Drug Trafficking is a trade of illicit drugs involving cultivation, manufacturer, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. The process often used airports and commercial aircraft as channel for transportation of smuggled drug accross borders. Drugs are chemicals or substances that change the way oRead more
Drug Trafficking is a trade of illicit drugs involving cultivation, manufacturer, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. The process often used airports and commercial aircraft as channel for transportation of smuggled drug accross borders.
Drugs are chemicals or substances that change the way our bodies work. Some are prescribed by the physician while the others have no medical use or benefits.
Usually taken by swallowing, inhaling or injecting abused drugs find their way into the bloodstream which acts as channel for transportation finally to the brain, where these drugs mat intensify or dull the senses, change how alert or sleepy people feel and sometimes decrease the physical pain, which eventually leads to the inability of our brain to make healthy choices leading to dangerous situations.
Based on the requirement drugs are majorly segregated inot sedatives, analgesics, tranquilizers, Opioids and narcotics.
Drug Addiction When the person’s body leads to inability to control the use of a legal or illegal drug or medicine.
Impact of Drug Abuse:
1. Strained HealthCare System:
Drug abuse may lead to specialized treatment, sometimes involving death, contraction of illnesses and prolonged stays at hospitals.The consequences of illicit drug use are widespread, causing permanent physical and emotional damage to users and negatively impacting their families, coworkers, and many others with whom they have contact. Drug use negatively impacts a user’s health, often leading to sickness and disease. In many cases, users die prematurely from drug overdoses or other drug-associated illnesses .
2.An overburdened justice system :
The consequences of illicit drug use impact the entire criminal justice system, taxing resources at each stage of the arrest, adjudication, incarceration, and post-release supervision process.
3. Lost productivity:
Premature mortality, illness, injury leading to incapacitation, and imprisonment all serve to directly reduce national productivity. Public financial resources expended in the areas of health care and criminal justice as a result of illegal drug trafficking and use are resources that would otherwise be available for other policy initiatives.Individuals who are employed but have chronic absenteeism resulting from illicit drug use also accrue substantial lost productivity.
4. Environmental destruction:
Impact on the Environment
The environmental impact of illicit drugs is largely the result of outdoor cannabis cultivation and methamphetamine production. Many of the chemicals used to produce methamphetamine are flammable, and the improper storage, use, and disposal of such chemicals that are typical among methamphetamine producers often lead to fires and explosions at laboratories.
Places in India from where Drug Trafficking takes place:
1. Myanmar, India’s gateway to Southeast Asia and shares maritime border with northeastern states of India such as Nagaland, Mizoram,Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, is a state infamous due to it’s hefty drug trafficking poses a serious challenge to India’s security due to the illicit flow of drugs from Myanmar. Myanmar is the second largest producer of opium poppy and the leading manufacturer of synthetic drugs forms the Golden Triangle along with Thailand and Laos. India has become one of the major markets for these drugs.
2. Nepal is also one of the major smuggling point of Hashish in India across land borders in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
3. Drug Trafficking through sea routes constitutes around 70% of the total illegal drugs smuggled in India. These maritime sea routes are used by drug syndicates based in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Problems of National Security faced by India:
The two way illegal flow of these drugs and raw chemicals not only violates India’s borders, but also poses a major threat to national security. The network formed between drug traffickers, organised criminal network and terrorist has created a force powerful enough to cause instability in the country.
Challenges faced by India in curbing drug trafficking:
1. Technological Advancements Drug traffickers are increasingly using technology to bluff law enforcement agencies. For instance use of dark net to sell drugs, unreachable internet based technology for the communication and also drones to transport drugs from across the borders.
2. Insufficient Law Enforcement despite efforts to improve law enforcement there is a perceived lack of coordination among different agencies leading to failure of effectively tackle the issue.
3.Lack of Social Awareness Indian society is stigmatized often on drug abuse and addiction. There is a need to create more awareness and promote preventive measures, need to develop more rehabilitation facilities to cater to needs of large number of people struggling with addiction.
4. Political Interference Political interference often hampers the work of law enforcement agencies and hinders their ability to tackle drug trafficking effectively.
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IPRs are important in encouraging innovations as, in fact, IPs accord to the creators limited rights over the respective products. But they can also compulse negative effects on market competition that can prevent innovation and trigger inefficiency. Below are some potential adverse effects and poliRead more
IPRs are important in encouraging innovations as, in fact, IPs accord to the creators limited rights over the respective products. But they can also compulse negative effects on market competition that can prevent innovation and trigger inefficiency. Below are some potential adverse effects and policy measures to mitigate them:
Harms of IPRs to Market Competition
1. Monopoly in the Market:
SOME IPRs can lead to anti-competitive behaviors; they allow market dominators to shut out competitors, increase prices on goods and services or ration access to items that people require.
2. Patent Thickets and Trolls:
A situation where there are several patents that are similar (patent thickets) is very expensive and an innovation become very complex for new players. Another challenge that a company or business can face involves the existing patent trolls, which are people or firms that only deal Patent leasing firms can also continue to cause more lawsuits.
3. Reduced Access to Essential Technologies:
Excessive protection of IPRs can thus create an obstacle to getting to key technologies, such as necessary healthcare, including life-saving medications or clean energy that is more reliant on more widespread use.
4. Reduced Innovation Because of Overprotection:
Strong or extended protection may stifle incremental innovation because innovators avoid building on existing technologies owing to infringement or they cannot.
5. Entry Barriers :
Small startups, and firms might feel intimidated by the large enterprises given the possibility that the latter may use their IP portfolios to either gazette the market or prevent any new entrant from setting foot there.
Policy Action for Such Challenges
1. Open Innovation Models:
Support social science research and flexibility of First Sale Doctrine, combined with collaboration based platforms and systems that provide second source benefits to developers and industries as well as maintaining protection for inventors.
2. Antitrust Oversight should be Strengthened:
Supervising and eradicating IPR related anti-competitive behavior entails facilities such as bundling, licensing abuse, and dominance.
3. Patent System Reform:
Regarding software and technology – the fields where the pace of inventions is significantly higher, two aspects should be limited: patents scope and patents duration.
Patent leaders should reduce the incidence of thickets through rationalisation of the process bureaucracy so that only valid patents for inventions are granted for those innovations that cannot be easily invented by others.
4. Encourage Compulsory Licensing: In differentiated and essential technologies – for example pharmaceuticals or environmental technologies – governments may rely on compulsory licences to make such technologies more widely available while still compensating the patent holders fairly.
5. Discourage Patent Trolling:
– Make sure that patent acquisition and ownership transfer has requirements so that it can avoid being easily targeted.
Imposing penalties of bad-faith litigation over IPRs by entities.
6. Support Small Innovators and Startups:
Provide legal and financial assistance to small firms to help them manage their IP environments, to defend their own inventions, and to challenge monopolistic behaviours of larger companies.
7. Encourage Knowledge Sharing:
Offer tax credits, or other fiscal or regulatory concessions to any party involved in sharing IP on public/private partnership, research collaborations on a commercial basis and the like.
8. Balance Copyright Protections: Alter copyright law in a way that provides better frames for digital age that would guarantee that tweakers receive adequate reward while at the same time allowing fairly liberal use.
By doing this, those making policies can ensure that an environment that IPRs cultivate encourages and fosters innovation without stifering competition, accessibility, or other ‘vital’ aspects of the technological realm.
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