Note: The following is an abstract of a 55 page Adobe Acrobat 3.0 document
(138,609 bytes) research paper which is on line at the following URL. While
we are not going to attempt to repost the entire document, it may be of
interest to our readers who have an interest in the military involvement in
the War on Drugs. Thank you for letting us know about this, David! -
Richard Lake, Sr. Editor, DrugSense News Service

http://www.au.af.mil/au/database/research/ay1997/acsc/97-0077.htm

Title: DOD Involvement in the Counterdrug Effort--Contributions and
Limitations

Subject: DoD Contributions to the Counterdrug Effort and the Limitations to
that Effort

Author(s): Kimberly J. Corcoran; F. Mitchell Alexander (Faculty Advisor)

Abstract: One of the major social issues facing the United States is the
flow of illegal narcotics into our country. The costs of this illegal
activity are significant. Costs can be measured in the lost health and
productivity of individual users, as well as the costs required to fight
the criminal activity perpetrated both by individual users and the large
criminal organizations attracted by the profitability of the drug trade.
These costs caused the U.S. Government to declare a "War on Drugs" in 1989
and to greatly increase the budget allocated to the interdiction of the
drug supply. Since the DOD possessed numerous assets that were perfectly
suited to interdiction operations, the DOD became heavily involved in the
War on Drugs. This involvement was extensive from 1989 to 1993 and was
instrumental in the successful capture of tons of illegal drugs. In 1993,
the Clinton administration decided to shift the emphasis away from
interdiction to other areas, and decreased the interdiction portion of the
budget for FY94. This decrease has continued to the present and, according
to some observers, has reduced the success of the DOD interdiction effort.

This paper briefly examines the extent of the overall drug problem in the
United States, describes the DOD's contribution to America's drug control
strategy and its challenges to success, and finally addresses why that
effort, though useful, does not need to be increased to previous levels.

Checked-by: Richard Lake