ABSTRACT
One of the strongest north-south links in the Western Hemisphere today is highly pernicious: the drug trade. Widespread narcotics consumption in the United States both reflects and aggravates the erosion of the traditional Anglo-Protestant value foundation upon which America's success is based. The relationship between drug trafficking/use and crime is intimate and powerful. Colombia is, of course, the country most extensively involved in narcotics traffic, principally cocaine. The employment implications of the narcotics trade are profound. There is in human nature a current that seeks the escape, suppression of reality, and intoxication that narcotics and other psychotropic substances furnish. The high incidence of addiction led to increasingly stringent controls, including a section in the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 that required identification of narcotic content on labels. Narcotics is a serious problem in the United States that is in part fed by the deterioration of traditional values and institutions.
