ABSTRACT
The cultivation, processing, transport and distribution of narcotics is probably the greatest single generator of political violence and crime in the world. Its profits are used to finance and arm rural guerrillas, urban terrorists and criminal gangs; also to facilitate the trade by intimidation and corruption and by keeping the army and police away. In certain countries it is now a far more potent motivator of terrorism than Marxist ideology or religious fundamentalism. In some of these it dominates the national economy and governments govern by its leave. Almost all of this is ultimately financed by the money extracted from drug addicts on the streets of the western world, so this is where the problem must be tackled.
