If the yardstick measuring a country’s drug problem is the widespread availability at low prices of banned chemical substances, then it would seem Spain has a drug problem. The EU’s European Drug Observatory says that around 120 tons of cocaine is intercepted each year by police in Europe, and that three quarters of those seizures take place in Spain and Portugal. Attempting to estimate how much the police miss is next to impossible. An often-cited figure that law enforcement agencies catch just 10 percent of the illegal trade is not based on empirical evidence - although extrapolations are frequently used to guess the extent of domestic drug supply by multiplying the volume of seizures … [Read more...] about Spain’s drug problem
legalisation
The industrialisation of prostitution
For the first time, the Spanish police have released figures on the number of women reportedly forced into prostitution by traffickers and pimps. Last year, the authorities say police rescued or were approached by around 1,300 women working in the sex industry against their will, most of them from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The real figure is undoubtedly much, much, higher: over the last three years, the police have smashed more than 40 prostitution networks alone. Official estimates put the number of female prostitutes in Spain at around 100,000. Other sources put it as high as 400,000. More than 80 percent are foreigners, and most were brought here by international … [Read more...] about The industrialisation of prostitution