es where demand exists. This process is referred to as drug trafficking or narcotrafficking (Monitor 16).
             Despite government official's knowledge that drug trafficking is an underground economic activity, as well as an illegal form of free enterprise, it is practically impossible to carry out an economic analysis of the international drug trade. Due to varying estimates of the amounts of drugs produced, refined, exported, and consumed, there is no clear way to accurately measure the money made or spent on all of the different phases of drug trafficking (Report 8).
             However, U.S. government officials do acknowledge that thousands of Latin Americans rely on the drug trade as a means of income. For example, farmers in the Andean region in Peru harvest coca and poppy plants, and then sell these raw materials to drug cartels, as their dominant source of income. The drug cartels then proceed to create thousands of jobs for Mexican citizens in agriculture, chemical processing, packaging, transportation, accountancy, and administrat
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