Eugene Oscapella

Eugene Oscapella is a lawyer and founding member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. The following viewpoint is an excerpt of his testimony before the Senate of Canada Special Committee on Illegal Drugs. In it he asserts that many terrorist groups traffic in illegal drugs. Oscapella maintains that drug prohibition leads to huge mark-ups in the price of drugs, resulting in large profits for the terrorists who produce and traffic in the illegal substances. He argues that legalizing drugs would lower their price, thus reducing or eliminating the terrorists’ profits, making it more difficult to fund terrorism.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. Illegal drug production and trafficking make up what percentage of financing for Islamic fundamentalists, according to John Thompson?
2. According to the United Nations Office...