Minors and the illegal drug trade

The U.S. government's most recent 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that nationwide over 800,000 adolescents ages 12–17 sold illegal drugs during the twelve months preceding the survey; such adolescents also admitted to know or be linked to other drug dealers across the nation.The 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey by the U.S.
Despite over $7 billion spent annually towards arresting and prosecuting nearly 800,000 people across the country for marijuana offenses in 2005 (FBI Uniform Crime Reports), the federally-funded Monitoring the Future Survey reports about 85% of high school seniors find marijuana "easy to obtain." That figure has remained virtually unchanged since 1975, never dropping below 82.7% in three decades of national surveys.
In 2009, the Justice Department identified more than 200 U.S. cities in which Mexican
　
Effects of illegal drug trade on societiesThe countries of drug production have been seen as the worst affected by prohibition.
Even so, countries receiving the illegally-imported substances are also affected by problems stemming from drug prohibition. For example, Ecuador has allegedly absorbed up to 300,000 refugees from Colombia who are running from guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug lords, says Linda Helfrich. While some applied for asylum, others are still illegal, and the drugs that pass from Colombia through Ecuador to other parts of South America create economic and social problems.
Violent crimeIn many countries worldwide, the illegal drug trade is thought to be directly linked to violent crimes such as murder; this is especially true in third world countries, but is also an issue for many developed countries worldwide.In the late 1990s in the United States, for example, the
A report by the UK government's drug strategy unit that was subsequently leaked to the press, stated that due to the expensive price of highly addictive drugs heroin and cocaine, that drug use was responsible for the great majority of crime, including 85% for shoplifting, 70-80% of burglaries and 54% of robberies. "The cost of crime committed to support illegal cocaine and heroin habits amounts to £16 billion a year in the UK" (note: this is more than the entire annual UK Home Office budget)
　Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that nationwide 25.4% of students had been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug by someone on school property. The prevalence of having been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property ranged from 15.5% to 38.8% across state CDC surveys (median: 26.1%) and from 20.3% to 40.0% across local surveys (median: 29.4%).drug cartels "maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to distributors" - up from 100 three years earlier.Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated that 5% of murders were drug-related. However, after a crackdown by U.S. and Mexican authorities in the first decade of the 21st century (part of tightened borders security in the wake of the September 11 attacks), border violence inside Mexico surged, with the Mexican government estimating that 90% of the killings are drug-related.