Drugs and law enforcement

SIGNIFICANCE: Drug abuse and drug enforcement are major concerns for law-enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system as a whole. Drug enforcement activities account for a large portion of federal and state law-enforcement budgets, and drug offenders are a growing population in both state and federal prisons.

At the turn of the twentieth century there was a growing concern on the part of many Americans regarding the use of so-called patent medicines, many of which contained opium. One of the most common of the numerous “cures” for various ailments was Laudanum, which was a mixture of opium and alcohol. At that time, drugs were considered a medical issue subject to control at the individual state level, and it was usually left to the determination of the medical community as to what constituted appropriate and inappropriate use. Drugs officially became a national law-enforcement issue in 1914 with the U.S. Congress’s passage of the Harrison Narcotics Drug Act

The Harrison Act made drugs and drug abuse federal law-enforcement concerns with the creation of the Narcotics Division within the U.S. Treasury Department. In 1930, Congress’s passage of the Porter Act created the federal Bureau of Narcotics under the direction of the Treasury Department; it became the predecessor to the modern Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Throughout the twentieth century, drug enforcement efforts changed the focus from one drug of choice to another, and increased authority was granted to law enforcement in attempts to control the illicit importation and distribution of controlled substances. Some of the most significant legislative enforcement efforts include the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act of 1970 (also known as the Controlled Substances Act), the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1984, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Acts of 1990 and 1994, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act of 2003. Each of these federal laws provided additional tools and authority for law enforcement to identify, apprehend, penalize, and incapacitate those involved in the trafficking and use of controlled substances.

Types of Drugs

In general, law-enforcement efforts in the United States focus primarily on five major categories of what are collectively known as “controlled substances”: stimulants, depressants, narcotics, hallucinogens, and cannabis. Cocaine and methamphetamines are the two primary controlled stimulants that require law-enforcement action. Depressants include barbiturates, rohypnol (“roofies”), methaqualone, and gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB).

Law-enforcement agencies are concerned with both natural and synthetic narcotics. Natural narcotics derive from the opium poppy and include heroin, morphine, and codeine. Synthetic narcotics, which are manufactured from chemicals in laboratories, include such substances as methadone, demerol, and oxyContin. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that, when used as an anesthetic, is one hundred times stronger than morphine and fifty times stronger than heroin. Hallucinogens cover a wide range of naturally occurring substances such as peyote and psilocybin and synthetically produced substances such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), phencyclidine (PCP), methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or Ecstasy), and ketamine. Finally, the cannabis category of drugs includes marijuana, hashish, and any other substance containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Drug Schedules

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration is charged with the responsibility of regulating the manufacture, distribution, and scheduling of controlled substances in the United States. Controlled substances are scheduled according to their potentials for abuse, propensities for user dependency, and levels of accepted medical use within the United States. Drugs are classified in five schedules.

Schedule I controlled substances have no currently accepted medical uses within the United States. They also have high potentials for abuse and lack accepted safety for use even under medical supervision. Examples include heroin, LSD, GHB, marijuana, and MDMA.

Schedule II substances also have a high potential for abuse, but they differ from Schedule I substances in that they have accepted medical uses in the United States. Despite the latter fact, abuse of these substances can lead to severe physiological or psychological dependence. Schedule II substances include fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamines, methadone, PCP, and oxyContin.

Schedule III substances have less potential for abuse than those on Schedules I and II and also have well-documented and accepted medical uses in the United States. They present low or moderate potentials for physical dependence but high potentials for psychological dependence. Drugs in this schedule include ketamine, codeine, many diet pills, and steroids.

Schedules IV and V controlled substances have a low potentials for abuse. They are well known as useful in medical treatments in the United States and present limited potential for either physical or psychological dependence.

Federal Drug Law Enforcement

The Treasury Department was originally tasked with enforcement of the Harrison Narcotic Drug Act because this act was a taxation measure and fell under the same jurisdiction as other taxation matters. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was established within the Treasury Department in 1930 to focus specifically on controlled substances and narcotics violations. In 1968 jurisdiction was transferred from the Department of Treasury to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs within the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1973 the Drug Enforcement Administration was created and charged with primary responsibility for drug and narcotics enforcement within the United States. In 2023 the DEA had an annual budget of more than $3 million and 9,485 employees and operated 241 domestic field offices throughout the United States plus 93 foreign field offices. In 2022, the DEA made 26,264 domestic drug arrests.

In 1982, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was given concurrent jurisdiction with the DEA on drug enforcement-related investigations. Since then, the FBI has focused mainly on organized crime’s role in drug trafficking and has employed specific legislative enforcement tools in this effort. Continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) statutes and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (RICO) laws are two of the primary law-enforcement tools used by the FBI to combat organized crime’s role in drug trafficking. The FBI established the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) in 1983 to detect and prosecute large criminal organizations that traffic in drugs. The OCDEFT is a multiagency endeavor, with both state and federal participation, that boasts a highly successful record of apprehending and prosecuting large drug trafficking organizations and their associates.

Along with law-enforcement efforts to identify, apprehend, and prosecute drug users and distributors at the federal and state levels, federal agencies also focus on the interdiction of drugs prior to their entry into the United States and during their transportation from point of entry to distribution locations. Interdiction efforts attempt to prevent the entry of drugs into the United States by concentrating efforts on the supply routes on land, air, and sea.

The United States Coast Guard plays an active role in the identification and interception of drug smugglers on the oceans and in the coastal waters that surround the United States. The Coast Guard employs advanced intelligence systems and utilizes interdiction patrols on known smuggling routes to profile “mother ships” that may be loaded with drugs being shipped from one of the many source countries. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is responsible for securing the nation’s borders and transportation systems and is charged with the prevention of smuggling drugs, weapons, and instruments of terrorism across U.S. nation’s borders or through the numerous ports of entry either by air or from the sea.

State and Local Drug Law Enforcement

State and local drug law enforcement is similar to the federal system in organization. However, most state and local law-enforcement agencies are heavily dependent on federal funding to support their enforcement activities. Drug investigations can be both personnel and time intensive and are often beyond the capability of small local agencies; they can even place severe strains on some state law-enforcement budgets. Federally sponsored multijurisdictional task forces and the involvement of the federal agencies in major cases are frequently utilized techniques at the state and local levels of drug enforcement.

A common method of effective drug investigations at both state and federal levels is drug interdiction. In drug interdiction, law-enforcement agencies attempt to intercept and seize illegal drugs during their transportation from their source locations to their intended distribution sites. Federal efforts focus on intercepting drugs before they enter the United States, while state and local efforts focus on intercepting drugs before, or while, they enter the individual states and before they reach their points of distribution.

Interdiction efforts at the state and local levels include highly visible efforts by uniformed officers on major interstates and major routes of travel between source cities and areas of distribution. Another effective interdiction strategy involves the interception of drugs that are being moved from source to distribution locations by means of public transportation, such as buses, railways, and public airlines.

Special Operations

A highly visible drug investigative effort that is viewed by the general population as an effective strategy is known as the fish net operation. This type operation is a planned and coordinated labor-intensive effort targeting both buyers and sellers of drugs at the street level. This strategy is used most frequently in open-air drug markets that are commonly located in inner cities. Known drug-selling locations are subjected to intense surveillance in this type of operation. Individuals observed selling or purchasing drugs are contacted away from the sites of the sales and are arrested for possession or distribution of controlled substances. This technique is often enhanced by the use of undercover police officers making buys from targeted individuals.

As may be expected, these operations receive strong support from local communities and serve as effective public relations strategies for law-enforcement agencies. Fish net operations are effective in disrupting the flow of illegal drugs for short periods of time but have limited impact on long-term drug control or drug reduction strategies.

The most highly publicized drug enforcement investigative technique involves the use of undercover operatives to make purchases or to infiltrate drug trafficking organizations. There are two primary types of undercover operations employed at the state and local level. The first type involves the use of police officers in undercover roles; the second involves the use of informants to make undercover purchases or gather other evidence.

Each type of undercover operation has specific benefits and limitations. When utilizing police officers in undercover roles, the primary concern throughout the operations is focused on the safety of the officers. These operations must be well planned and coordinated with adequate surveillance and “cover” units in place to ensure the safety of the undercover officers. The value of using undercover police officers, instead of informants, is the level of confidence that is obtained in the details of the drug purchases and in the evidence obtained. Basically, judges and juries trust police officers more readily than informants.

The use of informants to make undercover purchases or obtain evidence for use in drug prosecution requires detailed efforts to “validate” the information obtained. Since many informants have less-than-credible pasts (some may even be currently involved in illegal activities), it is imperative that interviews and searches of the informants be conducted immediately before and after they make their drug purchases or collect their evidence. Consequently, a primary focus of undercover operations utilizing informants is on the credibility of the evidence the informants obtain. Informants must be kept under constant surveillance during and after their drug purchases to ensure that all collected evidence is recovered and that no evidence is “planted” or stolen by the informants. The primary benefit of using informants is in that they can often infiltrate organizations or gain the trust of individuals to which undercover law-enforcement officers would not have access.

Another form of undercover operation used by larger agencies and at the federal and state level is the so-called “reverse sting.” In a reverse sting, the police are the individuals “selling” drugs. These operations are usually large in scale and target mid- and upper-level dealers who show a predisposition to drug trafficking activities. Reverse sting operations require detailed planning and coordination and can pose serious dangers to the officers involved.

There have been reported instances of individual law-enforcement agencies setting up reverse sting operations whose intended drug buyers were from other law-enforcement agencies. Such situations can hold dramatic and unfortunate outcomes when each agency involved believes the other side to be the “bad guy.” Another issue of concern in the reverse sting is the defense of entrapment that is frequently presented at trial. It is important in this type investigation to establish the predisposition of the targeted individual prior to the actual conduct of the operation.

Summary

Law enforcement has been officially fighting the War on Drugs for more than four decades, and the battle still rages on. Strategies have changed over the years, as has the focus on the different types of drugs being smuggled into, or produced within, the United States. Although drug trafficking efforts continually evolve to meet the changing demand for the drugs of choice, law enforcement has rallied to meet this evolution with newer and more effective enforcement strategies. Although many critics of the War on Drugs believe that the war has already been lost, law-enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels have neither surrendered nor retreated.

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