http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/mule (22 Dec 2010) Penalties for drug-related crime in Asia. CNN News. 2009. 16 Jan 2011. Complete. EBSCO. 14 Jan. 2011. Sachs, Jessica Snyder. Drug Cartels Raise the Game for the Mule Trackers. Popular Science 264.6 (2004): 38-42 Sheridan, Maureen. The perils of paradise. Maclean 's 110.7 (1997): 50. Academic Search Complete Silva, Rafael Drinot. Mules as scapegoats. New Internationalist 329 (2000): 8. Academic Search Complete Smalley, Suzanne, and Ambrus, Steven. The Youngest Mule. Newsweek 139.18 (2002): 48. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. 27 Dec. 2010. Speart, Jessica. The New Drug Mules. New York Times Magazine (1995): 44. Academic Search Complete
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