Illegal Drug Use, Illegal Prostitution and Money Laundering

Introduction 

Drug utilization in American history started from the day Jamestown settlers claimed America as the New World. After numerous years of opiates, cocaine, and narcotics utilized in medicines and frequently prescribed by physicians and pharmacists, certain drugs' sustainable detrimental effects became prevalent. This necessitated the formulation of stringent control laws about manufacturing, marketing, and lucid drug prescriptions. The created prohibitionist acts resulted in illegal drug utilization worldwide. On the other hand, sex outside wedlock is not criminal but paying for sex groups it as prostitution. Prostitution is perhaps the highest cause for death of all jobs and requires little instruction and preparing for the guarantee to pay. Despite the fact that women are not by any means the only individuals associated with sex work, they represent a large portion of the sex work population. Various women associate with prostitution in their young years while searching for an approach to run out of abusive home environment or low financial status. Because of their occupation, these women are left without adequate admittance to health facilities since they convey the disgrace of their work. 

In most cases, these people have few individuals or friends they can talk to about their lifestyle, making it difficult for them to leave the job even if they want to. There is a solid connection between illicit medication use and prostitution, and these two demonstrations are devoutly associated with money laundering. Money laundering is the process of taking illegal money and funds and making them appear legal. This act causes debilitating effects on the economy domestically and worldwide. As much as illegal drugs, prostitution, and money laundering are illegal, they have ties that interface them in straightforward and complex manners. Each spikes each other and prompts a line of crime for those individuals included. The exercises portrayed above are obliged to the major idea of what they are and once in a while break the outside of what every crime includes. Medication usage is a marker of medication deal, just like the offer of sex recounting sex buy. Illegal drug use, prostitution, and money laundering necessitate the use of money and assume supply and demand. This implies that if there were no demand for drugs and sex, there would be no demand or supply for it. This paper examines the brief history of these activities and further explores how illegal drug use, prostitution, and money laundering connect in the criminal activities realm. 

Brief History 

Americans have utilized all types of substances throughout history. In the colonial era, colonial residents, together with their predecessors, depended on natural substances derivatives to cure ailments, relieve pain, increase sexual potency, and offer pure old-fashioned pleasure. Additionally, the European forebears, the 15th, 16th, and 17th traders, conquerors, and explorers were open to the new world's products and pleasures (Yang et al., 2020). The explorers from Columbus discovered tobacco on their first voyage to Columbus. Cocaine was discovered in large quantities in South Africa, while LSD and caffeine-like drugs were scattered in different places worldwide. As Europeans traveled around the world, they adopted caffeine and nicotine and distributed them at each destination they stopped. They also imported opium in places they settled. In a short period, Western Europe had been changed over from liquor-culture to different drug culture. In 1611, the Jamestown settlers came with cannabis in Virginia and cultivated it for its fiber. In 1629, marijuana was likewise presented in England. Until the Civil War, the marijuana plant was a fundamental yield in North America and assumed a critical part in public and provincial financial approach. At that time, opium use was overwhelmingly restorative. There was a colossal patent medication industry in the US, and these meds were professed to fix nerves to conjugal issues. 

In the early 1800s, morphine, an opium derivative, was first separated by European chemists and took opium in patent medicines. Morphine was believed to treat alcohol and opium addiction. In 1887, Oregon Territory passed the first detailed anti-substance law that required pharmacists and physicians that sell narcotics to be given licenses and forbid any person from selling, giving away, possessing, or smoking morphine, opium, chloral hydrate, or cocaine except by a licensed physician prescription. Within a short time, similar laws were adopted by other states. 

During the Civil War, medics used morphine, paregorics, and laudanum to treat wounded soldiers. Cocaine was utilized as a local anesthetic, while people widely used marijuana for its hemp fiber. The above illustration shows that all the broad range of drugs was initially utilized for medicinal purposes. As people started experimenting and side effects became prevalent, it developed a recreational world of drug utilization for entertainment and pleasure. Passing laws and restrictions regarding the illegal use of drugs prompted the black market scene, and the country started an ongoing war against illegal drug use. As society's view and subculture started to change, America’s dynamic relationship with drugs was highlighted. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, illicit drugs, alcohol, and tobacco abuse debits America, approximately 740 billion dollars per year in costs related to low work productivity, crime, and healthcare (Alzoubi, 2018). In 2007, approximately 193 billion dollars of illicit drug use cost, including direct and indirect public costs related to health, crime, and productivity costs, was estimated by the National Drug Threat Assessment. Marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamines abuse are still prevalent, and the number has risen among young adults aged between 18 and 25 years. As indicated by the National Drug Intelligence Center, illegal drugs demand in the United States increases significantly within this age group. 

The dope demand needs a supplier, and this has been proven throughout drug-related legislation and prohibition acts. The National Drug Intelligence Center further indicates that Mexican-based Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO) are the profound supplier and wholesaler of drugs in North America. There are about seven significant Cartels that manages drug smuggling corridors in the US. However, these transnational criminal organizations are divided across various regions which include Mid Atlantic, Caribbean, West Central America, Florida, Southeast America, Pacific, and Southwest America. The other TCOs include Colombians, who supply cocaine and heroin, Dominican who supply cocaine and heroin, ethnic Asians who are MDMA suppliers, West African suppliers of Southeast Asian and Southwest Asian heroin, and Cuban who supply high potency marijuana. The above mentioned TCOs depend on criminal gangs such as outlaw motorcycle, street, and prison gangs to supply drugs in the US. The connection between Criminal Gangs and TCOs creates a ready supply of controlled substances. 

Illegal drug use, illegal prostitution and money laundering 

The use of the illicit drug has been majorly connected to crime and violence. Extensive researches have also evaluated the relationship between drug use and sexual activity. In most cases, prostitution is connected to illicit drug utilization as sex exchange for drugs or drugs exchange for sex. The first recorded sexual intercourse sale for financial advancement was reported in the 17th century in North America. In the 18th century, illegal prostitution became a public activity. It also became a marketplace commodity. The prostitution of the 19th century revolved around different structures such as an urban subcultures that encouraged sexual promiscuity and employed women. At the end of the 19th century, prostitution was broadly acknowledged as a social norm, and brothels became significant intuition in America's urban economy. 

Even though previous legalization as well as prohibitionists’ movement tried to rebuke prostitution, sex for monetary advancement became a lucrative underground economy by 1920. Gunderson (2018) assert that prostitution proclivity in New Orleans totaled to about 10 million dollars. The public advertisement of nightclubs, brothels, streetwalkers, and brothels tremendously increased until 1965 when it subsided. After Nevada legalizing prostitution in 1971, labor organizations for prostitutes initiated Prostitutes of New York (PONY) and Call Off You Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE) to defend prostitution. The labor organizations proclaimed prostitution as a private institution and established demand for the act to deem it as a useful occupation. Currently, prostitution enumerates ethical issues. Both men and women who choose prostitution faces psychological effects and other people are forced into prostitution against their will or tricked into the situation. The perspective around prostitution as a crime comprises the business' inherent dangers that emanate from emotional, psychological, sexual, and physical trauma and violence. Terrorist organizations, drug gangs, and organized crimes mostly use prostitutes to get target, information, money, and broker deals to transport human trafficking and narcotics. 

Most individuals use drugs to cope with their problems. In most cases, they use prescription or street drugs. The culture of using drugs cannot be clearly defined because it continuously evolves and develops depending on the group of people participating in, the place they live, and the type of drugs they utilize. Drug utilization emanates from the prevailing culture dialectic, particularly drug sub-cultures with personal identity growth. People who engage in illegal drugs can adopt a drug use cultural view that their peer users have determined. This can be achieved by group co-production in which both people and their activities identify what is acceptable. 

In this case, each person can decide to join the group or decline joining the group. The co-production theory allows an individual who utilizes illegal drugs to become a victim and actively participate in determining their outcome. A person who chooses to use illegal drugs can become an addict, making them to depend on the substance for the rest of their lives. If this happens in their young ages, illegal drug use prevalence in their life increases. Most children that use drugs begin with tobacco and alcohol since the utilization of these illicit drugs starts at home. As they grow through adolescence, they may start using marijuana because marijuana use is widespread among peers. When individuals are permitted into the sphere of influence, their standards and ideals are influenced. The quantity and consistency of drug utilization differ among group members, from casual users to addicts. 

The utilization of drugs was initially constrained to street drugs but currently prescription drug use is quickly is quickly rising. The use of a drug under the instruction of a physician is not illegal, but drug utilizing it for other purposes other than the medicinal purposes is illegal. The false perception that prescription drugs are safe is the main reason why prescription drug abuse has rapidly increased. Seeking medication and abusing them for other purposes other than the intended purpose has become common in America. The use of prescription drugs is predominant in middle and upper-class individuals of the society, because accessibility to these drugs is easier. While there is a reduction in illegal drug use for people aged 12, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health report indicate that first-time drug users started with prescription drugs (Levent & Davelaar, 2019). Prescribed drugs are considered by many people to be safe because the physician prescribes them. 

Illicit drug and illegal prostitution relate to each other. One act propagates each other and reaps monetary capital, which eventually leads to money laundering. Individuals that engage in illegal activity find a hard time keeping the legitimacy of their activities. Therefore, the money obtained from these activities has to be cleaned up through money laundering. Money laundering is the process in which a person hides illegal sources of income and falsifies the income to make it appear as if it came from legit sources. The money obtained from illegal sources is channeled into legal businesses to disguise or hide the financial chain that contribute to these criminal activities. Money laundering is conducted in three stages, which include layering, integration and placement. Placement involves cash transfer from its source. On numerous occasions, cash sources can be misrepresented and further placed into circulation via through financial organizations such as casinos, shops and other businesses located in the country or overseas. Apart from placement, layering is another stage of money laundering. Layering involves isolating proceeds from their criminal origins through dynamic moves that include cash conversion to financial investments, real estate investments, wire transfer, and high-value goods sale. 

Finally, the integration stage modifies wealth obtained from illegal businesses to appear as if they came from legitimate sources. Utilizing money on deposits in the international banks as collateral for local loans is a suitable method to make money obtained from illicit deals appears as regular business earnings. Another technique used in the integration stage of money laundering is charging higher or making false receipts for goods or products allegedly sold across borders. Initially, the effort of anti-money laundering focused on dealing with illegal drug profits but currently, human trafficking, terrorism financing, political corruption, illegal weapons sale, and political corruption are also targeted. The act that was established in the US to fight money laundering is the Bank Secrecy Act. The act demanded various businesses to file reports and maintain records that can be useful in regulatory, criminal, and tax matters. The act allows documents kept by businesses to be used locally and globally to determine, detect, and deter money laundering. Under this program, banks were required to develop an adequate BSA compliance program, monitor the Foreign Assets Control Office, monitor systems and programs, create a risk-based anti-money laundering programs, and finally develop practical suspicious activities monitoring and reporting process. 

Additionally, the act also authorized financial institutions to help the United States agencies monitor and preventing the act by keeping records of negotiable cash instruments purchases, reporting suspicious activity, and filing reports cash transactions that surpass a total amount of 10,000 dollars. Congress also fortified the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) by passing the Money Laundering Control Act, which established liability for any person carrying monetary transactions of funds obtained via illegal practices. Since financial organizations are a significant defense line against crime, the 'Know Your Customer policy' for banks ensured that banks report suspicious transactions to law enforcement through the government channels. After the 9/11 attack, the BSA act integrated the US Patriot Act to combat terrorism financing. The government noticed that the method utilized to launder money was similar to hiding terrorist financing sources. The United States Treasury Department demanded US financial institutions record certain information about transactions from countries identified as significant money laundering havens. 

Some of the ways that can be used to prevent money laundering is ensuring that individuals opening bank accounts submit a minimum of two photos to identify documentation and further submit an original birth certificate and passport for verification. The account holder is also required to be present at the bank and submit his or her fingerprint. Since real estates are another way for organized crime to launder money, the government needs to implement legislation to allow residential property buyers and owners to be natural individuals rather than companies or trusts. To prosecute a conviction under the BSA and the Money Laundering Act, the government should prove four elements: knowledge, intent, financial transaction, and proceeds existence obtained from a particular unlawful activity. As opined by Colladon and Remondi (2017), courts accept money laundering and particular unlawful activities are separate charges, and offenses and sentencing reflect s isolation of both offenses. 

The US war against illegal drug utilization, money laundering, illegal prostitution will not stop soon until these criminal activities are controlled. These particular activities beget abused substances as well as sexual desires transformation. Money laundering, illegal drug use and prostitution are a worldwide epidemic that is permanently connected and intertwined in the current society and subcultures. History has revealed an evolution cycle between enforcement and criminal activity. As the government and states educate communities, laws, and legislations will transform to deter illegal prostitution, illegal drug utilization, and money laundering from happening. 

References 

Alzoubi, R. Q. (2018). Should Female Prostitution Be Legalized? An Opinion Survey of Jordanian Citizens Living in the United States. 

Colladon, A. F., & Remondi, E. (2017). Using social network analysis to prevent money laundering. Expert Systems with Applications, 67, 49-58. 

Gunderson, A. (2018). The Effect of Decriminalizing Prostitution on Public Health and Safety. Chicago Policy Review (Online). 

Levent, A., & Davelaar, E. J. (2019). Illegal drug use and prospective memory: A systematic review. Drug and alcohol dependence, 204, 107478. 

Yang, S. L., Tzeng, S., Tai, S. F., & Ku, Y. C. (2020). Illegal Drug Use Among Adolescents in Schools and Facilities: 3-Year Surveys in Taiwan. Asian Journal of Criminology, 15(1), 45-63.