Publisher's Synopsis
The United States has significant security, economic, and political interests in the Arctic, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean and South America. As U.S. Southern Command Admiral Tidd testified to Congress in April [2017], Latin American and the Caribbean is the region most connected to our own society, prosperity, and security, and we are linked by our shared values, cultures, and the rapid flow of goods, services, people and information throughout our hemisphere. An increasing number of transnational criminal networks are exploiting those links for the purposes of drug trafficking and other illicit activities. In fact, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, revenue from illegal drugs may account for 50 percent of all transnational organized crime proceeds. These developments have a direct impact on the United States where we are struggling with an opioid crisis that claimed more than 59,000 American lives last year [2016], and results in 91 Americans lost every day, according to the Center for Disease Control. Last year's White House national drug control strategy noted significant increases in the number of Americans using cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine. Many of these illicit drugs are produced in foreign countries in the Western Hemisphere and are sent here to feed American demand. Illicit drugs have caused American deaths and contributed to horrible violence in our neighbors as criminal groups vie for power and control of trafficking routes.
