One of the major functions of law enforcement agencies is to counter the production and the sale of illicit of drugs. The majority of the law enforcement agencies have an anti-narcotic unit that specifically deals with the individuals who take part in the drug production and sale. The use of drugs is counterproductive to any society; it deprives the society of the valuable resource of the productive citizens who can grow the economy. The law enforcement agencies are tasked with the prime responsibility of capturing those people who are suspected of drug trafficking. Drug trafficking is prohibited under international law, implementation of the anti-narcotics statues faces numerous s challenges in the countries that solely rely on of the production of drugs to grow their economy. Drug traffickers seem to concentrate in the South America. In 2011, a submarine that was used to transport drugs was captured in South America.
Law enforcement agencies carry out their pristine task by following three strategies. The first strategy involves combating the distribution and production process. This measure aims at eliminating the problem from the root. If they manage to reduce the production of drugs to a minimal level, it becomes increasingly easy to eliminate illicit drugs from the streets. The United States is closely monitoring the American-Mexican border to reduce the amount of drugs that enter US from the Caribbean nations. A great challenge to this strategy is that drugs can be homemade in the United States.
The second strategy involves reducing the impacts of drug use in the society. Drugs thrive on the dependency of the addicts. The law enforcement agencies are lenient on those addicts who come out in to request for assistance to overcome drug addiction. This second strategy is meant to augment the first one and, therefore, render activities of drug dealers useless without their habitual users. The challenge to this strategy is that the drug dealers are forever looking for new customers, and the number of the addicts is kept constant.
The third strategy is the increased law enforcement activities to reduce the drugs related activities. The law enforcement agencies proactively counter the illicit drug related crimes. They uncover secret laboratories and intercept the transportation of drugs. There are few challenges to this overt measure, except for the loss of life in the police shoot-outs; the measure tends to work with utmost precision.
References
Abadinsky, H. (2013). Drug Use and Abuse: A Comprehensive Introduction. New York: Cengage Learning.
Hess, K., & Orthmann, C. (2011). Introduction to Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. New York: Cengage Learning.
