NCJ Number
122703
Date Published
1990
Length
4 pages
Annotation
A segment of the Mac Neil/Lehrer Newshour on March 27, 1990 included an interview with Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) special agent Robert Stutman, formerly in charge of the 500-agent DEA office in New York City.
Abstract
Mr. Stutman believes that the Federal war on drugs is too dependent on law enforcement at the expense of drug prevention and treatment. Border interdiction, in particular, is one area of law enforcement where too much money is being spent. The United States has open borders and will never be able to close the borders to the point of making drugs completely unavailable. Mr. Stutman points out that tripling the U.S. drug interdiction capability would raise the wholesale price of heroin, for example, and that the average drug cartel can afford to sell 70 percent of its product and still be profitable. Therefore, keeping drugs out of the country is not necessarily the best approach. Mr. Stutman further contends that the United States must reduce the demand in this country, indicating that completely stopping cocaine from Latin America would only result in cocaine's replacement by drugs made in the United States which have the same effect. He believes that more law enforcement officials are not the answer; rather, the problem after arrests have been made concerns where to put arrestees. Legalization is likewise not viewed as an appropriate response to the drug crisis in that more drug users would probably result.