NCJ Number
83171
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 46 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1982) Pages: 14-20
Date Published
1982
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Dilemmas in drug control efforts are identified, and suggestions are offered for reviewing and modifying drug law enforcement strategy.
Abstract
The fluidity, diversity, and competitiveness of the illicit drug market have made it uniquely immune from traditional enforcement strategies. Given the magnitude and persistence of this market, law enforcement must devise strategies that will have the greatest impact on the problem, given limited law enforcement resources. Goal options available to the narcotic enforcement administrator include (1) reduction in the visibility of drug use and abuse in a community; (2) reduction in predatory crime believed to be precipitated by users' having to support an expensive heroin habit, which may be done through diversion to methadone maintenance programs, an increase in incapacitation through higher incarceration rates, or a lessening of consumer illicit drug costs by fostering competition in the drug market; (3) dissuading potential users from entering the market; (4) reduction in the supply of illicit drugs; (5) the divesting of criminal drug monopolies; or (6) ensuring market stability through the encouragement of a criminal drug monopoly. Should law enforcement decide upon a strategy that would nurture competition in the drug market, then it would focus its resources on aggressive criminal networks seeking to gain a market monopoly. A strategy that would seek the benefits of a monopoly would give law enforcement priority to independent, less aggressive, or marginal criminal entrepreneurs attempting to acquire a stake in the market. Either of these approaches has undesirable consequences that must be examined and weighed in relation to the benefits achieved. Eight footnotes are listed.