Drug Trafficking Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Drug Trafficking - Research Paper Example Drug addicts are usually morally corrupt people and so are the drug traffickers. This paper discusses the potential means and ways by which drugs reach US and how it impacts the American society. According to the statistics noted by UNODC (2011), about 340 tons of heroin is currently consumed all over the world every year while an annual discharge into the global market of heroin ranges from 430 tons to 450 tons as represented by the seizures. 50 tons of this quantity are yielded by the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the opium retrieved from Myanmar whereas the Afghan opium produces about 380 tons of morphine and heroin. Of the 380 tons, only 5 tons of heroin are consumed by the Afghanis and the rest is supplied to countries far and wide all over the world via routes in the neighboring countries. UNODC (2011) also shares information regarding the routes through which heroin is smuggled to the world from Afghanistan. Heroin is primarily trafficked through the northern and Balkan routes which connect Afghanistan with the large markets belonging to the Western Europe and the Russian Federation. The Balkan route links Afghanistan with Iran via Pakistan from where, the heroin is passed over to Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece in the South-East Europe. Its market value upon reaching the European market in the West is about $20 billion. Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia exist on the northern route. That market’s size is worth $13 billion annually. Every year, US has to bear a cost of $70 billion as a result of the illegal trade of drugs (Finckenauer, Fuentes, and Ward, 2007). The chief smugglers of narcotics into US are the drug traffickers of Mexico. Most of the drugs are transferred from Mexico to US through the 2000 mile long border that the two share. Mexico, today is the main transporter of marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine to the US and also plays a cardinal role in the sale of

Air and sea gas exchange in coastal zones Research Paper

Air and sea gas exchange in coastal zones - Research Paper Example There are inherent challenges in obtaining homogeneous data for coastal waters making the data available to be fully conclusive since it is difficult to accurately quantify the gas transfer velocity as, it is influenced by a wide range of environmental variables, most of which are strongly interlinked. Formal mathematical descriptions are being developed but they are not yet definitive. Gases are present in our atmosphere as well as in oceans. These gases get mixed with one another as an exchange takes place between the two mediums regarding the gases present in them. Our atmosphere contains a number of gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and many other gases (Tokoro, et al 2007). Likewise, the oceans also contain a number of different gases that get emitted into the air. Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that is naturally created as well as fabricated because of man’s effort enters the seawaters and the oceans pay no hindrance in accepting the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (Tokoro, et al 2007). Just as carbon dioxide from the atmosphere enters the water of the oceans, similarly, the gases from oceans such as methyl iodide and dimethyl sulphide enter the atmosphere and affects the earth’s atmosphere (Tokoro, et al 2007). There are many factors that affect the exchange the gases between seawater and atmosphere such as wind speed and temperature (ABE, et al 2010). Speed and temperature play a crucial role in affecting the exchange of gases as it is due to these factors that the process of gas exchange between seawater and air gets started and even gets faster or lower. Coastal zones are important sites to notice the exchange of gases between atmosphere and seawater. A descriptive account of air and sea gas exchange in the coastal zones can be found in this paper, as the purpose of this paper is to inform about this exchange. Chemical oceanography encompasses both inorganic and organic chemistry and it involves the