The illegal drug trade is a global black market, dedicated to cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, and sale of drugs, which are subject to drug prohibition laws. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs by drug prohibition laws.
A UN report said "the global drug trade generated an estimated US$321.6 billion in 2003." With a world GDP of US$36 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as slightly less than 1% (0.893%) of total global commerce. Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally.
Read more about Illegal Drug Trade: History, Legal Penalties, Effects of Illegal Drug Trade On Societies, Profits, Illegal Cocaine Trade Via West Africa, Trade of Specific Drugs
Famous quotes containing the words illegal, drug and/or trade:
“No more astounding relic of the subjection of women survives in western civilization than the status of the prostitute.... In connection with what other illegal vice is the seller alone penalized, and not the buyer?”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)
“He’d been numb a long time, years. All his nights down Ninsei, his nights with Linda, numb in bed and numb at the cold sweating center of every drug deal. But now he’d found this warm thing, this chip of murder. Meat, some part of him said. It’s the meat talking, ignore it.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“My trade and my art is living. He who forbids me to speak about it according to my sense, experience, and practice, let him order the architect to speak of buildings not according to himself but according to his neighbor; according to another man’s knowledge, not according to his own.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)