Business Week recently had a photo series that focused on the technologies that both law enforcement and drug-producers are using to prevent and enhance, respectively, the production and consumption of illicit drugs.
While I’m not sure if it was Alex Halperin, the author of the text that precedes and accompanies the slide show, who came up with the title and preamble of
In This War, Technology Is Key
Who is more tech-savvy—drug traffickers or federal agents? The answer may determine who wins the war on drugs
but the content that followed failed to convince me that the right question was being asked.
While the “cool toys” available to law enforcement, which make up the overwhelming number of photos in the series, certainly look expensive and intimidating - the Gamma Ray screener is huge and the drone, StreetLab and Vapor Tracer appear sleek and efficient - and on a technological level makes it appear like an “uneven match”, it must be remembered that the cruder methods available to the drug trade is an advantage in itself. I imagine that the parts that make up a crude meth lab are relatively freely available and quite disposable if the situation calls for it. And as Halperin mentioned, even when it comes to the relatively more technologically advanced and high-powered indoor pot greenhouses, law enforcement relies a fair bit on low-technology snitches.
Even if law enforcement does have the overall technological edge and can, as Halperin says, take advantage of “private sector expertise, expensive machines, and, of course, the law”, compared to those in the drug trade who “can leverage vast sums of cash, generated by constant demand”, it must be recognised that the latter too have legislation on their side (as well as, incidentally, private sector expertise). Black markets that flourish due to legislation, high prices and thus high profit margins, are a large part of the reason for this abundance of cash. The violence that can accompany such markets also mean more law enforcement resources are needed.
Levels and concentrations of drug production and consumption is rarely static for long. While authorities might succeed in the short-term by cracking down on one area of drug consumption or production, illegal producers and suppliers have always been able to adjust. New and improved surveillance technology might mean that traffickers have to resort to new ways of smuggling in drugs and cash over borders and around the country, but the busts that do occur still don’t put a huge dent in their bottom line. And the ubiquitous “drug mule” will always be around as long as the immediate financial rewards outweigh the perceived risk of being caught.
It will thus take a massive amount of taxpayer’s money and coercive state power to make a real dent in illicit drug production and consumption. At what cost and will it last? are the key questions for me.
