Drug abuse: Tendencies and ways to overcome it

The new government-run intelligence service for drugs has replaced the older drugs central intelligence. Police and customs officers staff the government-run intelligence. Its duty is to gather, analyze and distribute information obtained either abroad or at home.

The regional anti-drug departments have special support units. The customs service has been reinforced by top-class specialists and top-notch smuggling clampdown equipment. In compliance with the 1986 law on illegal drug trade, the police and the courts have received broader authority as to the identification, freezing and confiscation of drug dealers' profits. In
1988 the UK and the USA signed a bilateral agreement on the confiscation of the discredited bank assets.

The police and the customs service have formed a special financial division to accumulate on a national scale, survey and pass down for further investigation the data on financial issues, i.e. reports from the banks and other financial institutions on monetary deposits of questionable origin.

The government has outlined the procedure for police operations against the three categories of drug dealers, big, medium and small.

Great Britain upholds the international community's efforts by contributing annually Pound Sterling 150,000 to the UN Fund for Drug Abuse
Control. As mentioned before, the UK also runs a program of assistance to overseas projects.

Regarding the drug abuse situation, a review of the government measures underlines that the government-sponsored policy works toward a closer international cooperation, enhances the efforts of the law-enforcement agencies, helps the younger generation realize the impact of drug addiction and boosts the effort against this evil.

Mexico:

The drug control programs in Mexico differ from those in other countries as Mexico is a hotbed of manufacture and export of opium, heroin and marijuana and a major cocaine trafficking transit point to the United
States. Some Mexican states have traditional plantations of opium poppy, marijuana and Indian hemp. Economic hardships often force the farmers into dealing with drug dealers and prompt the growing of illegal crops, which produce profits higher than the earnings from lawful businesses. The anti- drug programs, therefore, focus on mass destruction of narcotic crops from the air or manually and the involvement of army units in such operations, harsh penal sanctions, intensive investigation of drug cartels and trafficking channels, and dissemination of information among the public.

Growing cooperation with the USA on the basis of bilateral agreements and a treaty of juridical assistance is an important element of the anti- narcotic policy. It facilitates the identification of drug-related money laundering in the financial and commercial institutions both in Mexico and the US. The Advance Guard program presupposes operations to detect and destroy the plantations of drug-bearing crops. Starting from 1986, units of the Mexican Army and of the US Coastal Guard have been conducting operations to detain suppliers of drugs in the Mexican territorial waters, to confiscate their cars and arms, and to control flights in the border area as part of the American Mexican operation Alliance.

Spain:

The national program against drug abuse in Spain deserves notice as the
Spanish laws permit soft narcotic substances. Despite the expectations and arguments of the proponents of drug legalization, drug abuse in Spain does not subside. Neither does the crime rate. The number of violent assaults to obtain money for drugs is on the rise. The law-enforcement agencies' task has been set as eradicating drug abuse, opening specialized medical centers for the addicts who volunteer to undergo treatment, and combating drug addiction and prostitution as the factors increasing the risk of AIDS infection.

The main goals of the Spanish program against drug abuse are to halt the proliferation of the most heinous drugs like heroin and cocaine, organize prophylactic measures among the young people of 16-to-18, promulgate popular knowledge about medicine and treatment of drug addicts by way of educational lectures, and advance public organizations' activities.

France:

The French national program against narco-business sponsored by the
Ministry of the Interior and Public Safety focuses on curbing the illegal trade in drugs, and, in particular, the street vending of narcotic substances. The document provides for the creation of special-task police units and a national center to coordinate all police operations against drug abuse. Narco-business-suppression training courses have been introduced at police schools. Large police commissariats now have specialized branches to monitor drug abuse. These branches render practical and financial assistance to various organizations engaged in fighting against the abuse of narcotic and toxic chemical substances.

The experience of foreign anti-narcotics programs can be adapted to the requirements of the Russian Federation and help work out a feasible
National Program of Comprehensive Counteraction to Narcotics

Par. 2. Organization of Medical Counteraction to Narcotics

The primary aspect of the entire anti-narcotics effort is a series of medical treatment measures. They are carried out by different medical institutions as actions against narcotics is inalienable from the activities of public health services of all levels, including the medical service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1975 the former Soviet medical authorities detached the addictions treatment service from psychiatry. Thus the treatment of drug and other addicts became a separate branch of medicine known as narcology.

The efforts of the medical institutions make up a significant part of the anti-narcotics strategy. Their goal is to bring about a decrease in the demand for drugs. This is achieved by the treatment and rehabilitation of abusers and, in the final run, is a positive factor of a general improvement in the drug abuse situation.

The measures, which the health centers, are obliged to take, can roughly be divided into two groups. Group One includes the properly medical efforts in the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts. Group Two embraces other organizational steps to keep narcotics at bay.

The international community also pays considerable attention to the treatment of drug addicts. Article 38 of the Uniform Convention on Drugs states that the signatory countries will take every possible step to prevent the misuse of narcotic substances, ensure an early identification of abusers, treat them, restore them to full working capability, re- socialize, and monitor them after the completion of treatment (Paragraph
1). The countries will train appropriate personnel (Paragraph 2), and will inform the population about the hazards of drug abuse (Paragraph 3). The medical treatment of drug addicts is also presupposed by Resolution II of the UN conference on implementing the Uniform Convention on Drugs.
Reminding of the provisions of Article 38, the conference stressed that hospital treatment in a drug-free atmosphere is the most efficacious medical approach to the issue. It recommended that economically potent countries where drug abuse is a serious problem provide the opportunities for such treatment.

The Treatment and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts:
The issues of medical treatment/social rehabilitation of addicts and other relevant measures are to a greater or lesser degree incorporated in the public health programs of all nations and have found reflection in certain regional programs. As a rule, these documents emphasize perfection of the strategies and organization of drug abuse services on the assumption that drug abuse is a social disease. The other important aspects are financing and material/technical support, personnel, informing definite sectors of society on the hazardous impact of addiction, research in the field of more effective medicine.

Experts, however, warn against an overly simplified belief that containing drug addiction boils down to the availability of medicines and available hospital beds. The prophylactics of social illnesses like alcoholism, misuse of narcotics and toxic chemicals cannot be built upon the same methods as the treatment of serious infectious diseases. Alongside pharmaceutics, it requires psychological aid and education which more and more often involves the addicts' families and friends. It is naive to believe that medicines and injections alone can bring about the desired results and that the selection of individually suitable pharmaceutical preparations gives a clue to the problem of treatment. Good results are yielded by a combination of psychology and pharmacy. Therefore, the treatment for drug addiction consumes much painstaking effort of a doctor, psychologist, educator and other specialists working with a person who is likely to develop the illness or is ill already.

On the face of it, the issues of treatment and prophylactics necessitate comprehensive programming and proficient organization. Their solution lies in the medico-biological, medico-psychological and medico- social spheres.

From the standpoint of government policy, public health institutions have the exclusive authority to treat drug addicts by officially approved methods, including compulsory treatment of the addicts who pose danger to society.

According to the results expected in this field, health centers must organize and effectuate a series of measures destined to establish firm grounds for progress in the drug abuse situation.

In the first place, this means the early identification, diagnosis and registration of the persons who use drugs for non-medical purposes and hence stand in need of prophylactic and treatment. However, shortcomings in the existing methods of express-diagnostics and in the expert check-ups of drug addicts make establishing the degree and the type of drug dependence somewhat problematic.

Identification, Diagnosis, and Registration of Drug Users:

The identified addicts may belong to different age and social groups; their condition may have a different degree of narcotic neglect. This fact may influence the choice, distribution and intensity of medical measures, as well as their combination with other types of aid.

Of particular importance is the early identification of addicts among the young and the adolescents. A timely medical interference, caring participation and influence of parents, relatives, teachers, police officers, and the atmosphere of friendliness can stop the youngsters' slump into illness.

When the consumers of different drugs have been identified, it is exigent to inform the police to enable it to find the sources of drugs and trafficking channels and execute other preventive measures.

Information is especially important if the drugs have been manufactured illegally or their origins are unclear.

The following list of measures can help identify the individuals who misuse narcotic substances: medical check-ups of industrial labor staffs, school and college students; medical check-ups of inmates in jails and penitentiaries; medical examination of the perpetrators of drug abuse for further registration and treatment, including compulsory treatment; specialized testing of certain professionals (the military, pilots, drivers of all means of transport, police officers) for the bodily presence of narcotic substances; revealing the most dangerous forms of drug abuse that complicated detoxification, revealing the cases of multiple drug misuse (the combined use of more than one drug) and the cases of an intertwined abuse of drugs and alcohol; identification of addicts who carry the HIV and other infectious diseases, elimination of the consequences of infectious transmission; timely registration, treatment and rehabilitation of those who need it.

Another way to improve the health servicing of drug abusers is to organize: fundamental research; development of efficacious pharmaceutical preparations and novel methods of treatment for different types of narcotic dependence, their speedy translation into public health practices; large- scale contribution to research from Russian and foreign scientists (the
Academy of Sciences, medical, pedagogical, psychological and other research institutions, application of practices adopted abroad); accelerated training of highly qualified personnel (addictive conditions psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, social workers) at medical colleges and upper level courses, specialized training of medical attendants, nurses and technicians. The study program should cover not only the novel methods of treatment, but also the specifics of contacts with the drug addicts and methods of readiness for treatment and prophylactic practice; organization of new preventive-treatment/ registration clinics, out- patient departments at industrial facilities and offices, emergency aid centers and a wide publication of data on their mode of operation, anonymous and commercial treatment centers for drug addicts; extensive adoption by drug-abuse monitoring services of the achievements in the medical science, psychology, pedagogy, pharmacy, and special-purpose technology; modernization of drug-abuse monitoring services, improvement of material supplies and provision of the necessary personnel.

The post-treatment rehabilitation measures should include: a) the creation of purpose-oriented government-run and charity funds, ex-drug abusers support funds and diverse forms of work with them; b) development of rehabilitation methods based on the effective analysis of the existing rehabilitation procedures and of qualification levels of the personnel; c) psychological assistance to the former abusers' families, relatives, and friends who must be taught the techniques of exerting favorable influence on the patients.

Equally important is the organization of other anti-narcotics efforts taken by public health institutions.

The health of the nation is an important element of the social and economic development of a country. From this angle, the popularization of a rational way of life, the cultivation of respect for human health as the basic value of society ranks high among the priorities of medical institutions.

Publicizing Information Against Drugs:

A skillful and persistent dissemination of knowledge about the destructive impact of drugs and their detriment for the future generations is a crucial activity of medical institutions in the struggle against narcotics.

It is advisable to find a particular audience and do masterly presentations. Lectures and discussions are not the only means of knowledge dissemination. Meetings with former drug addicts and presentations about broken human lives have also proved productive.

To increase the prophylactic effects of popularization, it would be useful to train the instructors on the methods and tactics of campaigning against narcotics, design a system of mass anti-narcotic education, based on medical science, provide the necessary teaching aids, control and stimulate this activity.

Organization of Control Over the Use of Narcotic Substances:

Public health institutions have responsibilities in exercising control over narcotic substances under international conventions, treaties, agreements and other forms of international cooperation in combating drug abuse. As mentioned earlier, their primary responsibility is to control the proper use of drugs, the correct taking of their stock, their storage, distribution and removal. The issue of special prominence is the storage of narcotic substances at medical institutions and warehouses and the thwarting of attempts to misappropriate them. Inspections often expose serious flaws in this field.

To rule out a possible abuse, leakage or misappropriation of drugs, the following list of measures is essential: guarding narcotic substance storage facilities, fitting them out with new equipment and fire/break-in alarm systems connected to the central control panel or to the 24-hour operational medical personnel or guards mail; proper protection of the points where drugs are stored in small quantities for distribution as administered by the physicians; tightened control over big-batch long-term storage facilities like the warehouses of regional drug-store administrations, and strategic reserves warehouses; regular inspections at narcotic drug warehouses; strict abidance by the rules of taking stock, storage and use of drugs for medical purposes; a timely exchange of information with the police on the above issues and cooperation in drawing up the lists of drug storage facilities.

Experience suggests that a successful solution of the problem depends on the depth of our insight into it. This is especially true of such a complex issue as the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts regardless of what stage they are at. That is why the fullest and the most objective information is essential for the medical and other institutions to organize a counter-offensive against drug abuse. With that goal in mind, public health centers should adhere to the following organizational guidelines: gathering and analysis of information on the conditions of drug addicts, tendencies in and results of their treatment and rehabilitation, and types and means of using drugs and the impact they have; interaction with other institutions and departments in concrete forms of anti-narcotics activities in such large-scale operations as Poppy and
Doping, in check-ups and research; control surveys prepared by the narcology service.

Organizational support for these guidelines could be achieved through: the establishment of a strict procedure for and the terms of turning in, and registration of documents, supply of dependable information on the actual situation with drugs and their sales and use for both medical and non-medical purposes, on the individuals perpetrating misuse, supply of other data essential for making specific decisions; cooperation with other departments in holding joint selective research and express-tests to obtain reliable information on the actual levels of drug abuse, the damage it inflicts, the effects of treatment and other types of aid to the addicts; scheduled and unscheduled departmental and/or inter-departmental inspections of how control over drugs is maintained, and how the rules of their use and storage are observed; analysis and broad publicity of the achievements of medical staffs who have a record of positive results in combating narcotics, as well as provision of incentives.

The scope of health institutions' duties also embraces revealing and timely informing the relevant departments and the public at large on dangerous tendencies in drug abuse, new varieties of stupefying substances, the techniques of their manufacture and the means of use. The public health system develops the adequate methods of prevention, treatment, and counteraction.

Par. 3. Enforcement of Legal Measures of Narcotics Counteraction

The organization of legal enforcement of anti-narcotics measures falls into three groups:

1) application of legal administrative and criminal legal norms regulating the prevention and suppression of narcotics; 2) government legal measures to set and refine law enforcement and other agencies combating narcotics; 3) international anti-narcotics measures.

Group One includes compulsory treatment of drug addicts and measures against drug-related crimes. Compulsory treatment of drug addicts is a law- enforcement measure aimed at cutting down the non-medical use of narcotic substances. It can be administered by the court to an addict who evades voluntary treatment or who continues misusing drugs after a course of treatment. If an addict commits a crime, the court metes out punishment in combination with compulsory treatment.

Compulsory treatment of Drug Addicts:
Compulsory treatment is prescribed to all categories of abusers at medical institutions with a specialized treatment procedure in the course of work therapy. If criminal punishment is imposed, the treatment is executed at the penitentiary during the term of imprisonment.

Placement of drug addicts to mandatory treatment centers is in the domain of responsibilities of police departments. This activity goes hand in hand with the following organizational measures: identification of individuals perpetrating drugs abuse; administering a medical examination, and a compulsory visit to a medical institution in case of a refusal to undergo the procedure voluntarily; compulsory hospitalization for complete check-up upon conclusion of a narcologist (psychiatrist specializing in addictive conditions - translator's note). Notification is given to the prosecutor's office and, if an underage addict is hospitalized, to his or her parents. timely and renewable registration of drug addicts at the drug-patient monitoring clinics, and prophylactic registration of the individuals whose misuse of drugs has not yet acquired the form of an illness; supervision over the daily way of life of the registered patients and checking their attempts to skip compulsory treatment, imposition of other measures of educational, medical and legal influence; issuance of documents for placing the addicts who avoid mandatory treatment to rehabilitation and work-therapy clinics and specialized drug- abuse Medicare centers; filing documents on treatment of evaders with the courts; escorting of addicts to the places of mandatory treatment, registration of individuals who were formerly sentenced for drug-related crimes or fell under administrative liability for misuse of drugs; individual prophylactic measures against addicts to whom corrective labor has been meted out without a term of imprisonment, or whose sentences have been suspended or deferred; treatment of drug addicts at corrective labor institutions simultaneously with serving a term, supervision over inmates' treatment and behavior.

Organizational Law Enforcement Measures against Drug-related Crimes:

Other organizational law enforcement measures against narcotics-related crimes are: locating the illegal plantations of narcotic-bearing crops and identifying their growers, eradicating such plantations, securing prohibitions to grow narcotic substance containing crops, making special maps upon the inspections of gardens, private plots of land and wastelands, cooperating with agriculture experts, army units and other departments concerned, carrying out special task operations and disseminating information on drugs.

It is of paramount importance to reorganize the system of guarding government-controlled plantations of hemp and the like crops or create such a system in the places where it is absent. This measure is closely linked to the development of advanced methods of crop guarding, especially, in harvesting seasons. Work by shifts and material incentives may prove effective. Good results can also be obtained through the improvement of technical and chemical means of protection.

To limit the access of the public at large to the areas of government- sponsored drug- bearing crop plantations, it would stand to reason to establish special passport and traffic control in such areas.

Organization of Measures to Suppress Drug-dealing:

The measures to suppress drug dealing are the most important issue at present. Manufacture and trade in narcotics has become a branch of the shadow economy. It is gaining momentum, creating production facilities and channels of distribution. In a large number of cases the understaffed law enforcement departments are unable to rebuff the onslaught of drug manufacturers and offer sound alternatives to all aspects of drug abuse.

The illegal production of drugs that spill over the state borders and continents is at the top of the world community's agenda. Particular significance is attached to the clandestine drug laboratories.

In the wake of it, it is exigent to set up specialized police departments, which will concentrate the officers of high professional expertise, and to provide them with the necessary material and technical support.

Foreign experts believe tangible results in eradicating clandestine laboratories can be achieved if police operations to uncover the channels by which the raw materials arrive and the end product is dispatched are synchronized with the efforts to block access to chemical substances and equipment the manufacture of drugs requires. This, however, is not easy as some drug synthesis components such as acetic anhydride, ether, benzene, acetone are extensively used in the industrial sector. Their industrial consumption is not controlled in practical terms since, in most countries, legislation does not regulate the production, storage and use of these chemicals.

Experts in Germany propose in this connection that the laws against drugs should extend to cover these chemicals too. But the output and industrial use of the above substances is so massive that the attempts to take them under control within the boundaries of a single country have yielded no results while entailing substantial expenditure on organizing the control service.

Another measure suggested is marking the packing of chemical substances with special marks that would help the police identify the country of origin and the manufacturer. Such a step, however, is unproductive as in most cases the police does not get a hold of packing of the chemicals which had already been used.

Experts consider as more promising the special laboratory tests of the confiscated narcotic substances and chemicals used in the manufacture of drugs. The tests can be more helpful in identifying the country of origin, elucidating specific features of the technological process and other fundamental properties of the chemicals.

For instance, specialists of the German institute of criminology have designed on the basis of the American and Swedish experience methods of identifying the places of origin of heroin through chromatographic testing.

Experts believe the most effective way to control the proliferation of the substances used in drug manufacturing could be the marking of such substances with dyes or radiation. The weak point of the method is a possible impact the marking may have on the qualities of the chemicals and the end products. Besides, it would contradict the legislation of many countries and some international agreements. That is why the researchers of anti-narcotic methods tend to pin hopes on the method of a different nature
- self-control. It encompasses a set of police-proposed measures that are effectuated by the services directly involved in actions against illegal manufacturing, trafficking and trade in drugs, as well as by all companies and individuals who have a connection with the manufacturing, sales and use of narcotics and auxiliary chemicals. According to this concept, the producers, suppliers and consumers of chemicals report to the police all suspicious purchases. The police, in its turn, work out detailed recommendation and criteria for such cases. Examples of these criteria are above-the- statistic-average size of a purchased batch of chemicals, a request from a new client, etc. Such kind of reporting gives the police more opportunities to locate illegal laboratories, channels of raw materials supplies and dispatch of the end product.

An imperative condition for putting in effect practical anti-narcotics measures is stringent control over the narcotic raw materials and their storage and limitations on trade in them.

It is important to note those drug-dealing affects the legitimate turnover of narcotic substances. Violations of the rules of their storage, manufacturing, and accounting continue increasing. There are misappropriations and other offenses, including attacks on warehouses of narcotic preparations in health centers, drug stores, etc. Executives do not take adequate measures to safeguard narcotic substances and sometime become accomplices in crimes. A possible explanation for this state of affairs is the breach of the rules outlined above.

It is important to reveal violations of the effective rules of manufacturing, storage, accounting, and sales of narcotic preparations, invoking criminal liability when necessary. This necessitates joint steps by the anti-drug units, licensing system of the internal affairs ministry, fire detachments and units of extra-departmental guards.

The perpetrators of drug-related crimes' utmost secrecy calls for the improvement in the procedures of investigation in strict compliance with the criminal law procedures.

Crime Investigation Organizational Measures:

An important element in this process is the interaction between detectives and investigators. The best and well-tested form of this interaction is the setting-up of temporary or, as need be, permanently functioning inquiry/investigation groups. These groups focus the efforts of all branches of the police on drug-related crimes. The main directions of activities (with due regard to the limits of professional competence of each member of the group) are: a) gathering and systematic analysis of all the incoming and requested information on drug-related crimes and malefactors; b) identification of criminal groupings and measures toward halting their activities; c) police actions to prevent and halt misappropriations of drugs and other offenses in medicare institutions and other organizations; d) police actions taken simultaneously with the investigation as envisaged by the criminal law court procedure; e) quality emergency investigation, completeness, objectivity and timeliness of inquiry and investigation; f) tactical planning and expedient conduct of search and technical operations; professional conduct of operations; employment of investigation and other technologies to supply the investigators with testimonies and eye- witness accounts of the offenders' guilt; g) professional analysis of the ways of using the results of search and technical operations in investigation procedures.

Par. 4. Other Organizational Measures to Combat Narcotics

Narcotics can be overcome only if approaches to anti-narcotics activity are fundamentally revised, its concrete trends are mapped out and the control over the end results achieved by each ministry and department, responsible for curbing this social evil.

Up-to-date scales and forms of narcotics proliferation show that the measures, applied within the framework of established structures, are not particularly successful. There is no proper interaction between the ministries and the departments, called upon to handle these matters; work is carried out far too often formally without essential drive, consistence, and organization; the system of preventive, therapeutic, and rehabilitative help remains inadequate; and anti-narcotic campaign is ineffective.

For this reason, organizational medical and law enforcement steps can and must be backed by measures to resist drug abuse in all spheres and at all levels of state power to avoid their imbalance and flaws in the all-out anti-narcotics crusade.

The practical experience of daily anti-narcotics activity calls for a significant impact from the top government agencies.

It is at this level that measures should be adopted for creating and implementing a single national strategy against narcotics. For this end, a single permanent executive body, empowered to control narcotics and capable of coordinating comprehensive actions daily against drug addiction and drug- related crimes must be created. The formation of such a body, representing all the ministries and departments concerned, will make it possible to organize a prompt and permanent government action against narcotics, coordinate efforts of government agencies, and other organizations, as well as individuals, and maintain contact with international organizations.

Lawmaking measures:

It is important to revitalize government-sponsored efforts toward hammering out a single anti-narcotics legislation, matching international standards, including 1) a law on the `control over the legal distribution of narcotics, strong substances, precursors, and 2) on the responsibility for such offences as: drugs extortion; illegal actions with government- owned chemicals and special equipment and their use to make drugs; 3) organizational forms of perpetrating drug-related crimes; 4) various commercial and financial operations on money laundering.

Due to the latter, it is necessary to give law enforcement agencies more authority to get from banks and other institutions and organizations necessary data on accounts and other financial transactions of persons, suspected of unlawful actions with narcotics.

Besides, it appears reasonable to amend the current legislation by expanding authority and creating appropriate conditions for law-enforcement agencies (police) to a) conduct searches of luggage, including carry-on luggage, of passengers at all kinds of transport facilities, b) check controlled shipments and cargoes, c) check state purchases of drugs, d) conduct medical examinations of citizens, e) set a more flexible procedure of placing drug addicts for medical treatment, f) a more flexible system of administrative detaining and arresting of citizens, and g) to practice more extensively the protocol form of pre-trial materials preparation.

Organizational Measures at Government Level:

It would be expedient to carry out a number of organizational anti- narcotics measures at government level. They include:

- creating a stable system of information for regional law-enforcement agencies about treaties, agreements, and protocols, concluded and signed by countries, governments, and departments, about procedures and requirements of signing such documents, about Interpol National Central Bank's opportunities to combat specific types of crimes, and about requests' formulation requirements;

- putting the NCB on round-the-clock duty to meet local requests;

- speeding up the creation of effective border customs control and adopting measures against the use of a country as a transit point to ship drugs to other regions;

- toughening control over the production and supplies of drug-bearing substances in chemical pharmacology and other areas, where they are used for lawful purposes.

A positive solution should be found to the issue of opening more medical centers, improving anti-drug addiction therapy, and manufacturing and acquiring more effective medicines, which involves much government spending and a search for sources of funding. Simultaneously, special government-financed short and long term comprehensive medical programs should be worked out and put into effect to block the consumption and sale of drugs; really re-socialize drug addicts; stop AIDS from spreading; spare no effort toward revitalizing non-governmental organizations' activity, aimed at reducing the demand for narcotics.

Measures to Train Personnel:

One should bear in mind that in most cases, the first contact with drug addicts, that is with seriously ill people, is made by the officers of law enforcement (police) agencies who have neither practical nor psychological skills of dealing with ill persons. But even a physician is required alongside professional knowledge, to display ethical norms, which quite often are crucial for the recovery of mentally imbalanced patients. For this reason, it is especially urgent and important to draw up teaching aides and methodological recommendations for law- enforcement agencies, not only on the tactics but also on the ethics of dealing with drug addicts, especially young ones. It is necessary to put the experience, gained by the police in anti-drug addiction prophylactic actions, into practice as soon as possible.

Polish scientists identify three groups of young drug addicts: 1) those who can but do not want to stop using drugs; 2) those who would like to give up drugs but cannot do so on their own; 3) and those who do not want and can not drop the ruinous dependence.

The principles of treating representatives of each of these groups differ considerably. The experience of drug addicts' treatment shows that two opposite trends dominate in the systems accepted up to date. The first prefers tolerance, partnership, and medical treatment, excluding coercion and punishment. The second envisages tough regimentation toward drug addicts. However, there is one requirement that is common for both systems
- indispensable compliance with the principle of voluntary consent.

There are several varieties of pedagogics as industrial, military, agricultural, and medical. The latter, also called orthopedagogics, deals with upbringing children with defects. In the field of criminological prophylaxis, essential is the role of resocialization, i.e. of the educational effect on persons, poorly adapted to life in society. According to the criminological literature, "the basic goal in penitentiaries, is to create conditions for the social adaptation of persons after their prison term is over.» All these sources of knowledge should be made instrumental in combating drug abuse.

At the government level, interdepartmental programs involving a wide range of experts and the media should be worked out and implemented on educational and prophylactic campaign among the population.

Foreign Experience in Prophylactics:
Foreign experience deserves attention in this respect. Poland, for one, attaches great significance to public anti-drug addiction campaigns.
Specialists are convinced that drug abuse should be addressed by the public organizations and individuals, among them - well known scientists, artists, writers, and clerics.

The catholic church plays a special role. Maximilian Conbeg's Society has all parishes offered to its program of temperance, urging them to abstain not only from drugs but also from all unnatural desires. The program has been backed across the board. Each diocese has priests specially trained to render professional aid to drug addicts and to help them return to society.

The Catholic University offers a course of lectures, which are to help drug addicts; the newly organized Drug Prevention Society has basic activities coinciding with that of the government and its main tasks are to treat drug addicts, return them to society and prevent drug-related crimes.
The Society provides therapy for drug afflicted persons, and recommendations on how to regain the healthy way of life. The Polish
Psychiatrists' Society has an anti-drug addiction commission, pursuing mainly scientific objectives.

The Monar youth movement immensely contributes to the anti-drug campaign sparing no effort to return drug addicts to society by interacting with medics. Religious and public organizations are actively involved in anti-narcotics campaigns in other countries, too.

At the same time, it is only within the framework of a government- sponsored program that all issues, pertaining to the destruction of drug- bearing crops, must be addressed. For that it is necessary to create independent agencies, furnished with advanced equipment, aircraft, motor vehicles and other means. Such agencies can be allowed appropriate functions only after clearance by a team of ecological experts. Here in, strict criminal responsibility must be enforced for carrying out such actions that destroy the environment and harm flora and fauna. There must be compensation.

The solution of this issue depends upon the possibility of deploying the armed forces. In the USA the army plays a key role in monitoring drug trafficking routes. The Defense Department carries out the following measures against criminal narco-business:

- searching for drug-bearing crops, secret laboratories, storages and drug distribution points;

- discovering and destroying sources of producing drugs (cocaine, marijuana, etc);

- putting under control all possible routes of smuggling drugs into the country (by sea, by air, across land border);

- assisting state law-enforcement agencies in exposing the channels of drug proliferation by using intelligence sensors and photo equipment in border territories;

- coordinating operations to intercept ships and aircraft, suspected of illegal drugs shipment;

- patrolling the coast by interceptor planes, ships, posting radars, balloon systems to monitor low-flying objects, etc.;

- measures to get enlisted and non-enlisted army personnel cut drugs consumption.

In 1990, the military, using search equipment, capable of locating submerged cables and pipelines, discovered an underground tunnel at the border with Mexico, a tunnel through which huge consignments of drugs were smuggled into the USA. In the last few years, four anti-narcotics techniques have been in focus: computerized systems, advanced means of communication, field laboratory analyzers, remote chemical detectors (photo- acoustic and laser spectroscopes for locating specific drug production sites.) Experts regard as promising instruments for checking baggage and cargo containers. These instruments operate on nonlinear radar principles.

Organization of Comprehensive Studies:

By combining the efforts of scientists and experts it would be possible to avoid haste with setting up new creative teams and, instead, apply to the database for information, learn its source and its author, and decide whether it's simpler to use it rather than carry out studies anew. Such an approach would be quite beneficial for those whose work has so far been wasted and for those who urgently need scientific information.

This would also speed up the process of solving a number of drug problems by cutting the time for scientific research and decreasing inevitable material costs.

Functions of the Head Branch of the Anti-narcotics Agency:

Changes in the given situation call for an appropriate effective response, a revision of the content and volume of work, correction of functions carried out at the departmental level.

Particularly responsible is the role of the head branch of the agency integrated in the Ministry of Internal Affairs which studies, analyzes, sums up and monitors information on narcotics in the country, informs appropriate institutions and departments about it, sets priorities in actions against narcotics, adopts measures to attain them, and carries out other managerial functions. This agency also arranges and takes part in concrete anti-narcotics campaigns. These include measures to prevent the illegal growth of drug-bearing crops (plan, organize, and carry out POPPY operations, etc.); to curb theft of drugs and highly effective medicinal substances; discover underground laboratories (develop, plan and carry out
Doping operations); uncover the most sophisticated crimes (by taking direct part in investigative and search actions upon arrival on site, providing methodological, informational and technical aid); expose persons and criminal gangs with inter-regional and international narco-business links; join other services in carrying out preventive operations at airports, railway stations, customs offices to detain criminals, check the baggage, eliminate drug trafficking channels; upgrade work toward preventing and exposing drug-related crimes.

The volume of applicable law measures at this level bears a selective nature, being many inferiors to the volume of managerial and other functions. It would be more rational and effective however to rid these branches completely of any forms of direct involvement in preventing, exposing, and curbing crimes and thereby extend managerial functions by raising demands for professional leadership and service management by augmenting the staff functions of these branches and limiting their role in exposing and curbing crimes to appropriate qualified essential methods and effective control.

Perfecting Internal Affairs Ministry Work:

To make law-enforcement agencies anti-drug trafficking activity more efficient, the Internal Affairs Ministry could:

- draft comprehensive anti-drug addiction programs;

- perfect the departmental normative basis, create methods and analysis teaching aids and video-films;

- participate in the work to bring republican anti-narcotics legislation in line with the international acts;

- create a normative-legal basis to ensure a mechanism for bilateral and multilateral international cooperation;

- work out, create, and introduce in day-to-day activity a mechanism of control over the emerging narcotic situation and coordinate reaction to its changes;

- adopt measures to provide the branches with appropriate equipment and special devices;

- create automated information-search systems with wide-ranging possibilities to combat criminal narco-business;

- set out short and long term guidelines;

- determine resources for the target-oriented organizational, informative, promptly investigative and material-technical support of areas with widespread drug abuse and rampant crime;

- control the formation of local branches and their activities;

- organize interaction between law-enforcement (police) agencies, serving at areas where drugs are grown, trafficked, and consumed;

- coordinate various branches' activity to carry out joint measures toward exposing criminal gangs with inter-regional contacts and carrying out prophylactic measures on air, sea, river, and auto transport;

- form computer data banks on drug trafficking at republican and international levels;

- follow the USA and other countries' experience in setting up special mobile units, armed with the most advanced military hardware and teach methods and ecologically safe technologies of drug crops' destruction;

- promote law-enforcement (police) agencies' cooperation with customs, national security agencies, army and border troops;

- educate territorial agencies on various methods of work;

- plan cooperation with foreign agencies in preventing drugs and raw material for narcotics from being smuggled in from other regions practicing a specific form of controllable supplies envisaged by the 1988 UN
Convention and exert control over such cooperation;

- organize and control scientific research and apply it;

- to study, sum up, and apply positive foreign experience;

One should bear in mind that the campaign against narcotics is part of the universal action against organized crime. Efficiency at the local level makes it possible to expose not only drug-related crimes but also felonies, especially those involving violence and theft.

If all these organizational measures are put into practice, the campaign against narcotics in the Russian Federation will be more effective.

Conclusion

The international community sees narcotics as one of the most dangerous social evils. International legal acts, as well as national legislations, including that of the Russian Federation, contain numerous norms regulating actions against narcotics bound to suppress and prevent it. Moves are made to perfect and update these norms so that they could counteract new forms and methods of committing drug-related crimes. Naturally enough, legal regulations trail after criminal thought in these and other criminal offenses.

To narrow the gap between the rapid advancement of criminal know-how and the introduction of the new anti-crime legislation there is a need to monitor the spread of narcotics, assess it, watch its dynamics, forecast its progress and carry out appropriate research. Monitoring and research are to help pinpoint the sensitive spots of drug abuse and work out new legal norms and methods for dealing with them.

Highly important are the application of legal norms and the planning of various measures aiming to oppose narcotics.

Private business has been made legal in the new social and economic conditions. Under the guise of legally established private enterprises underground drug manufacturing laboratories and drug trade hideouts
(houses, apartments) have begun functioning as unofficial operational reports confirm. Illegal efforts to produce and sell drugs and the tendency for their proliferation demand emergency antidrug legislation. Illegally- operating drug-producing and drug-selling companies present a much bigger threat to society than all other drug-related ventures do, now that they
(a) spread new varieties of and increasingly more hazardous drugs, (b) increase, drug production and sales manifold, (c) promote an organized system of narcobusiness and, consequently, the takeover of drug-trafficking by organized criminal groups, (d) take monopoly control of drug-trafficking and reap super-profits in this field, (e) take drug-trafficking operations beyond the national borders and make use of their foreign connections for the acquisition, manufacture, transportation, sending, smuggling and sale of drugs. Their activities prompt many related crimes.

All this calls for moves to update the Russian Criminal Code with articles on legal responsibility for the production and sale of drugs which must be considered to belong to the categories of serious and most serious criminal offenses punishable by ten to fifteen years of imprisonment and the confiscation of property.

The climatic conditions on the territory of Russian Federation favor the natural growth and cultivation of drug-bearing plants, which may be, or are already, used for the purpose of drug production. This calls for the need to constantly perfect methods of exposing and destroying such plants, both those that are wild and those that are raised, which, in turn, calls for a wide range of financial and organizational efforts.

Its geographic and geopolitical position makes the Russian Federation a convenient trans-shipment point on the road from Asia to other former
Soviet republics and on to Europe. The Russian government, its law- enforcement agencies, in particular, must, as a result, check illegal attempts to take drugs across the national border, bolster up its customs services and see to it that they upgrade their performance and work in close cooperation with the territorial and traffic police and other agencies expected to carry out programs of action against narcotics.

The newly gained independence requires that the Russian Federation confront two problems directly related to narcotics and efforts to overcome it.

First of all, borders between Russia and other former Soviet republics show the highest degree of transparency, i.e. border-crossing presents almost no problem. Given the geographic and geopolitical position of
Russia, the transparency of the national border aggravates the problem of drug smuggling and calls for the need to essentially fortify the border and better customs control along it.

Secondly, there is the problem of international relations in the field of narcotics and international efforts to deal with it. There are two angles to this second problem. Now that it has gained sovereignty, Russia has to assume upon itself the functions of establishing and maintaining international relations, especially since it represents a sort of a link in the chain that ties drug- producers and drug-consuming regions together.

The second angle of this problem lies in the fact that once being a part of the Soviet Union, Russian Federation neither faced nor could possibly face obstacles concerning the jurisdiction of its anti-crime effort, including crimes committed on territories of different Soviet republics. Now that they are sovereign nations, the former Soviet republics have national borders, which, transparent as they are, make legal action against criminal elements possible only in the context of international relations and in keeping with international agreements. This, naturally, complicates the timely launching of operational and investigative actions aimed at solving criminal cases including those of drug-trafficking.

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