NCJ Number
202465
Journal
Substance Use & Misuse Volume: 38 Issue: 10 Dated: 2003 Pages: 1551-1560
Date Published
2003
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This article reviews selected international drug control plans, projects, and programs.
Abstract
The accuracy of the potential availability of illicitly-produced drugs to illicit markets and the effectiveness of law enforcement efforts to prevent substances from getting to their end-users are examined. At the global level, there are no effective systems to indicate the quantities of drugs that are either being produced or being consumed. For drug production estimates, ground-level surveying of areas of illicit cultivation of narcotic crops remains the most reliable means of establishing likely levels of coca leaf and opium. But these surveys are becoming exceedingly difficult because of military conflicts, local hostility, the nature of the terrain, or the scale of the task. Aerial surveys are less accurate and run the risk of aircraft being shot down. Satellite surveys are very costly and yield the poorest results of all. Drug seizures continue to be the most reliable, even though they are the most widely disparaged element of drug statistics. There is an unreliability of the drug purity data provided by states. Combined with other factors, these data mean that all cocaine and heroin reported as seized must be taken as having been 100 percent pure, even though this is impossible. Overemphasis on seizures can and does create distortions in collective strategic thinking. There are annual records of seizures of cannabis and psychotropics but no idea of how much is being produced, which provides little assistance in assessing the levels of seizures indicating the effectiveness on the part of enforcement agencies. Another difficulty is that international organizations and governments tend to look at all aspects of the drug phenomenon within the framework of individual calendar years, and yet drugs may be produced in one year and consumed in another. The present knowledge concerning the potential availability of illicitly-produced drugs to global markets is unsatisfactory and unlikely to improve to any degree in respect to cannabis and psychotropics. There is a need for research to examine the present and potential use of the date derived from the seizure process as an indicator of the availability of cocaine and opiates. 6 figures