Blood Diamonds

Why can a gem the size of a pebble be worth millions of dollars? A gem is just a mineral, a naturally occurring, inorganic solid. Gems form nearly everywhere on earth under some very extreme conditions. These conditions include crystallization from magma, precipitation, changes in pressure and temperature, and formation from hydrothermal solutions. There are two different kinds of gems, precious and semi-precious. Precious gems (diamonds, emeralds, opal, ruby and sapphire) include beauty, durability, size, and rarity. Semi-precious (amethyst, jade, and topaz) gems only include a one or two of these traits. The most commonly wanted gems are diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and then opals. The most wanted colors include red, blue, green, purple, rose, and yellow.

The bad part about all precious gems is the illegal smuggling and violence caused by gems. These gems are known as blood diamonds. The place where the most blood diamonds are sold, cut, and smuggled is in Sierra Leone. The miners in Sierra Leone are working under some of the worst working conditions. They dig every day, every week, and maybe find one small diamond a week, which they can sell for only around seven dollars. Then the buyers of the gems can either legally send them to Europe or America and also pay a large tax on them, or they can smuggle them out of the country and all the way to America or Europe. Since diamonds are so small and have no scent they are relatively easy to smuggle, so many people choose to smuggle them. Blood diamonds are often used to found wars, rebellions, and terrorists. Tiny pea sized stones can be used to fund wars.

The reasons so many people want diamonds and other precious gems is mostly because of vanity, or some ones excessive pride in one’s appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, etc. People see royalty as people with big crowns with lots of gems, so they want big gems as jewelry and are willing to pay millions of dollars for them. This makes blood diamonds an extremely easy profit. People should not buy as much diamonds or make sure the diamonds they buy are legit before they buy them to stop blood diamonds. All diamond mines should be like the one in Arkansas State Park, where the diamonds you find are yours to keep. Diamonds are only shiny rocks and if we keep paying millions of dollars for illicit diamonds we are funding a terrorist activity.