TEXAS DRUG LAWS - Class Notes
Original material copyright DShinder 1998

How Drugs Work

Drug Regulation

CHARACTERISTICS OF DRUG SMUGGLERS

Workplace Drug Crime Investigations

Commonly Abused Drugs

Drug Schedules

EXAM REVIEW QUESTIONS
based on TCLEOSE objectives

Drug Laws: Review Questions 1

Drug Laws: Review Questions 2

DRUGS: Introduction/Outline

Part one – Pharmacology and Physiology

Part two – the Law

PART ONE: the Pharmacology and Physiology

Ø What are drugs?

Purposes: cure/treatment / prevention / replacement of natural body chemical /

mood alteration / psychological (placebo effect etc)

Ø Types of drugs

Common everyday use: nicotine (increasing legal & social restrictions)

Caffeine – power as stimulant, addiction, overdose (still one of most benign)

Alcohol: use / addiction / Prohibition efforts / DWI problem

Prescription drugs: legal use/overuse and misuse/illegal sales & use

“Slightly illegal”: marijuana – effects compared to alcohol

Illegal/illicit: hardcore street drugs – uppers and downers – speed, cocaine and crack, opium derivatives

“Designer” drugs

Our own bodies as drug factories

Ø Classifications of drugs (medical / scientific vs. legal)

Ø The FDA approval process

Ø Prescriptions – regulation (and lack thereof), DEA role, physician’s viewpoint

Ø How various drugs work – the physiological mechanism

Ø Recognition:

How to identify drugs

How to identify symptoms of drug use

Using the PDR

Ø “war stories” (professional experience and observations – the bad AND good effects of drugs, i.e. miracle cures, deaths or permanent brain damage from O.D., everything in between)

Ø Review key points

PART TWO: the Law

Ø History of drug laws in this country

Ø Relationship of drug abuse to other crimes

Drug addiction as motive for property crimes

Influence of drugs as causative factor in violent crimes

Ø The Texas Health and Safety Code

Ø Penalty classifications / enhancements

Ø Enforcement:

Local law enforcement role / state and national organizations / the DEA

The War on Drugs

Prevention and Education efforts

D.A.R.E. and other programs aimed at children

Ø The economic impact of drug use / drug enforcement

Ø The ever-changing nature of drug laws in response to societal changes

Ø Officer safety considerations in dealing with drug users

DEFINITIONS: Health and Safety Code

Sec. 481.002. Definitions.

In this chapter:

(1) "Administer" means to directly apply a controlled substance by injection, inhalation,ingestion, or other means to the body of a patient or research subject by:

(A) a practitioner or an agent of the practitioner in the presence of the practitioner; or

(B) the patient or research subject at the direction and in the presence of a practitioner.

(2) "Agent" means an authorized person who acts on behalf of or at the direction of a manufacturer, distributor, or dispenser. The term does not include a common or contract carrier, public warehouseman, or employee of a carrier or warehouseman acting in the usual and lawful course of employment.

(3) "Commissioner" means the commissioner of health or the commissioner's designee.

(4) "Controlled premises" means:

(A) a place where original or other records or documents required under this chapter are kept or are required to be kept; or

(B) a place, including a factory, warehouse, other establishment, or conveyance, where a person registered under this chapter may lawfully hold, manufacture, distribute,dispense, administer, possess, or otherwise dispose of a controlled substance.

(5) "Controlled substance" means a substance, including a drug and an immediate precursor, listed in Schedules I through V or Penalty Groups 1 through 4.

(6) "Controlled substance analogue" means:

(A) a substance with a chemical structure substantially similar to the chemical structure of a controlled substance in Schedule I or II or Penalty Group 1 or 2; or

(B) a substance specifically designed to produce an effect substantially similar to, or greater than, the effect of a controlled substance in Schedule I or II or Penalty Group 1 or 2.

(7) "Counterfeit substance" means a controlled substance that, without authorization,

bears or is in a container or has a label that bears an actual or simulated trademark, trade name,

or other identifying mark, imprint, number, or device of a manufacturer, distributor, or

dispenser other than the person who in fact manufactured, distributed, or dispensed the

substance.

(8) "Deliver" means to transfer, actually or constructively, to another a controlled

substance, counterfeit substance, or drug paraphernalia, regardless of whether there is an

agency relationship. The term includes offering to sell a controlled substance, counterfeit

substance, or drug paraphernalia.

(9) "Delivery" or "drug transaction" means the act of delivering.

(10) "Designated agent" means an individual designated under Section 481.073 to

communicate a practitioner's instructions to a pharmacist.

(11) "Director" means the director of the Department of Public Safety or an employee of

the department designated by the director.

(12) "Dispense" means the delivery of a controlled substance in the course of professional

practice or research, by a practitioner or person acting under the lawful order of a practitioner,

to an ultimate user or research subject. The term includes the prescribing, administering,

packaging, labeling, or compounding necessary to prepare the substance for delivery.

(13) "Dispenser" means a practitioner, institutional practitioner, pharmacist, or pharmacy

that dispenses a controlled substance.

(14) "Distribute" means to deliver a controlled substance other than by administering or

dispensing the substance.

(15) "Distributor" means a person who distributes.

(16) "Drug" means a substance, other than a device or a component, part, or accessory of

a device, that is:

(A) recognized as a drug in the official United States Pharmacopoeia, official

Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, official National Formulary, or a

supplement to either pharmacopoeia or the formulary;

(B) intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of

disease in man or animals;

not food; or

(D) intended for use as a component of a substance described by Paragraph (A),

(B), or (C).

(17) "Drug paraphernalia" means equipment, a product, or material that is used or

intended for use in planting, propagating, cultivating, growing, harvesting, manufacturing,

compounding, converting, producing, processing, preparing, testing, analyzing, packaging,

repackaging, storing, containing, or concealing a controlled substance in violation of this

chapter or in injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing into the human body a

controlled substance in violation of this chapter. The term includes:

(A) a kit used or intended for use in planting, propagating, cultivating, growing, or

harvesting a species of plant that is a controlled substance or from which a controlled

substance may be derived;

(B) a material, compound, mixture, preparation, or kit used or intended for use in

manufacturing, compounding, converting, producing, processing, or preparing a

controlled substance;

species of plant that is a controlled substance;

(D) testing equipment used or intended for use in identifying or in analyzing the

strength, effectiveness, or purity of a controlled substance;

(E) a scale or balance used or intended for use in weighing or measuring a

controlled substance;

(F) a dilutant or adulterant, such as quinine hydrochloride, mannitol, mannite,

dextrose, or lactose, used or intended for use in cutting a controlled substance;

(G) a separation gin or sifter used or intended for use in removing twigs and seeds

from or in otherwise cleaning or refining marihuana;

(H) a blender, bowl, container, spoon, or mixing device used or intended for use in

compounding a controlled substance;

(I) a capsule, balloon, envelope, or other container used or intended for use in

packaging small quantities of a controlled substance;

(J) a container or other object used or intended for use in storing or concealing a

controlled substance;

(K) a hypodermic syringe, needle, or other object used or intended for use in

parenterally injecting a controlled substance into the human body; and

(L) an object used or intended for use in ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise

introducing marihuana, cocaine, hashish, or hashish oil into the human body, including:

(i) a metal, wooden, acrylic, glass, stone, plastic, or ceramic pipe

with or without a screen, permanent screen, hashish head, or punctured metal bowl;

(ii) a water pipe;

(iii) a carburetion tube or device;

(iv) a smoking or carburetion mask;

(v) a chamber pipe;

(vi) a carburetor pipe;

(vii) an electric pipe;

(viii) an air-driven pipe;

(ix) a chillum;

(x) a bong; or

(xi) an ice pipe or chiller.

(18) "Federal Controlled Substances Act" means the Federal Comprehensive Drug Abuse

Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. Section 801 et seq.) or its successor statute.

(19) "Federal Drug Enforcement Administration" means the Drug Enforcement

Administration of the United States Department of Justice or its successor agency.

(20) "Hospital" means:

(A) a general or special hospital as defined by Section 241.003 (Texas Hospital

Licensing Law); or

(B) an ambulatory surgical center licensed by the Texas Department of Health and

approved by the federal government to perform surgery paid by Medicaid on patients

admitted for a period of not more than 24 hours.

(21) "Human consumption" means the injection, inhalation, ingestion, or application of a

substance to or into a human body.

(22) "Immediate precursor" means a substance the commissioner finds to be and by rule

designates as being:

(A) a principal compound commonly used or produced primarily for use in the

manufacture of a controlled substance;

(B) a substance that is an immediate chemical intermediary used or likely to be used

in the manufacture of a controlled substance; and

manufacture of a controlled substance.

(23) "Institutional practitioner" means an intern, resident physician, fellow, or person in an

equivalent professional position who:

(A) is not licensed by the appropriate state professional licensing board;

(B) is enrolled in a bona fide professional training program in a base hospital or

institutional training facility registered by the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration; and

dispense, or prescribe controlled substances.

(24) "Lawful possession" means the possession of a controlled substance that has been

obtained in accordance with state or federal law.

(25) "Manufacture" means the production, preparation, propagation, compounding,

conversion, or processing of a controlled substance other than marihuana, directly or indirectly

by extraction from substances of natural origin, independently by means of chemical synthesis,

or by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis, and includes the packaging or

repackaging of the substance or labeling or relabeling of its container. However, the term does

not include the preparation, compounding, packaging, or labeling of a controlled substance:

(A) by a practitioner as an incident to the practitioner's administering or dispensing a

controlled substance in the course of professional practice; or

(B) by a practitioner, or by an authorized agent under the supervision of the

practitioner, for or as an incident to research, teaching, or chemical analysis and not for

delivery.

(26) "Marihuana" means the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether growing or not, the seeds

of that plant, and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of

that plant or its seeds. The term does not include:

(A) the resin extracted from a part of the plant or a compound, manufacture, salt,

derivative, mixture, or preparation of the resin;

(B) the mature stalks of the plant or fiber produced from the stalks;

(D) a compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of the

mature stalks, fiber, oil, or cake; or

(E) the sterilized seeds of the plant that are incapable of germination.

(27) "Medical purpose" means the use of a controlled substance for relieving or curing a

mental or physical disease or infirmity.

(28) "Medication order" means an order from a practitioner to dispense a drug to a patient

in a hospital for immediate administration while the patient is in the hospital or for emergency

use on the patient's release from the hospital.

(29) "Narcotic drug" means any of the following, produced directly or indirectly by

extraction from substances of vegetable origin, independently by means of chemical synthesis,

or by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis:

(A) opium and opiates, and a salt, compound, derivative, or preparation of opium or

opiates;

(B) a salt, compound, isomer, derivative, or preparation of a salt, compound,

isomer, or derivative that is chemically equivalent or identical to a substance listed in

Paragraph (A) other than the isoquinoline alkaloids of opium;

(D) cocaine, including:

(i) its salts, its optical, position, or geometric isomers, and the salts

of those isomers;

(ii) coca leaves and a salt, compound, derivative, or preparation of

coca leaves; and

(iii) a salt, compound, derivative, or preparation of a salt,

compound, or derivative that is chemically equivalent or identical to a substance described by

Subparagraph (i) or (ii), other than decocainized coca leaves or extractions of coca leaves that do

not contain cocaine or ecgonine.

(30) "Opiate" means a substance that has an addiction-forming or addiction-sustaining

liability similar to morphine or is capable of conversion into a drug having addiction-forming or

addiction-sustaining liability. The term includes its racemic and levorotatory forms. The term

does not include, unless specifically designated as controlled under Section 481.038, the

dextrorotatory isomer of 3-methoxy-n-methylmorphinan and its salts (dextromethorphan).

(31) "Opium poppy" means the plant of the species Papaver somniferum L., other than its

seeds.

(32) "Patient" means a human for whom or an animal for which a drug is administered,

dispensed, delivered, or prescribed by a practitioner.

(33) "Person" means an individual, corporation, government, business trust, estate, trust,

partnership, association, or any other legal entity.

(34) "Pharmacist" means a person licensed by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy to

practice pharmacy and who acts as an agent for a pharmacy.

(35) "Pharmacist-in-charge" means the pharmacist designated on a pharmacy license as the

pharmacist who has the authority or responsibility for the pharmacy's compliance with this

chapter and other laws relating to pharmacy.

(36) "Pharmacy" means a facility licensed by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy where a

prescription for a controlled substance is received or processed in accordance with state or

federal law.

(37) "Poppy straw" means all parts, other than the seeds, of the opium poppy, after

mowing.

(38) "Possession" means actual care, custody, control, or management.

(39) "Practitioner" means:

(A) a physician, dentist, veterinarian, podiatrist, scientific investigator, or other

person licensed, registered, or otherwise permitted to distribute, dispense, analyze,

conduct research with respect to, or administer a controlled substance in the course of

professional practice or research in this state;

(B) a pharmacy, hospital, or other institution licensed, registered, or otherwise

permitted to distribute, dispense, conduct research with respect to, or administer a

controlled substance in the course of professional practice or research in this state; or

veterinarian, or podiatrist, having a current Federal Drug Enforcement Administration

registration number, who may legally prescribe Schedule II, III, IV, or V controlled

substances in that state.

(40) "Prescribe" means the act of a practitioner to authorize a controlled substance to be

dispensed to an ultimate user.

(41) "Prescription" means an order by a practitioner to a pharmacist for a controlled

substance for a particular patient that specifies:

(A) the date of issue;

(B) the name and address of the patient or, if the controlled substance is prescribed

for an animal, the species of the animal and the name and address of its owner;

shown numerically followed by the number written as a word if the order is written or, if

the order is communicated orally or telephonically, with the quantity given by the

practitioner and transcribed by the pharmacist numerically;

(D) directions for the use of the drug; and

Text of paragraph (E) as added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 351, Sec. 27

(E) the legibly printed or stamped name, address, Federal Drug Enforcement

Administration registration number, and telephone number of the practitioner at the

practitioner's usual place of business.

Text of paragraph (E) as added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 789, Sec. 15

(E) the intended use of the drug unless the practitioner determines the furnishing of

this information is not in the best interest of the patient; and

(F) the name, address, Federal Drug Enforcement Administration registration

number, and telephone number of the practitioner at the practitioner's usual place of

business, legibly printed or stamped.

(42) "Principal place of business" means a location where a person manufactures,

distributes, dispenses, analyzes, or possesses a controlled substance. The term does not

include a location where a practitioner dispenses a controlled substance on an outpatient basis

unless the controlled substance is stored at that location.

(43) "Production" includes the manufacturing, planting, cultivating, growing, or harvesting

of a controlled substance.

(44) "Raw material" means a compound, material, substance, or equipment used or

intended for use, alone or in any combination, in manufacturing a controlled substance.

(45) "Registrant" means a person who is registered under Section 481.063.

(46) "Substitution" means the dispensing of a drug or a brand of drug other than that

which is ordered or prescribed.

(47) "Triplicate prescription form" means an official Department of Public Safety

prescription form used to administer, dispense, prescribe, or deliver to an ultimate user a

controlled substance listed in Schedule II.

(48) "Ultimate user" means a person who has lawfully obtained and possesses a controlled

substance for the person's own use, for the use of a member of the person's household, or for

administering to an animal owned by the person or by a member of the person's household.

(49) "Adulterant or dilutant" means any material that increases the bulk or quantity of a

controlled substance, regardless of its effect on the chemical activity of the controlled

substance.

HISTORY OF DRUG ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS

The Drug Abuse Council, 1980

John R. Pekkanen

When the city of San Francisco passed an ordinance in 1875 banning the smoking of opium in opium dens." it marked the first time a law prohibiting the use of narcotics was enacted in this country. Since then cities, states and the federal government have enacted a great number of drug laws. Some have been stringent, others more lenient. Some were passed during politically volatile periods when "get tough" approaches were thought to be the answer; others were passed during calmer times when more moderate approaches were sought.

To understand why we embarked on a course of prohibition for particular drugs is a difficult and elusive undertaking, too affected by deeply rooted attitudes and prejudices to allow for completely dispassionate inquiry. Drug laws from their inception were a special breed. In effect, the passage of these prohibitory laws created crimes by definition; drug activities derived their criminal label more from prevailing attitudes and prejudices than from actual threats to persons or property. These were laws by which people could and did express social disapproval, and were not in the tradition of laws enacted to protect us from those who steal, murder, or commit fraud. They were the means by which right and wrong were distinguished according to popular but arbitrary national values and mores.

In many instances, a proposed drug law would begin as an attempt to control the use of a certain substance, such as opium, cocaine, or marijuana. The rhetoric surrounding the proposed antidrug law would usually call for the preservation of predominant social and moral values, and it would be offered as a means of restoring those "lost" values. Frequently such a law would be directed at an outcast or minority segment of society identified with the use of the drug. I Supporters of the law would offer it as a solution to a wide range of social, moral, racial, political, and economic problems-from unemployment and crime in the streets to preserving the white race.

Early in the consideration of the Harrison Narcotic Act (the first major federal antinarcotics act2), there was some discussion about the hazards of legislating morality, but these cautions were soon put aside. In essence, the Harrison Narcotic Act was a tax law enacted to achieve a moral end, similar in that regard to the Volstead Act prohibiting alcohol. Since then, drug laws and the enforcement policies which flow from them have never been seriously challenged.

In his study of alcohol prohibition, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement,3 Joseph Gusfield examines the components of criminal law and separates them into "instrumental" and "symbolic" aspects. Applied to antidrug laws, the "instrumental" aspect is what the law states as its intention-i.e., the prevention of the use and availability of certain drugs. The "symbolic" aspect may have an importance as great as or greater than that of the instrumental*: In the case of antidrug laws, part of the symbolic function has been to define users of particular drugs as abnormal and to designate their behavior as criminal. When this labelling process was attempted with alcohol prohibition as w ell, it failed because the number of alcohol users in the country was so large and diverse that no one group could be singled out and designated as "abnormal" exclusively because of drinking alcohol.

*These two functions of the law were best exemplified by the report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, which called for the retention of laws against simple marijuana possession but not enforcement of those laws. The law by itself would discourage use, it was argued, and not enforcing it would avoid stigmatizing those who did use the drug.

However, the use of certain drugs, such as opium, heroin, and-until the 1970s-marijuana was most often primarily confined to subgroups and minorities, whose separation and isolation were more easily accomplished. This fact partly explains why only congressional approval was needed to ban narcotics and marijuana, while alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment, and why when antidrug laws have appeared to be unsuccessful their total repeal has never been seriously considered, although repeal was possible with alcohol prohibition.

In the material that follows, the law enforcement approach to the control of certain drugs will be discussed from five perspectives: the development of the laws themselves; how the agencies charged with enforcing drug control laws have gone about their task; the relationship between drug use and crime; a case study of the impact of the nation's "toughest" drug control law, the New York State Drug Law Amendments of 1973; and the impact of drug law enforcement on illicit drug-using behavior.

Drug Control Laws and Policies

Efforts to control certain drugs have come in cycles, focusing on specific drugs during specific periods. 4 Generally, the demand for tough drug control has been most vociferous during periods of economic or political turmoil in the United States. The antiopium crusade began during the depression of the 1870s; the anticocaine crusade came during a period of racial turmoil in the South . 5 Federal sanctions against selected drugs toughened considerably between 1915 and 1920, during the first "Red Scare"; the prohibition of alcohol was of course also effected during this period. Later, during the depression of the 1930s, the entry of many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans into the labor market in the Southwest appears to have been a major cause of the antimarijuana crusade and attendant laws. The creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) in 1930 established the preeminence of law enforcement in the drug field, a fact which has not changed over the years. The FBN's initial major drug targets were heroin and marijuana; this policy lasted for more than thirty five years."

In the 1940s drug control activities remained relatively stable. There were no new demands for harsh laws or policies. States adopted legislation comparable to the Harrison Act, the major federal drug law, and this tightened the nation's drug prohibition policy, There were also outbreaks of concern over the misuse of legitimately produced drugs-amphetamines and barbiturates were the most widely abused-but these drugs escaped the full force of the antidrug effort. By 1950, however, the atmosphere had changed, and many voices demanded new, tougher antidrug laws.7

Between 1947 and 1950, an apparent increase in illicit drug use was reported among blacks and Puerto Ricans in many northern cities. This caused alarm, creating support for passage of a new, more stringent drug law in 1951. Commonly called the Boggs Act after its sponsor, the late Representative Hale Boggs, it enacted the harshest penalties for drug law violations to date . 8 Historian David Musto notes in The American Disease, "Hale Boggs's bill, which contained mandatory sentences, was passed in 1951 at the beginning of the McCarthy era and fears of Soviet aggression, the 'betrayal' of China to the Communists, and suspicion of domestic groups and persons who seemed to threaten overthrow of the government."" In 1956 an even more severe federal narcotics bill was enacted which empowered a jury to impose the death penalty on anyone over the age of eighteen selling heroin to anyone Under the age of eighteen. 10 Several states also enacted extremely harsh laws during this period, imposing heavy penalties for both sellers and users.

This "tough" approach was eventually moderated: the mid-1960s marked the beginning of a more comprehensive approach to drug law enforcement. New criminal laws regulated "dangerous drugs"-i.e., legally produced hallucinogens, stimulants, and depressants. These laws were more moderate in tone and substance, and marked a belated attempt at more uniform policy at the federal level for the control of legitimate and illegitimately produced drugs. The previous concern had been exclusively with a very few illicit drugs like heroin, cocaine, and marijuana.

The present era in drug law enforcement, an outgrowth of the 1960s, was inaugurated during the Nixon administration which organized an intensified, coordinated federal antidrug program. This was the heralded "war on drug abuse."" The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 replaced the former crazy-quilt of criminal drug law statutes which had been gradually patched together since the beginning of the century. 12 Through the Controlled Substances Act portion of the legislation, psychoactive drugs were placed into five schedules according to their presumed potential hazards. The federal drug bureaucracy, which had gradually grown since the 1920s, was restructured and further expanded.

As important as these steps were in modernizing the American approach to drug control and in moderating the Draconian criminal penalties of the 1950s, the new era did not break significantly with the past in any fundamental way. The law enforcement approach to drug use remained fixed and, except for a relatively brief period, continued to receive the bulk of federal dollars expended in the drug field. Popular notions about drugs were not significantly altered, nor were traditional responses seriously questioned. The beliefs in the almost mystical power of illicit drugs over people may have become more sophisticated, but they did not change radically. Users of opiate drugs, instead of being viewed merely as criminals, were now charitably viewed as "sick" criminals. But they were still viewed as criminals, and still are.

Perhaps one of the most important ideas to remain unchanged was the belief in a direct link between illicit drugs and crime. This presumed link, which had been the basis for the harsh drug laws of the past, remained a permanent fixture. The nature of this assumed relationship-as is discussed in later sections of this chapter-has undergone some changes, but the basic belief in a causal link has not.

Whatever the causes and motives behind the nation's drug laws, the inescapable conclusion from the more than one hundred years of experience since the first prohibitory law was enacted is that they have not stopped or even diminished the use of illicit drugs. For example, in 1924 the U.S. Public Health Service estimated the opiate addict population at two hundred fifteen thousands ; although imprecise, this figure is considered to be the most reliable of that period. In 1976 the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) estimated the heroin addict population at five hundred thousand; other recent studies indicate that the figure for all types of heroin users may be two to four million. 14 Allowing for population increases, there are more heroin users today than there were a half century ago. The same appears to hold true for users of other illicit drugs.

Because of such findings, our drug laws and policies are more openly questioned today than at any point in the past. On one hand there are those who argue that government has no right at all to intervene in the private lives of individuals. This view holds that drug use is essentially a private act, and that therefore government ought not intervene unless drug-taking leads to socially disruptive or criminal behavior. A more pragmatic aspect of this position is the feeling that laws and policies can do little to diminish the supply of illicit substances because of the enormous profitability involved and the consequent development of highly organized "black market" distribution networks. It is argued that the government's resources could be better used in attempting to change the conditions that contribute to illicit drug use-i.e., poverty, unemployment, and other social problems-than to continue self-defeating efforts to eliminate the supply and use of particular drugs.

On the other hand, there are those who feel the government's antidrug effort is doing about as well as can be expected in cutting back the supply of illicit drugs, short of abridging everyone's civil liberties. They argue that if law enforcement programs did not attempt to diminish supply and frighten some individuals from using drugs, our drug problems might be far greater than they are. Then there are those who argue we are not doing nearly enough, that more severe and repressive approaches and policies are needed if we are to combat and eradicate the "enemy, drug abuse." In its extreme form, this latter view holds that no price is too great to pay in order to achieve this end.

However, much of the debate over drug control laws has failed to focus sufficiently on the difficulties involved in enforcing them. Passing a drug law is only one part of a control effort; enforcing it is quite another. It is important to understand that even when operating at maximum effectiveness, there are serious limits to what law enforcement agencies can achieve.

One of the primary problems that American drug law enforcement must face is that the drug laws and drug policies have been consistently oversold by public officials. Burglary laws are not expected to eliminate burglary, and penalties for armed robbery are not expected to eliminate that crime; yet drug laws are expected to eliminate illicit drug sale and use- a standard has been set for drug laws that was never set for other laws. More has frequently been promised than could possibly be delivered. Consequently, as long as illicit drug use has persisted, the policies against it have been regarded by some as abject failures. What is needed in any discussion of drug control policies is a realistic notion of what they can and cannot achieve, and what their costs and benefits are. Only when we understand this will the long cycle of overreaction to the use of particular drugs subside.

Law Enforcement Activities

Basically, there are two strategies by which law enforcement seeks to discourage illicit drug use: The first seeks to disrupt and discourage use by enforcing domestic laws against drug use and internal trafficking; the second seeks to prevent supplies of illicit drugs from entering the country, either by preventing their cultivation abroad or by intercepting shipments to the United States. The latter strategy is largely the work of federal agents, although state and local agencies may occasionally participate. The efforts to control illicit drug use within the United States are conducted by federal, state, and local agents. Occasionally these different levels of government join forces and work together; all too frequently, however, they act independently, jealously guarding their "turf" (i.e., their resources and sources of information) from one another.

At the federal level the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), at present the chief drug enforcement agency, has over four thousand employees, of whom over two thousand are agents. 15 (While this number may sound impressively large, it merely approximates the size of the New York City Transit Authority Police, a force that patrols the subways and buses in that city). Several other federal agencies play various roles in the enforcement of federal drug laws: Among these are the Customs Service, which attempts to screen incoming persons and freight for illicit drugs; the Internal Revenue Service, which pursues tax law violations of illicit drug traffickers; the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which provides research and funding support for state and local drug enforcement; and the U.S. Coast Guard, which patrols coastlines and harbor areas for illicit drug trafficking.

At the state and local level there is a substantially larger number of personnel actively engaged in drug enforcement-the police; but an exact count is not available, since regular -patrolmen generally enforce drug laws along with their other duties. Special narcotics units have been established in virtually every major-city police department as well as in many state police departments; most major cities also give some drug law enforcement training to their uniformed patrolmen.

The strategies for controlling both drug use and supplies incorporate a number of variables. The analyses that follow attempt to summarize each strategy and identify some of their costs and benefits.

Controlling Drug Use. Drug enforcement is unlike most other types of police enforcement activities where generally a crime is committed and reported and the police investigate, gathering evidence and making their case. The victim is central to this process; he or she initiates the police investigation; it is often the testimony of the victim during the trial that convicts the offender.

In drug cases, police usually do not have victims on whom to rely. Not only are there no complainants, but everyone involved conspires to conceal the crime from the police. As a result most illicit drug offenses go entirely undetected; the percentage of violations which result in arrest are extremely low.17

Of those drug violations which do result in arrest, more than 75 percent are "spontaneous" arrests involving no prior police investigation. 18 These drug arrests are often incidental to an another investigation. For example, if the driver of an automobile is stopped for a traffic violation and the arresting officer sees marijuana or suspects its presence and finds evidence of a drug law offense, a drug arrest may follow. Such arrests are not due to any overall drug enforcement strategy, but are rather the result of normal, day-to-day police enforcement activities. This helps explain why the overwhelming number of drug arrests are for simple possession, with a majority of these involving marijuana.

Arrests for simple illicit drug possession have little if any impact on the overall availability of illicit drugs because they largely fail to affect drug distribution. The major distributors of illicit drugs conduct their drug transactions in secret, and, as in other activities involving drugs, there are no complainants. Major drug dealers have developed very sophisticated methods of concealment, including drop systems and other subterfuges. Even well-known dealers are usually able to avoid creating probable cause for arrest. Because of this secrecy and the absence of complainants, the fundamental problem police face in making arrests for drug trafficking is proving that something illegal took place. While this can be difficult enough in cases of simple possession, it is extremely difficult with drug trafficking, particularly in developing the so-called "high-level" cases. While many who use illicit drugs participate to some degree in drug distribution (whether for profit or not), those who import and deal in large quantities of particular illicit drugs are not easy to identify, apprehend, or successfully prosecute.

Undercover Investigations. Narcotics officers at the federal, state, and local levels often work undercover, and may become participants in aspects of the offense in order to gather sufficient evidence to prove a crime has been committed. This work is hazardous, time-consuming, and, as one former Deputy Attorney General told Congress, "a dirty, miserable business.""' The most serious practical shortcoming of undercover operations is that, despite the publicity such operations receive when successful, they result in the arrest of only a miniscule proportion of those engaged in major drug trafficking. Moreover, each undercover operation is so time-consuming, and the number of policemen with the temperament and skill for this work so limited, that the percentage of major arrests would not increase substantially even if every undercover operation were successful.

These problems of investigation are as true at federal as at state and local levels. In fact, one of the persistent criticisms of the federal drug enforcement effort is that the overwhelming majority of arrests are of relatively low-level dealers. A 1975 analysis by the Government Accounting Office of 1974 Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrests revealed that only 604 (3.6 percent) of the total 16,796 arrests were Class I violators, and of these only 63 were convicted. 20 (Class I violators are major international drug traffickers, drug laboratory operators, or wholesalers.)" In addition, GAO found only 5 percent of the arrests to be Class 11 violators, a lesser but still significant category of offenders. However, following congressional hearings and considerable public criticism, DEA appears to have made a major effort to pursue more Class I and H offenders even at the expense of overall arrest figures. DEA statistics for 1976 show only 6,143 total drug arrests, but of these 15 percent were for Class I and 1 1. 9 percent for Class 11 offenses. Still, nearly three-quarters of the arrests were Class III and IV arrests, a statistic that indicates that major drug trafficking arrests continue to be elusive in spite of increased efforts . 22

An important consequence of undercover operations is that with arrest and trial of the suspect the undercover officer's cover is "blown" and his usefulness in that line of work in that region is usually ended.

This is a serious problem, because good undercover officers are few and far between. Undercover operations also pose a number of legal problems; for example, defense attorneys often argue, sometimes successfully, that the undercover officer is guilty of "entrapment" by having enticed the defendant into committing the crime in question.

Another hazard here is the potential for police corruption. The possibility of corruption through payoffs is always present, because the sums of money involved in illicit drug traffic are enormous-generally estimated to involve several billions of dollars nationally per year-and because the salaries of policemen are generally rather low. Additionally, substantial amounts of "buy" money are provided by law enforcement agencies for this work; in fiscal year 1976, for example, the DEA budget called for $9 million for "buy" money to be used in procuring information and allowing agents to "buy into" drug transactions in the gathering of evidence .23 All major-city and state narcotics enforcement agencies have substantial amounts of this "buy" money. With these great sums of money the possibilities for corruption can be great. Temptation can be abetted by the fact that the undercover agent is operating in a lawless environment where one's normal sense of right and wrong can become distorted. In New York City the corruption of narcotics investigators reached serious proportions .24 After the Knapp Commission revelations, the New York City Police Department instituted a procedure whereby any undercover officer on the Street Crime Unit is required to obtain specific approval by a superior officer to make a drug arrest, and, furthermore, that arrest must be witnessed by the superior officer. This rather cumbersome policy is still in effect today.

Not all forms of corruption involve money, however. As mentioned above, there can also be a corruption of attitude caused by a police officer's constant exposure to the mores of the underworld. In Buy and Bust Mark Moore writes, "They [undercover agents] will know more about the violation and the violators they attack than police usually do, and will sometimes have personal interests at stake in the arrests. This invites them to exercise their authority in accordance with their intimate knowledge rather than what the law requires. 1125 For example, in some cases undercover police might protect certain dealers who have acted as informants and select others for arrest. Such choices are made not on the basis of law but upon past collaboration or even friendship. Close relationships bred by undercover ' work can influence a police officer to change his views on the law, what it means, and his requirements to uphold it. 211

Intelligence Gathering. Many critics have argued that if drug enforcement agencies were to gather and organize intelligence in a more systematic way, more could be done to successfully investigate major drug traffickers. Such intelligence presumably would give more detailed information about the methods drug traffickers employ and accordingly provide a better overall picture of trafficking operations. However, the assumption that better intelligence would lead to more successful enforcement here is open to question. Nevertheless, this debate does highlight another basic problem: That drug enforcement agents traditionally have been hostile toward intelligence functions performed by special units within their own agencies. As Moore notes, "No investigator would be happy to admit [to an intelligence analyst] that he had not mined the files of his organization for every nugget of relevant information. 1117 One result is that different agents with different items of information, which if systematically collected and analyzed might provide greater information about drug transactions and networks, often do not share it. Thus the efforts of intelligence units within the DEA and other drug enforcement agencies are often thwarted.

Lack of Coordination. Although many state and local police agencies rely on federal help to train and establish their narcotics units, there is a notable absence of uniformity and coordination between the various levels of law enforcement agencies. As a police chief in one large American city has remarked,

It's always been a problem over the years to sort out the roles of federal, state and local agencies. My obligations to the citizens of my city are not the same as the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs [now the DEA], for example. They take a systems approach, then make a management by objectives analysis, they can target people and work on them. In the metropolitan police departments, such as this one, we're at the low rung of the law enforcement ladder, and we can't do that. We have to be responsive to the citizen who calls in with just a meager amount of information but expects and is entitled to action on it. 28

Overlapping jurisdictions, as well as the different emphases given to different drugs and to various aspects of enforcement models, have created conflict. As a result, some local police believe federal drug enforcement should confine itself to interstate and international trafficking and should not involve itself in "local" investigations.

While the basic assumption has been that local police will enforce laws against small-time street dealers and users, state police will enforce laws against the larger dealers, and the federal government will concentrate on the major traffickers and wholesalers, this has not always been the case. The federal government investigates cases throughout the country, sometimes informing state or local police agencies and sometimes not doing so; its cases do not necessarily involve truly major interstate or international violations. Because of these overlaps, the three levels of drug enforcement remain to this day uncoordinated, competitive, and at times conflicting. This continuing lack of coordination, coupled with the other pitfalls of domestic drug enforcement, have at times led to an acute sense of frustration on the part of police, policymakers, and the public. As a consequence, excessive measures periodically find support. One recent, well-known example of this process of frustration and overreaction involved the now defunct Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement.

Anyone who has ever passed through American Customs at the Canadian or Mexican borders or our sea- or airports realizes that there is rarely any thorough inspection. The vast numbers who daily cross into and out of American jurisdiction make thorough inspection of every traveler a practical impossibility. In addition, American borders have traditionally been open; constitutional safeguards define the manner and circumstances of searches. Successful seizures of illicit drugs therefore depend more on intelligence information than on the luck of random searches. This intelligence information is usually supplied by American drug agents in foreign countries, who attempt to identify drug traffickers to later be either arrested at the border or kept under surveillance and arrested within the United States. *

However, even with good intelligence information, preventing illicit drugs from entering this country is a difficult, indeed nearly impossible task .311 When the estimated amount of illicit drugs consumed in this nation is compared with amount seized at our borders or other ports of entry, it is clear that only a very small percentage of the drugs being smuggled into the country are confiscated.

It is estimated, for example, that from twelve to twenty thousand pounds of high-purity heroin are smuggled into this country each year"; but in fiscal year 1974 only 115 pounds of high-purity heroin was seized at all U.S. borders and ports. This means that, combining this with the amount of heroin seized internally by the authorities in domestic operations, only 670 pounds of heroin were confiscated that year .38 By fiscal year 1976, after intensive effort, domestic seizures had increased to a total of 1,124 pounds of heroin, still far short of the total incoming amount. The publicity accorded these seizures, however, often has conveyed the impression that law enforcement agencies are making major inroads against illicit drug smuggling. To a large extent this publicity has been generated by the agency involved in the seizure, for both political and bureaucratic reasons.

Perhaps the most widely used technique for embellishing the importance of a seizure of illicit drugs is to state the "street value" of the seized drug.311 A seizure of fifteen pounds of heroin, therefore, might not be merely a fifteen-pound seizure, but a seizure of "thirty million dollars' worth of drugs." The "street value" figure is elastic and sometimes exaggerated; it often reflects the most optimistic price a dealer might possibly ask for his drugs. This is analogous to estimating the value of rustled cattle by the price they would bring as steaks at the best restaurants. What is omitted in these claims of the "street value" of drugs seized is the fact that between $5 and $11 billion worth of illicit drugs is sold in this country each year .40 Thus, $30 million or even $300 million, while significant, is still but a tiny fraction of the total, and has little if any impact on the total amount of illicit sales. However, when seizures drop, enforcement agencies frequently also use the decline to indicate the success of their efforts.

*Additionally, international interdiction also has included investigations by U.S. agents abroad in cooperation with foreign governments, and the arrests of drug traffickers in certain countries. However, U.S. agents are now prohibited by law from participating in the arrest of individuals in foreign countries.

By this self-serving logic, the drug law enforcement agencies nearly always can appear to be successful.

Although drug seizure data have often been misused by competing drug agencies to enhance their public images, seizures can have a disruptive effect and present an economic risk to drug traffickers. In addition, limited amounts of these drugs are of course kept out of the illicit market.

Historically, border interdiction has been a major source of rivalry among the federal agencies charged with controlling illicit drugs-specifically, between the Customs Bureau and the justice Department's drug agencies, from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to the present Drug Enforcement Administration." Government reorganizations, as well as a number of other attempts to reconcile these disputes-such as specifying which international areas each agency should be responsible for-have not completely succeeded in quieting this rivalry, although DEA's incorporation of some of the drug enforcement duties of Customs has certainly allayed it.

These jurisdictional disputes have appeared at many critical points in the federal drug enforcement effort. For example, when drug agents in a foreign country obtain information regarding a significant drug-smuggling attempt, this information would ideally be relayed to the U.S., in order to effect an arrest on U.S. territory; here, however, the federal drug law enforcement process often broke down. In some cases Customs would insist that the drugs be intercepted at the border, to make certain they did not enter the country, while FBN, BNDD, or DEA would insist that the smuggler be allowed through the border, whence he might lead to "higher ups" in the smuggling operation. In point of fact, however, many times the true reason for these differences was the desire of each agency to make the drug seizure and arrest itself.

The competing agencies eventually began circumventing one another, refusing to reveal what they were doing or whom they were investigating. Sometimes one agency would deliberately interrupt the investigation of another with a premature arrest. In one celebrated instance, two agencies, unknown to one another, were involved in the same investigation; in a showdown shooting erupted, with agents from two federal agencies of the United States government mistakenly shooting at each other." How often disruptions of this kind occurred is difficult to estimate, but it is clear that the rivalry was a serious impediment to effective federal drug control and an embarrassment to the government generally.

Another problem with border interdiction is simply that our borders with both Mexico and Canada are so easily accessible; trying to make them less accessible in order to seize more drugs would not only erode freedom of entrance and egress, but probably would not work anyway. As noted, the major border drug seizures generally result from intelligence information supplied to border agents. Few illicit drugs are uncovered in random searches, as Operation Intercept-an attempt to cut off drug supplies at the Mexican border-amply demonstrated in September 1969. That effort affords another illustration of the ineffectiveness of extreme measures taken in the name of fighting illicit drugs.

Eradication policies, when they successfully interrupt illicit drug production, as the Mexican opium poppy program has apparently done, may reduce the American heroin supply for a time, perhaps two or three years. In 1977, heroin-related deaths dropped approximately 40 percent in this country, a possible indication that the eradication program was having a beneficial effect.114 It was also reported by enforcement officials that American heroin supplies in 1978 were at their lowest level in several years; however, they admit they have little hard evidence on which to base that estimate. Moreover, as will be discussed later, reducing the heroin supply may lead to other social problems.

There are a number of possible side-effects to such an eradication program which must also be considered. For example, Mexican marijuana sprayed with paraquat has reached the United States; samples seized near the border after the eradication program began showed that 21 percent were contaminated with significant levels of paraquat.115 It has been indicated that paraquat may pose a significant health danger to those who ingest it. The Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare announced a National Institute on Drug Abuse study in March 1978.

The report's preliminary findings suggest that if an individual smokes three to five heavily contaminated marihuana cigarettes each day for several months, irreversible lung damage will result. The report cautions, however, that there could be a risk of lung damage for individuals who use marihuana less often or in smaller amounts. Although these results are preliminary, the report concludes that Paraquat contamination may pose a serious risk to marihuana smokers. 66

Although one might argue that anyone who uses an illegal substance like marijuana must bear the consequences and the risks, the fact remains that as many as forty-five million Americans have tried marijuana and approximately eleven million are regular users. The preponderance of medical evidence to date shows that marijuana is a relatively harmless intoxicant when used moderately. Therefore, it seems ironic that an official program may itself produce a serious health risk for the individual smoker, when the ostensible reason for prohibition in the first place was to protect users from harming themselves.

The eradication strategy has another shortcoming as well: Experience has shown that as one opium supply system is diminished, another develops to take its place, at even more attractive profits due to the rise in heroin prices caused by the temporary shortage. Shortly after the Mexican eradication program began, for example, white heroin from the "Golden Triangle" in Southeast Asia began to enter the country. Drug enforcement officials suspect that many Turkish nationals are involved in this Southeast Asian traffic, which suggests that the Turkish opium ban may have been more effective with the crop than with the traffickers.

There is a larger problem, however, which holds the greatest potential danger. If the country designated for crop eradication efforts-in this case Mexico-is not part of a vigorous ongoing program, then its illicit opium production will probably be revived after the eradication efforts slow or stop. And it may revive at a time when other areas of the world are also producing large amounts of illicit heroin for the U.S. market. Then, rather than facing illicit heroin smuggling from only one major area, this country could be faced with two or more major supply sources. This possibility remains a strong one, because the eradication program depends upon the internal policies and politics of foreign governments, any one of which for any reason could end existing agreements and permit the former state of affairs to reappear.

Drugs and Crime

The persistent belief that illicit drug use is inextricably linked to crime has traditionally been advanced as a reason for laws and policies against particular drugs. A 1972 survey by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse found that 58 percent of adults believed that marijuana users often commit crimes they would not have committed had they not used marijuana. In that same survey, more than 90 percent of those interviewed believed that, in the commission's words, "Heroin users often commit crimes to get the money to buy more heroin. –117

Crimes that relate to illicit drugs can generally be placed into four categories."" Two of these are not germane to this discussion; these are crimes among individuals involved in the illicit-drug distribution system-e.g., drug or money thefts by one drug dealer from another-and the crimes of simply using, possessing, or selling the drug itself, activities which are criminal by definition, since they are illegal.

Generally, the perceived drug and crime relationship which most concerns the public falls into two basic categories. The first category involves the pharmacological effect of a drug on the user. Historically, the presumed pharmacological connection between illicit drug use and assaultive crime has been the impetus behind antidrug laws. However, the evidence to date shows that alcohol and secobarbital-both legally produced psychoactive substances-are the drugs most likely to be involved with subsequent assaultive behavior. There is no substantial evidence to link the use of any other drug, licit or illicit, with assaultive crime. Some stimulant drugs, such as the amphetamines, have reportedly led to aggressive behavior in some individuals, but there is insufficient evidence to show a causal link between their use and assaultive crime.

The second category consists of revenue-producing crimes like burglary, shoplifting, and larceny. More recently, the use of heroin has been linked to crimes of this sort. The assumption is that the use of heroin invariably results in addiction; that heroin addicts require ever-increasing amounts of the drug; and that, due to the high cost of the drug on the American market, they must commit various crimes to support their use. As pointed out by the press and electronic media, the stereotypic portrait of the heroin user is of a dishevelled, trembling individual without motivation or legitimate source of income. However, while there is evidence to suggest that many heroin users may commit property crimes to support use, 70 nobody really knows how much crime is actually committed to obtain money to support heroin habits. Police and court records do not contain this information, and estimates-which are not particularly reliable-vary, calling it anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of all revenue-producing crimes, depending upon the type of offense and the location .71

A survey by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration of ten thousand inmates of correctional facilities concluded that 13 percent of the inmates had used heroin at the time of their arrest. The same survey estimated between 13 and 60 percent of incarcerated criminals to have been heroin users ' 12 Although this kind of data suggests links between heroin use and crime, nothing was established in that survey to demonstrate that these individuals began to commit crimes because of their heroin use, nor does the study indicate whether the correctional population surveyed was typical of all those arrested, or of all committing crimes. It may indicate a tendency to jail heroin users in disproportionate numbers.

The studies which indicate that after the onset of opiate addiction individuals generally increase their criminal activity come closest to demonstrating a causal link between drug use and crime .73 These studies suggest that although an individual may have been a criminal before he used heroin, his heavy use led to an increase in criminal activity to meet the new income need. On its face, this implies a connection between heroin use and crime. However, there is an across-the-board increase in crime among men between ages eighteen and twenty-five, irrespective of drug use. 74 Thus, any data suggesting increased crime because of heroin use would have to correct for the general increase in crime for this age bracket.

The evidence relating to a heroin-crime link could best be described as showing that regular, heavy opiate use in the United States probably means a higher rate of revenue-producing crime by the addict. Because of its broad political appeal, however, this connection has been repeatedly overstated and even misrepresented to support tough enforcement policies. For example, Governor Rockefeller of New York told the legislature, by way of introducing a "get tough" drug law, that addicts were "robbing, mugging, murdering day in and day out for their money to fix their habit. "75 The state estimated that drug addicts committed a total of $6.5 billion per year in crime. ff that were in fact the case, it would have meant that these addicts were committing on the order of 44 million robberies, muggings, and murders each year in New York to support their habit, 400 times more than all of the reported crimes in New York, well beyond any conceivable total of reported and unreported.crimes in that state .711

Other data indicate that such figures had little factual basis. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's 1971 Uniform Crime Index reported a total of $1.3 billion in theft in 1970 for the entire nation. Thus, New York State's claim of $6.5 billion in crime losses for New York alone exceeded the national figure by five times .77 Another study, an economic analysis by the Hudson Institute of New York of the extent of heroin use nationwide, estimated that in 1970 there were 250,000 addicts who were responsible for a maximum cf $1.7 billion in crime .78

The New York figures disseminated by Governor Rockefeller's office were misleading in another important respect. In New York City, which is generally acknowledged to have more illicit drug use than any other American city, only a small percentage of the 110,000 reported crimes in 1973 (the year of the "tougher" New York drug law's passage) were attributed by police to heroin users. The New York Police Department estimated only 4.4 percent of those arrested for felonies against a person-which would include robbery, muggings, and murder-could be classified as heroin users, and only a small percentage of those users could be classified as addicts .79

In a 1974 study by the Crime Analysis Unit of the New York City Police Department it was found that among arrested criminal heroin users and nonusers, the 'rates of property crime were about the same, suggesting that there is little difference in patterns of property crime between them. However, the percentage of nonusers who committed serious crimes against a person was substantially higher than for heroin users.80 A Hudson Institute study reported even lower figures for assaultive property crimes among heroin users in New York City. It reported that less than 2 percent supported their heroin use by either robbery or muggings.81

These studies call into question the more dramatic statements about the extent of crime committed by those who use illicit drugs, particularly heroin. It does seem that property crimes are. committed by some unknown proportion of regular heavy heroin users not as a result of the drug itself but of the high cost of obtaining it in America's black market. Little hard statistical evidence exists to show a cause-and-effect relationship between the use of any drug and criminal behavior.

Concluding Thoughts

Since federal antinarcotics laws have been in force in this country for more than sixty years-and local ordinances for more than a century-it seems appropriate to ask what such laws can or have accomplished. if we were expecting our drug laws to eradicate illicit drug use, then the local, state, and federal antidrug effort must be judged an abject failure. Tough laws have not been a solution to the drug abuse crisis. If, however, one was hoping for a containment policy, then enforcement efforts might be judged a partial success, because only a relatively small number of people use heroin, the drug with which we seem most concerned today. This conclusion, of course, is impossible to prove. Moreover, mere containment of heroin use was never the stated goal of our drug control efforts.

The best way to judge the value of our present drug control policies is to weigh their benefits and costs. This may give us some clues with which to better analyze our current policies and reach a clearer understanding of their worth. In making this assessment, it is natural that drug law enforcement be examined more critically than other approaches, such as treatment or education. Drug enforcement has received the majority of the available time, money, technology, and hope and faith for the past seven decades. It is not unreasonable to say that law enforcement efforts have been given the greatest possible opportunity to respond to illicit drugs, and that those efforts ought to be evaluated in light of their performance.

What then are the costs of drug law enforcement? Several can be identified: money outlays for enforcement; such side effects as the stigma of arrest, the risk of impure drugs and associated health hazards, the creation of a black market, a potential rise in non-drug crime rates, and the risk of police corruption; the alienation of many segments of society; selective enforcement patterns; diversion of scarce resources; erosion of the rule of law; invasion of privacy; reduction of personal freedom; hostility between police and the community; and potential police perjury and official deception. These are some costs generally ascribed to the current prohibitionist policy approach to particular drugs.

The benefits are less specific and less provable. We can point to the arrest of individuals who traffic in illicit drugs as a benefit, at least in the small percentage of cases where arrest is followed by conviction and punishment But we cannot point to drug enforcement generally and argue that it has had a dramatically successful impact in prohibiting these activities. One benefit often cited is the channeling into treatment by means of criminal justice diversion of illicit drug users who might otherwise not have entered; however, this process may have a negative impact in deterring voluntary applicants from seeking help (see Staff Paper 3, "Heroin Treatment", below). Law enforcement efforts may also have had an impact in containing the spread of illicit drug use during years when strong penalties have been on the books and substantial efforts were made to enforce those laws. While drug law enforcement efforts undoubtedly do harass some low-level operatives in the illicit drug market and make them afraid to deal openly on the street, this may be a marginal benefit, in that it makes it likely that users will only become more cautious and harder to detect. While ease of availability does appear to have some influence on the numbers who will use a particular drug, making availability harder does not eliminate the demand for a particular drug or psychoactive substances generally.

The key question remains: Is the current system of drug control worthwhile? An abundance of data has been collected-some of it presented in this chapter-but it is consistently contradictory, imprecise, of questionable reliability, and laden with the values we impute to it. Nevertheless, we would conclude that the costs are greater than the benefits derived. Part of the difficulty with criminal law as a control measure lies in the fact that it has been consistently oversold as a cure for illicit drug use. A serious consequence of this is that drug law enforcement has rarely been viewed dispassionately; rather, it has been the object of either heated attack or staunch defense, and rarely the object of thoughtful analysis.

Our current drug control policies exact a heavy toll in social costs, while data showing a solid return on the investment are difficult to find. This imbalance has been known for some time, but the knowledge of it has not materially changed our drug control policies and laws. The basic policy established a century ago continues today, and there are no immediate prospects of the government, federal or state, seriously reconsidering its heavy reliance on the criminal justice system to deal with illicit drugs.

How Drugs Work

Drug all share a common process in which they exert their effects: they changes the way individual cells in the body behave. They all alter the natural functioning of the cells in the human body. However, the proper use and sought after effect of all pharmaceuticals is to alter the natural process of disease and its effects upon the human body. Some examples are:

Aspirin (acetyl salacytic acid): Derived from the bark of the willow tree, blocks the natural process of ‘inflammatory’ chemicals which cells normally produce in response to injury.

Cocaine: Derived from the leaves of the cocoa plant, attaches to certain receptors on brain cells which are responsible for the release of a substance called ‘dopamine’. Excessive amounts of dopamine in certain parts of the brain are known to be responsible for a mental disease known as schizophrenia, and conditions and drugs which cause too little dopamine in the brain lead to mental depression.

Marijuana: Derived from a wild plant indigenous to the North American and central American continent known as Cannabis Sativa, contains the active ingredient delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In contrast to the drugs described above, how THC causes its effects are not well understood at this time.

All drugs have side-effects. A Side-Effect is considered any effect which a drug may have on the body which is not part of the Main-Effect for which that drug was prescribed. While the search is always for the ‘magic bullet’, a substance which will only affect the specific cells which are diseased or malfunctioning, only very rarely are such magic bullets found in the real world. Side effects can be mild, such as itching or a mild rash on the skin. There are also potentially deadly side effects, which if not treated early will lead to the death of the person taking the drug. There is always the weighing of the risk/benefit ratio prior to prescribing any medication or drug. If the risk of taking any one medication is not worth the potential benefits which might be realized by taking such a drug, then it should neither be prescribed nor taken by anyone. For example, in the 1960’s, Thalidomide^® was believed to be a very safe sedative, and was prescribed throughout Europe. However, because studies were not done regarding the effect this drug on the developing fetus, disastrous malformations took place in the women who were taking that drug during pregnancy.

Another type of side-effect involves that process of Drug Interaction. In the case of drug interactions, the sides effects are due to not any single drug itself, but the effects which take place if those drugs are combined. Drug interactions rarely cause entirely new side effects. Rather, the side effects that one of the other medication involved in the interaction will be accentuated significantly. The most common type of drug interaction seen in the United States is that between alcohol and drugs which affect the central nervous system.

Tolerance is one side effect which frequently presents itself within the realm of controlled substances. When a person develops tolerance to a specific medication or drug, it takes increasing amounts of the drug to cause the same effect as time passes. The vast majority of drug which lead to tolerance are the Central Nervous System medications. The Central Nervous System (CNS) drugs cause changes in the functioning of the cells in the brain and spinal cord. Drugs which exert influences upon the CNS and also cause psychological changes which are interpreted as favorable by the individual who experiences them can lead to the process of habituation. The habituated person believes that they need a specific substance in order to carry on the normal activities of daily life. The use of the substance has become a habit. Habituation can lead to Addiction, which is a physical condition in which the body requires a constant amount of the substance, and if there is a reduction in the amount of the substance at any time, the process of Withdrawal will take place.

Addiction – Dependence --Habituation

While the process of addiction is most commonly associated with the illegal or illicit drugs, the same process can and does take place with the ‘legal’ drugs, most commonly ethanol (alcohol), nicotine (cigarettes), and caffeine. Similar to the illicit drugs, these three legal drugs have the primary effect upon the CNS, and the same processes of tolerance and habituation take place as with the illicit drugs. The primary difference between nicotine-caffeine and most of the illegal drugs is that continued use does not lead to diminishing mental capabilities and emotional instability. Alcohol use, especially on a chronic basis, has the potential for the same adverse personal and social effects as any of the illegal drugs .

Drug Regulation

In the United States the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the manufacture and sale of medicinal drags under the terms of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. Since 1962 the law has required manufacturers to prove that their drugs are effective as well as safe, and that they actually work as claimed. Another recent change provides incentives to study and manufacture drugs for "orphan diseases.' or ailments that strike only a comparatively small number of people.

The FDA regulates both medical (prescription), and over the counter (proprietary) drug dissemination and use. Medical (or Ethical) drugs require a prescription, while over the counter drugs are available to anyone with the ability to pay for them.

The initials U.S.P. or N.F. often appear after the name of a drug. They mean that the drug has been listed in 'The United States Pharmacopoeia' or the National Formulary' and has been prepared according to specific standards. Both are non-governmental publications printed under the direction of medical and pharmaceutical experts who establish standards for the manufacture of drugs.

CHARACTERISTICS OF DRUG SMUGGLERS

Ø Extended travel without luggage

Ø Luggage carried on back seat

Ø Appears nervous upon contact with officers

CHARACTERISTICS OF DRUG SMUGGLERS’ VEHICLES

Ø Reliable, large capacity vehicle

Ø False compartments in interior or exterior

Ø Trim on side of vehicle which doesn’t line up on pickup due to raising or lowering cab to accommodate false compartments

Ø Lugnuts or vehicle body screws and bolts tampered with

Ø Vehicle not registered to driver

Ø Driver doesn’t know to whom the vehicle belongs

Workplace Drug Crime Investigations

The following steps are designed to guide law enforcement agencies in dealing with requests from businesses to investigate workplace drug crimes. There are two primary approaches to workplace drug investigations:

the law enforcement agency conducts the investigation, or
the business conducts the investigation using its own security personnel or a private security firm, often with law enforcement direction.

In either case, similar guidelines apply. These are general guidelines and not specific steps to be followed during the investigation. Each agency should follow its own standard operating procedures for drug investigations.

Investigations by Law Enforcement Agencies

· Attempt to follow up in person each report of workplace drug trafficking. Due to the potential seriousness of the problem, a simple return telephone call is not sufficient.

· Meet with the employer or key management person and assess the situation with the following points in mind:

· seriousness of the problem

· business representative's understanding of drugs, drug use, and drug trafficking

· company's willingness to prosecute

· company's resources for combating drugs in the workplace (drug-free workplace policies, security staff, etc.).

· Based on this assessment, determine if your agency will conduct an investigation.

· If your agency decides to conduct a criminal investigation, determine if the business representative reporting the problem has the authority to allow workplace investigations by law enforcement. If not, make sure the proper company decision-making personnel are available before proceeding.

· Make sure the company has an appropriate drug-free workplace policy in effect. If not, help the company establish one before proceeding.

· Explain to the business representative all possible steps and decision points that could take place during the course of the investigation. The following points should be emphasized:

· Law enforcement's primary goal in conducting a drug investigation is to arrest and prosecute suspects, not to conduct a personnel action.

· The criminal investigation will be controlled by the law enforcement agency and the company may be provided with periodic updates.

· Federal, state, and local antidrug laws enumerate several possible violations.

· The criminal justice process involves many stages, including the possibility of court appearances.

· Confidentiality will be needed during the investigation.

· Some publicity about the drug crimes is likely, as arrest reports are generally public information.

· As soon as possible, set up a meeting between the business representative and the prosecutor's office to explain the steps in prosecuting workplace drug cases.

· Consult with the prosecutor to review your agency's plan to conduct the workplace investigation.

· Determine how the investigation will take place:

· If your investigators' surveillances are conducted from a business parking lot or other property, secure the necessary authorization from the business to use company premises.

· If an undercover law enforcement officer is to be inserted into the workforce, develop a plan for the company to employ him or her. The plan should cover the type of work, length of assignment, access to the suspect area, safety issues, backup by other officers, source of "buy" funds, and procedures in case the undercover officer is discovered.

· Ensure that the undercover officer's identity will remain confidential during and after the investigation.

· If the investigation is unsuccessful, tell the business why and provide suggestions for using other resources.

· If your agency cannot investigate due to limited resources, say so and refer the businessperson to other resources such as those listed at the end of these guidelines.

COMMONLY ABUSED DRUGS

Opium and related drugs: The opium poppy contains within its resin the substance which we know as “opium.” Heroin is perhaps the most dangerous of all the illicitly used opioid drugs. Heroin itself is no more toxic than any of the other opioid based drugs. However, because there are no legitimate channels of distribution or legitimate medical use anywhere in the world for heroin, the only supplies of this drug available is through illegal sources. Because there are no quality controls placed upon this illegally produced drug, most of the drug which is supplied to users is contaminated by bacteria, viruses, ‘dirt’, and substitutes such talc and poisons which are white and give the appearance of the drug itself.

Sleep Inducers or ‘Soporforics’: This category of drugs also includes medications which are used to treat anxiety and its related disorders.

Within this category include some commonly known drugs including: benzodiazepines (valium and others), barbiturates (‘downers’), ethanol (alcohol), methaqualone (‘Quaaludes’), and antihistamines. All of these medications share in a common property of depressing the CNS. This causes all body functions to slow down. An overdose of any of these medications will cause the person to stop breathing, the blood pressure to fall into the fatal range, and the heart to cease beating. Not only will a large dose of these medications cause death or permanent injury, but even relatively low doses of these ‘downer’ drug will cause fatal consequences when combined with other depressant related drugs. One particularly troublesome property of these CNS depressant drugs is the memory problems associated with them. Because people often cannot remember how many of them they have taken, they will misjudge the dose already ingested, and continue to take more. This is known as a ‘drug automatism’ in medical circles.

Anabolic (sex) steroids: Anabolic steroids are derivatives or synthetic models of the male sex hormones testosterone that stimulate muscle growth. In the 1950s, a growing number of athletes and body builders began to use anabolic steroids to increase strength and body weight and to improve athletic performance. By the 1980s, the use of anabolic steroids had spread to members of the general public particularly adolescent boys who were concerned with improving their appearance. Very little is known about the long term effects of anabolic-steroid use. However, the United States Food and Drug Administration and the American College of Sports Medicine agree that anabolic steroids can have harmful effects

Stimulant (Analeptic) Drugs: The stimulant drugs are perhaps the most dangerous and socially disrupting of any class of illicit drugs. These drugs are known as the CNS stimulants, and generally increase or elevate the functioning of the CNS and the body’s processes which depend upon information from the CNS. Examples of drugs in this class include: caffeine, nicotine, amphetamine, and cocaine. People use these drug for their primary effects which include: significant improvement in memory, reduction of fatigue, increased alertness, increased stamina, euphoria, and appetite suppression. Like many of the other drugs of abuse, the brain makes adjustments so that increasing amounts of the stimulant drug must be taken in order to obtain the desired effects.

Hallucinogens: The hallucinogenic drugs come from a number of different chemical classes and are not easily nor simply categorized. Those most often found to be drugs of abuse in the United States include: Marijuana (cannabis sativa) , LSD (‘acid’), phencyclidine (‘Angle Dust’), Ecstasy (methelynedioxymethamphetamine), and psilosybin (‘magic mushrooms’). The primary effect of the hallucinogenic drugs is to alter one’s sense of reality by causing illusions, delusions, or hallucinations. People who abuse these drugs do so to obtain those primary effects. The dangers inherent in the use of these drugs involve behavior related to inaccurate interpretation or processing of those events which are taking place around them. Often these people will injure themselves or others because they have misinterpreted the nature or location of the objects around them. Phencylidine (Angle Dust) is the most dangerous of the hallucinogens because not only does it create hallucinations and delusions, it share many of the properties of the amphetamines, so that the person not only has violent hallucinations, but in addition has significantly increased strength and stamina. The long term effects of the hallucinogens varies with the specific substance in question. For some of these drugs, long term adverse affects are not well defined, as is the case with marijuana and psilocybin. Long term side effects of drugs such as angle dust are difficult to assess because these individuals typically kill themselves, or attempt to kill others and are subsequent jailed.