the actual issue you're fighting is lots of people taking particular drugs, which means what you care about are the people managing the city-wide operation
That is a complete non sequitur.
Actually, if you really want people to stop using drugs, arresting and imprisoning users is the single most effective technique yet known. It's especially effective against the middle class white population that consumes most drugs in the USA, but it works against poor minorities and addicts, also.
And if you want to stop dealers, arresting and imprisoning retail dealers is the most effective technique. It clears the ones that work in public or sell to strangers out quite quickly.
Arresting the kingpins or traffickers is totally ineffective at reducing drug use or reducing drug availability. If reducing public harm were a priority, the kingpins and traffickers could be ignored. Once the users and retailers are imprisoned, the bosses are out of business, anyway.
And if you do catch the kingpins and traffickers, your efforts are completely ineffectual. There are always more kingpins in line to get rich quickly and easily. Decades of police targeting kingpins has only seen increases in drug availability. In fact, the faster you turn them over, the more violent the whole business becomes.
The reason police agencies target kingpins and traffickers is because the purpose of the war on drugs, from the point of view of police administration, is to seize cash to fund police operations. There is no law enforcement justification for such a policy, merely an agency budgeting justification.
Agreed. I'm not remotely a fan of the war on drugs or its consequences for the prison-industrial complex or the militarization of the police.
The real root is really shitty legislation based on shitty moralizations based on shitty philosophical grounds, the absurd nature of how the police are funded, and the ridiculous political reality of law enforcement offices. It's such a multifaceted problem that I'm unwilling to try to tackle it myself.
But all of this was just a handy example for why wishing for an "empirical investigation" is not necessarily the right way to go about things.
That is a complete non sequitur.
Actually, if you really want people to stop using drugs, arresting and imprisoning users is the single most effective technique yet known. It's especially effective against the middle class white population that consumes most drugs in the USA, but it works against poor minorities and addicts, also.
And if you want to stop dealers, arresting and imprisoning retail dealers is the most effective technique. It clears the ones that work in public or sell to strangers out quite quickly.
Arresting the kingpins or traffickers is totally ineffective at reducing drug use or reducing drug availability. If reducing public harm were a priority, the kingpins and traffickers could be ignored. Once the users and retailers are imprisoned, the bosses are out of business, anyway.
And if you do catch the kingpins and traffickers, your efforts are completely ineffectual. There are always more kingpins in line to get rich quickly and easily. Decades of police targeting kingpins has only seen increases in drug availability. In fact, the faster you turn them over, the more violent the whole business becomes.
The reason police agencies target kingpins and traffickers is because the purpose of the war on drugs, from the point of view of police administration, is to seize cash to fund police operations. There is no law enforcement justification for such a policy, merely an agency budgeting justification.