NewsWhore
07-21-2008, 03:10 PM
Investigative reporters Minerva Isa and Eladio Pichardo have taken a long hard look at drug dealing in the poorest areas of Santo Domingo and their report makes grim reading. As reported in Hoy newspaper, Isa and Pichardo describe how a drug sales point could be a fried meat stand, a tiny vegetable stand, under a tree or in an abandoned construction site, and it could also be just some person who comes and goes. According to the reporters, media-speak has given this sort of drug dealing a new name, 'micro-traffic'. They say that in reality these small sales points are out of control and are spreading like mushrooms. They operate all over the country, but their strong points are in the National District, Santo Domingo Province, Santiago, San Francisco de Macoris, Puerto Plata and La Romana.
While the National Drug Control Department (DNCD) has reportedly closed down 29,000 drug sales points, they also accept that when one is eliminated, three or four or even five new sales points spring up a few days later. The reporters say that the 'micro-traffic' acts like a network that is woven and unwoven within ever increasing poverty. As they report, the network grows little by little, the links in the chain between wholesalers and small-scale consumers grow in the little barrios surrounding the big city, winning consumers among the disenfranchised and marginalized, and becoming a source of income and detonator for juvenile delinquency and insecurity.
Complicity by police officers and narcotics agents, relatives and neighbors who operate the illegal business overshadows the entire spectrum. With the poor replacing the rich as major consumers, the article looks at just how it works, calling a lot of the micro-trafficking "well paid errands."
The in-depth article can be found here: www.hoy.com.do/investigacion/2008/7/20/240582/... (http://www.hoy.com.do/investigacion/2008/7/20/240582/Microtrafico-de-drogas-va-de-la-mano-con-la-pobreza)
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#13)
While the National Drug Control Department (DNCD) has reportedly closed down 29,000 drug sales points, they also accept that when one is eliminated, three or four or even five new sales points spring up a few days later. The reporters say that the 'micro-traffic' acts like a network that is woven and unwoven within ever increasing poverty. As they report, the network grows little by little, the links in the chain between wholesalers and small-scale consumers grow in the little barrios surrounding the big city, winning consumers among the disenfranchised and marginalized, and becoming a source of income and detonator for juvenile delinquency and insecurity.
Complicity by police officers and narcotics agents, relatives and neighbors who operate the illegal business overshadows the entire spectrum. With the poor replacing the rich as major consumers, the article looks at just how it works, calling a lot of the micro-trafficking "well paid errands."
The in-depth article can be found here: www.hoy.com.do/investigacion/2008/7/20/240582/... (http://www.hoy.com.do/investigacion/2008/7/20/240582/Microtrafico-de-drogas-va-de-la-mano-con-la-pobreza)
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#13)