Awareness: Drugs and Organized Crime

Drugs and Organized Crime Awareness Service (DOCAS)

Source: RCMP Website

Awareness: Drugs and Organized Crime

You might think that as a law-abiding citizen, drugs and organized crime have no effect on your life. But, sadly, they do; drugs and organized crime affect individuals both directly and indirectly in the communities we serve, every single day.

 

Drug abuse of any kind is a serious health and social problem harming individuals, relationships and families, often irreparably. It’s estimated to cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars each year in lost productivity, law enforcement and health care costs. The criminality and violence that surrounds illicit drug use poses a threat to the safety of our communities.

 

Drugs fuel organized crime, which is defined is any group of three or more people engaged in criminal activity where the primary motive is profit. While many still imagine that organized crime pertains only to things like motorcycle gangs and the mafia, it can be found in nearly every crime imaginable, including counterfeiting, cigarette smuggling, human trafficking, credit and bank card fraud, and the exploitation of children on the internet, to name but a few. The public pays for these crimes through increased taxes and higher prices on essential goods and services, and through a diminished sense of safety and security in their homes and communities, (and, of course, some pay directly as victims of crime).