Law

Legal

Cocaine is a Class A drug. The maximum penalty for possession is seven years in prison or an unlimited fine.

For dealing – which includes giving or selling cocaine to your mates – it could mean life in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Possession and dealing are both treated very seriously by the police. And even if you are under 18, you can still be prosecuted.

Want to end up behind bars? You could try joining the cocaine trade. To mention just a couple of recent imprisonments: in October 2008, 28 people were arrested in a series of raids across Yorkshire, while crack cocaine with a street value of £50,000 was recently seized in Hampshire, leading to three arrests.

Whether you are very old, or pretty young, you can still get locked up for dealing cocaine. A thirteen year old boy got two years’ detention while a grandmother in her 70s was jailed for 13 years for smuggling £1m worth into the UK in her mobility vehicle. She won’t be getting out and about much these days. If she serves her full sentence, then she may not see the outside world again.

 

In the news

Drug dog mules

Dogs have often been used to transport drugs. In a recent case drug smugglers tried to import cocaine implanted into the stomachs of two Labradors, Rex and Frispa.  The dogs were due to fly from Colombia to Stansted via Amsterdam, but they were intercepted in Amsterdam after an airline employee noticed Rex acting aggressively.  Sadly, Frispa had to be put down as the canister had fused to his abdominal wall.  In another case two years later a drug smuggling gang implanted 10 dogs with heroin packets inside their bellies and passed the puppies off as show dogs being transported to New York. Three of the dogs died.

 

Organised crime and gun violence

Organised crime groups or gangs are linked to the cocaine trade, and competition between these groups for the control of drug markets can lead to serious and sustained violence, including gun crime.

Drugs lie at the heart of many shooting incidents, according to Scotland Yard. Drug dealers often carry guns to protect themselves against other criminals who may want to steal their supplies.

When five members of an organised crime group who smuggled crack cocaine into Middlesbrough were recently sentenced to 27 years in jail collectively, police said their arrest may have prevented a dangerous turf war with local drugs gangs. Earlier this year three members of another drugs gang were also convicted of manslaughter after a ‘gangland punishment’ led to the death of a local rival.   

 

Child Soldiers 

Colombia’s drug war, financed by cocaine sales, has seen thousands of children forcibly recruited into armed groups and four people every day are seriously injured by land mines – more than anywhere else in the world.

You might think you’re just buying from your mates. But it’s reported that 10p-15p of every pound you spend on cocaine ends up directly financing the ongoing drug trade in Colombia. Cocaine sales have paid for 3,400 assassinations in the last four years, and more than 7,000 children have been recruited by armed groups financed by drug trafficking.

According to the Child Soldiers Global Report 2008, children as young as seven years old are recruited by drug gangs in countries like Mexico and Brazil. They are often made responsible for routine gun and drug smuggling, and armed and sent into large cities to distribute and sell drugs including cocaine.

Gangs recruit children from a particular age group then assign them a specific job to do. The children are granted a certain standing within the command structure or hierarchy and paid for their work. According to a BBC report, one in five children recruited into drugs gangs are killed within two years.

 

Drug smugglers

The people who bring your cocaine into this country are often forced to do it. They are mostly women, often extremely poor – and they risk death and imprisonment.

The demand for cocaine in this country means that many women in cocaine-producing or transit countries are forced into becoming drug mules. They often smuggle drugs into the country by swallowing packets which, if they break, can kill them. They are usually among the poorest – and even if they survive, their imprisonment can leave their children and families destitute.

Two young children were recently taken into care after being caught trying to smuggle cocaine with a street value of £675,000 into the UK. Heathrow customs officials found the cocaine in packages strapped to the children’s legs. The children had arrived on a flight from Mexico with a woman who claimed to be their mother.

British drug gangs frequently use young children and babies to smuggle drugs into the country, hiding substances in jars of baby food and in the lining of nappies. Another method is to create what looks like a family returning from holiday. The ‘family’ is made up of poverty-stricken ‘drug mules’ who have been persuaded to smuggle drugs on behalf of the gang. Often hiding the drugs in bags inside their bodies, they have been known to die when these burst.

 

Cocaine's destructive impact

Growing of illegal crops causes massive environmental damage, especially in Colombia’s forests and national parks – including the destruction of unique habitats.

Each gram of cocaine bought corresponds to the destruction of four square metres of Colombian forest. 100,000 hectares of forest are cleared each year, mainly to cultivate illegal crops, and 8,000 hectares of Colombia’s national parks have been destroyed to grow coca alone. Unique animal and plant habitats are under threat, and Colombia’s glaciers have halved in size in just 50 years.

There’s no such thing as fair trade coke.

Just ask the Wounaan Indians who live in a fertile area of Colombia called Chocó, who are forced by guerrillas to grow cocaine under threat of death or expulsion.  More than three million people have been forced to leave their homes and ancestral lands, now the tribe is at risk of extinction. 

The cocaine trade is also an environmental disaster for the world, with 80% of the world’s supply coming from Colombia and 70% of it grown in the Amazon. Animals, fish and plant life in Colombia are under growing threat as tropical rain forest is destroyed and millions of litres of toxic fertilisers are leaked into the water system every year.

www.sharedresponsibility.gov.co