Strategic Planning and the Drug Threat

Abstract : The authors illustrate how the principles and techniques of strategic and operational planning can be applied to the supply reduction side of our national effort to curb the trafficking of illicit drugs. They provide a detailed overview of the drug problem and discuss key ingredients and how an effective strategy can be formulated, including better ways to synchronize and sustain cooperative multiagency assaults on drug trafficking networks. While recognizing that eliminating the demand for drugs is the best and perhaps only lasting solution to the larger problem, the authors acknowledge that such can never be achieved without complementary supply reduction actions that curtail the international drug producers, the traffickers and the local pusher from selling their wares.