The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) enforces the law and regulations relating to narcotic drugs, marijuana, depressants, stimulants, and the hallucinogenic drugs. Its objectives are to reach all levels of source of supply and to interdict illegal drugs before they reach the user. To achieve its mission, the administration has stationed highly trained agents along the many and varied routes of illicit traffic, both in the United States and in foreign countries. DEA’s enforcement program is aimed at disruption of the highest echelons of the traffic in the priority drugs of abuse. Drug enforcement action by state and local agencies is also an essential part of the national drug enforcement strategy.
Inception
The earliest federal drug enforcement efforts can be traced organizationally to the Internal Revenue Service. In 1915, 162 collectors and agents placed in the IRS Miscellaneous Division were assigned responsibility under the Harrison Narcotics Act for ”restricting the sale of opium.” Over the years a number of agencies became involved in federal drug law enforcement. In 1973, the U.S. attorney general was given overall federal responsibility for drug law enforcement. The DEA was established July 1, 1973, by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 2. It resulted from the merger of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence, those elements of the Bureau of Customs that had drug investigative responsibilities, and those functions of the Office of Science and Technology that were related to drug enforcement. Clearly, reorganization was needed.
On January 21, 1982, the attorney general gave the Federal Bureau of Investigation concurrent jurisdiction with DEA over drug offenses. The DEA’s administrator now reports to the director of the FBI, who was given general supervision of the drug enforcement effort. DEA agents work side by side with FBI agents throughout the country in major drug cases—a significant change in narcotics law enforcement.
Mission
Enforcement of drug laws by the DEA emphasizes the reduction of available cocaine, phencyclidine (PCP), illicit and legally produced but diverted stimulants such as amphetamines and methampheta-mines, as well as barbiturates and other depressants and sedative-hypnotics. Trafficking in multiton quantities of marijuana and other types of cannabis such as hashish and ”hash oil” receives similar enforcement attention. The DEA’s response to the varying patterns, methods, and international routes of the traffic in illicit drugs must be flexible and timely. After the ”French connection” for heroin from Marseilles was cut off in 1973, Mexican brown heroin began to replace it. To counter the new threat, the DEA instituted interdiction and eradication programs that resulted in a reduction of both opium production and level of purity of heroin on the streets of the United States. In anticipation of possible smuggling from Southeast Asia, measures to slow its progress were undertaken immediately. Cocaine, imported illegally from South America, is an increasing problem now receiving special attention through programs designed to reduce the illicit traffic and the cultivation of coca leaf, from which cocaine is derived.
The DEA never lacks for business, whether it has to identify type and variety of drug or plan some new way of seizing the contraband. The animal tranquilizer and hallucinogen PCP has replaced other hallucinogens such as LSD as the most abused of this type of drug. Because of the serious psychological effects of using PCP, including violent and irrational behavior, clandestine manufacturing and trafficking in PCP have become an important target of the DEA’s enforcement operations. PCP laboratories, difficult to detect but easily set up, have been discovered and dismantled in increasing numbers.
Compliance and Regulatory Affairs
The DEA is also responsible for regulating the legal distribution of narcotics and dangerous drugs. This includes monitoring all imports and exports of controlled substances and establishing manufacturing quotas for all Schedules I and II controlled substances. All individuals handling controlled substances are required to register with the DEA and are periodically investigated by DEA compliance investigators, who ensure that record keeping and security safeguards of all controlled substances comply with existing federal regulations. Other responsibilities of the DEA’s regulatory program include monitoring various drug abuse patterns and determining whether a drug should be controlled, based on its abuse potential.
Training
The DEA’s National Training Institute conducts intensive training in narcotics and dangerous drug law enforcement for law enforcement officers from agencies throughout the United States and the world. Ten-week schools allow police officers to receive training similar to that received by DEA special agents. In addition, they are introduced to management concepts that will enable them to develop and lead drug investigative units and organize drug traffic prevention programs in their own communities. Specialized two-week schools offer eighty hours of instruction in the basic techniques of narcotics and dangerous drugs investigation to state, county, and city officers. These schools are held at the DEA’s National Training Institute in Washington, D.C., and at field locations across the United States. The programs conducted in foreign countries range from a few days to three weeks and are presented in the native languages.
Interagency Cooperation
The DEA’s global agents provide intelligence information to Bureau of Customs and Border Patrol agents so that they can intercept illegal drugs and traffickers at entry points into the United States. The DEA also coordinates EPIC (the El Paso Intelligence Center), the first joint fact-finding operation in the annals of federal law enforcement. This interagency group, located in the southwestern border area, receives and disseminates information on drug trafficking and illegal alien activity along the southern border. The DEA Mobile Task Forces (MTF), another cooperative effort, have been successful in removing illicit drugs from the streets through coactive planning tailored to the specific assignment. The DEA State and
Local Task Forces (SLTF) ensure that drug enforcement ventures do not stagnate and acts as an impetus for nonfederal law enforcement assaults on drug trafficking. The administration regularly responds to requests for investigative assistance from state and local authorities and through its six regional laboratories provides analyses of drug evidence and also supplies related expert testimony. Additionally, DEA-FBI task forces have been established to identify potential organized crime narcotics activities.
Achievements Mid-1980s
Acting Administrator John C. Lawn, appearing before a House Subcommittee on Crime, May 1, 1985, reported the following notable achievements of the DEA:
The DEA rate of arrests has gone from less than 1,000 per month in FY 1980 to nearly 1,100 per month in FY 1984. Arrests in those cases targeted at the top echelon, or Class I cases, have increased approximately 40 percent. Convictions are up from about four hundred per month in FY 1980 to more than nine hundred per month in FY 1984.
Cocaine removals were up 380% and totaled 11.7 metric tons in FY 1984. Marijuana seizures increased 270% and heroin seizures increased 80 percent. During FY 1984, DEA investigations also accounted for the seizure of 190 clandestine laboratories, including 120 methamphetamine, 18 PCP, and 17 cocaine laboratories.
Other impressive figures accrued for task force operations, the cannabis eradication program, EPIC, and international control of illicit drugs. For example, based on DEA information, the Colombian government seized seven cocaine laboratory complexes and ten tons of cocaine, later described as the ”largest drug raid ever in the world.” The DEA’s budget and employee request for fiscal year 1986 was for a total of $345,671,000 and 4,564 permanent positions. That represented a net increase of 134 positions and $15,683,000 above the 1985 enacted level.
Total Federal Effort
The DEA has primary responsibility for enforcing federal drug laws and policies, but it does not and cannot carry the entire burden for enforcement. A number of other federal departments assist in the effort. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has concurrent jurisdiction with the DEA over federal drug laws focusing on complex conspiracy investigations. The ninety-three U.S. attorneys are the chief federal law enforcement officers in their districts; they are responsible for investigating and prosecuting federal drug offenses and are often involved in drug task forces and asset forfeiture cases. The Immigration and Naturalization Service performs interdiction duties through its Border Patrol and is responsible for deporting aliens convicted of drug crimes. The U.S. Marshals Service manages the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Fund, serves warrants on federal drug suspects and fugitives, and escorts them when in custody. The Customs Service interdicts and seizes contraband, including illegal drugs that are smuggled into the United States. The Internal Revenue Service assists with the financial aspects of drug investigations, particularly money laundering. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigates federal drug offenses that involve weapons. The U.S. Coast Guard enforces federal laws on the high seas and waters subject to U.S. jurisdiction and is involved with the interdiction of drugs smuggled via water into the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration’s radar system detects suspected air smugglers. The Department of Defense detects and monitors aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States. The State Department formulates international antidrug policy and coordinates drug control efforts with foreign governments. The Postal Inspection Service of the U.S. Postal Service enforces laws against the use of the mails in transporting illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia.
International Narcotics Control
The DEA has more than 343 employees in fifty countries throughout the world. Under the policy direction of the secretary of state and the U.S. ambassadors, the DEA provides consultation, technical assistance, and training to drug law enforcement officials in those countries. The DEA also collects and shares international drug data and assists in drug control activities and investigations where authorized. The United States encourages foreign governments to control cultivation and production of illegal drugs.
Success has been modest but promising; the following figures are for 1990: In Bolivia an estimated 8,100 hectares of coca were eradicated, representing 14% of coca cultivation. In Mexico and Guatemala about half of the opium poppy crop was destroyed. Eradication of opiates is more difficult in other areas of the world due to the lack of government support for such efforts. In Belize 84% of the estimated marijuana crop was destroyed, as was 46% in Jamaica, 25% in Colombia, and 16% in Mexico. Colombian authorities seized fifty metric tons of cocaine and destroyed more than three hundred processing labs. They also arrested seven thousand traffickers and extradited fourteen drug suspects to the United States for prosecution. Mexico seized 46.5 metric tons of cocaine and destroyed twelve heroin labs. Bolivia destroyed thirty-three cocaine hydrochloride labs and 1,446 maceration pits that produce cocaine paste. India seized twelve heroin labs and Turkey, seven labs.
The War on Drugs
The combined federal effort and the promise of greater international cooperation continue to bolster the DEA in its pursuit of the seemingly impossible. Drug control figures are always disappointing to cite. Domestically, no matter how large a confiscation or bust might be, it is a mere token of what is left out on the street. The modest international figures for 1990 are for that year only and do not carry over. Drug crops destroyed one year can return even twofold the next year. Current political and law enforcement thinking believes that since supply cannot be cut off, much more effort should go into stemming demand.
Given that new emphasis, the DEA will still conduct business as usual, although there was some worry in 1993. The Clinton administration, wanting to streamline the federal bureaucracy, considered merging the DEA and FBI. Furthermore, it was argued that such a merger would eliminate disputes that hindered both agencies in their ability to combat and prosecute drug traffickers. FBI Director Louis J. Freeh favored the merger, which also included placing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) under FBI control. Naturally, the DEA and BATF put up strong resistance. On October 21, 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that the Clinton administration would abandon its proposal. The FBI would not become the sole federal law enforcement agency for the United States.
