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.