Aubree Baranowski

Lindhart 1050-502-503

March 2, 2019

Dynamics of Power Within the Drug World

The rich stay rich, while the poorer stay poor. Its discouraging to see how little the people

involved in the manufacturing of illegal drugs gets paid. Its possible that they are so dependent

on the small amount that they earn, and are not aware, or are too afraid to find a new occupation.

Children help their families, and then they too end up working in the same trade. Basically, the

manufacturers are stuck in a type of caste system, and there’s no reason to move up the chain, or

find a new job.

The cartel has a monopoly over the producers and manufacturers in regards of how much

to pay them for their work, and then how to much they sell the end products for. I’ve noticed that

the costs grow exponentially. Some of the workers make less than 14 dollars a day, and I know

from living in today’s world, that for a gram of cocaine, it can cost more than 100 dollars. How

can this be, its extremely expensive, and the makers of the drug never see any of it.

The farmers in other countries require less money to live a normal day to day life. This is

why I believe they are payed so little. The cartels know that the possibility of making even five

dollars more a day, could help them and their families tremendously. This makes working for

them an even better option, even if it comes with risks. These farmers are farming illegally, and

is the family’s only income. If their crops are burned by the government, or they are arrested,

there’s extreme worry over how their families will survive.

 Government agencies have noticed that burning the crops, or arresting the perpetrators, is

not solving the issue. They have decided to help these farmers out. When they find an illegal

operation, they give two options. One, be arrested, or two, receive assistance to start a new crop.

This crop would replace the illegal crops and a document would be signed stating that they

would not go back to illegal crops.

For the families who have changed their crops, they are noticing that they are barely

scraping by. Before, when they farmed illegal crops, they were making just above what they

needed. Now, they are barely making ends meet. This just reinforces how the poorer stay poorer.

They are unable to do any other type of work to get them out of poverty. The cartels know this,

and the option of using government assistance is not where a lot of workers want to go.