The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department should apply for a Federally Funded Grant, for the funds to be used towards eliminating the street drug markets in our local community. This will significantly benefit not only the local community by providing safer neighborhoods and also decreasing the local crime rate within the community, but also the sheriff’s department by providing the funding needed to put towards creating a surveillance and take-down task force team to gather intel on the drug markets within the community. By doing this, it will provide the information and evidence needed for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department to eliminate the Drug markets in the area and ultimately decrease the crime rate due to drug addiction within the community.
Annotated Bibliography
Lofton, J. (2019). Law enforcement problems associated with medical marijuana legalization: A Missouri perspective. Missouri Medicine, 116(4), 265–269.
This article is written by Jeff Lofton, the Chief of Police at Clever, Missouri. He mainly discusses current and future issues concerning recent medical marijuana legalization in the state of Missouri. At the moment, medical cannabis is legal, as Missourians successfully passed Amendment 2 in 2018. In 2019 -2020 labs, cultivators, producers, and dispensaries started to receive state licenses. The author insists that financial costs regarding the unlawful use of easily available marijuana will exceed the positive contribution to state revenue if there will not be proper law enforcement. The main problems stem from the Amendment itself (the Plain View Doctrine), marijuana as a gateway drug, lack of police officers, funding to conduct proper surveillance, “doctor shopping,” and illegal growing at home.
The source is of high credibility as the author is an experienced police officer. The information provided by him on the illegal drug use practice and distribution would be analyzed further in the paper. It was found that regular marijuana users in Missouri often progress to more dangerous narcotics, including meth, fentanyl, and heroin. Recreational marijuana use has a strong association with violent crimes, robberies, and other unlawful actions. The additional resources are needed for law enforcement in Missouri to handle licensing compliance checks and combat the illegal drug market.
Frabutt, J. M., Shelton, T. L., Di Luca, K. L., Harvey, L. K., & Hefner, M. K. (2009). A collaborative approach to eliminating street drug markets through focused deterrence. (Report). U.S Department of Justice. Web.
This final report provides an evaluation of the deterrence strategy aimed to eliminate drug-dealing in open-air markets that took place in two cities of North Carolina. A multidimensional and partnership-based project was conducted to test the specific deterrence strategy and analyze its outcomes. As a result, the research group found and further described the developmental and operational stages necessary for proper law enforcement intervention. Moreover, they also measured the street-drug intervention’s impact using multiple data sources (enforcement personnel, offenders, community stakeholders, and neighborhood observations). This paper provides a great insight into a strategy that can be successfully implemented by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. An effective system requires the collaboration of the entire department and community.
Hoss, A. (2020). Decriminalization as substance use disorder prevention. University of Toledo Law Review, 51(3), 477–490.
The article written by Aila Hoss is valuable because it brings the opposite argument to the discussion of the problem. The author starts the paper by presenting the essence and difference between substance use and substance misuse (addiction). Then she progresses to describe the history of drug use criminalization in the US. Hoss ultimately discusses decriminalization, arguing that it is an important strategy to prevent substance use disorder in the community. The author insists that the current criminal law framework is not effective enough because it fails to target drug use reasons. It was found that the main protective and risk factors are associated with family and community cohesion. However, criminalization leads to higher incarceration and intergenerational trauma, which has a high correlation with substance use disorder. On the contrary, interventions based on decriminalization proved to be effective in Portugal.
Peiper, N. C., Clarke, S. D., Vincent, L. B., Ciccarone, D., Kral, A. H., & Zibbell, J. E. (2019). Fentanyl test strips as an opioid overdose prevention strategy: findings from a syringe services program in the Southeastern United States. International Journal of Drug Policy, 63, 122-128.
This article, written by Peiper et al., provides essential information regarding the opioid overdose crisis. It focuses on illicitly manufactured fentanyl that becomes more and more popular among people who inject drugs. The authors completed an online survey that found that the distribution of fentanyl test strips among addicts and the community results in positive drug use behavior. The majority of citizens who were involved and received negative test results reported increased overdose safety and reduced drug use. This paper provides excellent examples of the department and local government’s additional drug checking measures and combating opioid overdose.
References
Frabutt, J. M., Shelton, T. L., Di Luca, K. L., Harvey, L. K., & Hefner, M. K. (2009). A collaborative approach to eliminating street drug markets through focused deterrence. (Report). U.S Department of Justice. Web.
Hoss, A. (2020). Decriminalization as substance use disorder prevention. University of Toledo Law Review, 51(3), 477–490.
Lofton, J. (2019). Law enforcement problems associated with medical marijuana legalization: A Missouri perspective. Missouri Medicine, 116(4), 265–269.
Peiper, N. C., Clarke, S. D., Vincent, L. B., Ciccarone, D., Kral, A. H., & Zibbell, J. E. (2019). Fentanyl test strips as an opioid overdose prevention strategy: findings from a syringe services program in the Southeastern United States. International Journal of Drug Policy, 63(1), 122-128. Web.