Commentary: What Has the Hard Work of Anti-Drug Operations Actually Changed?

A committee member of the Fifth Division of the National Conference on Judicial Reform submitted a written opinion stating that drugs should be properly designated as medications. The mere use of medications should be fully decriminalized, and non-harmful or low-harm medications such as cannabis should be legalized.

As soon as the news broke, an anti-drug prosecutor expressed that "working this hard seems to be all in vain."

A similar situation occurred when Koo Li-hsiung (顧立雄) promoted amendments to frontload medical treatment for drug use. As media reports stated:

A police officer stated that he is just a minor detective sergeant. We (the police) strive to crack down on the sources of drugs, but the government is desperately restricting investigative powers and legally giving these bastards total peace of mind. Every time I go to court to testify and attend hearings, it makes me feel under the illusion of who the criminal actually is. Lawyers and judges constantly question our (the police) actions, and no one cares about these drugs.

The police officer also fiercely criticized: "Koo Li-hsiung keeps talking about heavy sentences. The Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act clearly stipulates that the sale of Category 1 drugs carries the death penalty or life imprisonment, and the sale of Category 2 drugs carries life imprisonment or seven years or more. But what about in practice? Murderers do not even get the death penalty, let alone drug traffickers. May I ask where this kind of sentence is heavy? Being able to commute a sentence to a fine for possessing more than 1 kilogram of Category 2 drugs is the reality of our laws. Could the great lawyer King Ku not know this? In Taiwan, only the human rights of criminals are human rights; victims are just meant to die and deserve it."

This type of reporting severely conflates issues at different levels and completely ignores the dilemmas that this discussion aims to confront and address. The goal of this article is not to untangle everything that has been confused and distorted, but simply to ask one question: police officers and prosecutors both say that their anti-drug work is grueling, and such reform demands ignore or even destroy the fruits of their efforts. However, I believe we must seriously question: what is the impact of anti-drug outcomes on society?

Question: What is the Impact of Anti-Drug Outcomes on Society?

This question is extremely crucial because examining anti-drug efforts through the lens of their societal impact is the true way to value police and prosecutors' time and energy, ensuring they are utilized with maximum efficiency. Ineffective work should be abandoned in favor of more effective measures. It should not be a matter of constantly increasing the workload of frontline personnel and subjecting them to endless grueling overwork just to demonstrate the government's determination to fight drugs, while the actual effectiveness remains questionable.

Before formally entering the discussion, I would like to briefly introduce the basic concepts of performance evaluation.

Performance evaluations can be divided into two major categories: one is the evaluation of organizational "outputs," which measures an organization's "performance," with measurement indicators that should be highly correlated with the intended results. The other is the evaluation of resulting "outcomes," which measures the "social benefits" generated by organizational outputs. What constitutes this "social benefit" is determined by the initial policy objectives set. For example, the current goal of our nation's drug policy is a "drug-free society," and key indicators might include a reduction in the number of drug users or getting drug users to stop using drugs.

Examining the Government's Drug Policy Reports

With this set of concepts—"organizational output" and "impact outcome"—we can proceed to examine the government's drug policy reports. When drug policy was discussed at the National Conference on Judicial Reform on April 20, the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Justice (improving diverse treatment models for addiction rehabilitation among drug users, integrating judicial, medical, and social work resources, and returning compulsory rehabilitation centers to the medical system of the Ministry of Health and Welfare; reviewing policies such as anti-drug enforcement, the imposition of heavy sentences for drug offenses, and applying a separate sentence for each individual act of drug use) both submitted reports. The reports from the two agencies are roughly as follows:

National Police Agency (NPA):
The NPA report appears to [1] argue that while law enforcement units vigorously crack down on drugs, the judiciary is too lenient, leading to increasingly rampant drug problems. The NPA first presented a sentencing analysis for the manufacture, sale, and transportation of drugs over the past 10 years, concluding that judicial sentencing is far below statutory penalties, continuously showing leniency toward drug traffickers. Next, the NPA provided data on the number of drug crimes investigated, the number of people involved, and the pure net weight of seized drugs by police agencies over the past 10 years. It pointed out that both the number of drug crimes investigated and the number of people involved have increased significantly over the past two years. This increase should not be interpreted as a worsening drug problem, but rather as the true face of crime being revealed after active crackdowns. Once the situation is brought under control, the number of drug crimes should decline. This pattern has already appeared in the changes in Category 3 and Category 4 drug crimes over the past 8 years—first rising, then falling.

Ministry of Justice (MOJ):
The MOJ report appears to argue that imposing heavy sentences for the manufacture, sale, and transportation of drugs still retains a certain deterrent effect and should not be casually altered. Meanwhile, the treatment of drug use appears to suffer from a lack of effectiveness. The MOJ first listed various supply-suppression countermeasures proposed by the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office to demonstrate its determination to crack down hard on drugs, though without providing any data. Regarding the deterrent effect of heavy sentences, the MOJ merely stated that scholarly research suggests a certain deterrent effect still exists, but without providing sources, making it unverifiable. Regarding the ineffectiveness of drug use treatment, it mentioned the recidivism rates of various types of drug offenders after leaving prison (or correctional facilities) between 2008 and 2015, pointing out that drug offenders had the highest post-release recidivism rate, followed by those undergoing compulsory rehabilitation, with those undergoing observation and rehabilitation having the lowest.

Analysis of Government Reports: Lack of Data and Unclear Significance of Data

A closer look at the reports from the NPA and the MOJ reveals problems of missing data and unclear data significance.

From the perspective of outcome evaluation, the NPA's analysis is lacking and even contains logical errors.

The NPA report lacks clear outcome evaluation indicators. In fact, under the banner of a drug-free society, even if outcome evaluation indicators for substance abuse existed, they would likely be severely distorted. This is because one of the key indicators is the number of substance-abusing populations, but drug users will not easily surface in order to escape criminal penalties and stigma (for example, someone around you might be using drugs, but they won't tell you. Perhaps one day they die of an overdose, and only then do you find out). Therefore, how to accurately estimate this remains a problem. The NPA report lacks data on the changes in the substance-abusing population, and naturally cannot analyze the relationship between government actions and such changes.

The number of drug crimes intercepted, as cited by the NPA, leans more toward an output evaluation indicator. However, in the absence of comparative data, the number of investigated drug crimes actually has an unclear meaning. The NPA pointed out that the rise in investigated drug crimes over the past two years is not due to drugs becoming more rampant, but rather because the true face of the crime situation has only truly emerged under recent strong crackdown efforts, and should gradually decrease thereafter. However, this argument is problematic because without a comparison of the substance-abusing population (or at least estimated values) [2], simply talking about the number of intercepted drug crimes is meaningless and essentially arbitrary. If the number of interceptions increases, it is said that law enforcement units are working hard and revealing the true crime situation, rather than indicating that drug policies are ineffective; if the number of interceptions decreases, it is not said that law enforcement is slacking, but rather that the situation is under control.

The NPA's claim that judges' sentences are lower than statutory penalties, leading to the release of criminals and increasingly rampant drugs, not only lacks outcome evaluation indicators (not even recidivism analyses are provided), but also contradicts its later emphasis on the success of anti-drug efforts and the containment of the situation.

From the perspective of outcome evaluation, the MOJ's report is similarly lacking in analysis.

Compared to the severe logical errors in the NPA's analysis, the MOJ's report leans more toward a lack of analysis. The MOJ presented recidivism rates, which do belong to outcome evaluation indicators, but the correlation between recidivism rates and treatment has not been clearly established. The MOJ mentioned that drug offenders have the highest post-release recidivism rate, followed by those undergoing compulsory rehabilitation, and those undergoing observation and rehabilitation have the lowest. This phenomenon cannot be used to evaluate the relative effectiveness of various treatments because the characteristics of the populations (cohorts) differ. Legally speaking, individuals subject to these treatments move from ineffective observation and rehabilitation to compulsory rehabilitation, and from ineffective compulsory rehabilitation to prison. Therefore, it is impossible to confirm whether the data provided by the MOJ illustrates the effectiveness of the treatments or merely the differences in the population characteristics of these three groups. In fact, the MOJ did not use these recidivism rates to make inferences; it merely presented pure data. Consequently, there is actually no way to clearly assess the outcome effectiveness of current treatments.

As for the various supply-suppression countermeasures listed by the MOJ, because no analyzable data was provided, it is also difficult to evaluate their effectiveness. Regarding the deterrent effect of heavy sentences, the MOJ stated that scholars believe there is a deterrent effect, but provided no source, making commentary impossible here.

Some might argue that the reports submitted by the NPA and the MOJ at the National Conference on Judicial Reform were insufficiently rigorous due to insufficient preparation time. Let us then examine the contents of the "Anti-Drug Report"! The 2016 Anti-Drug Report, regarding anti-drug operations, simply discusses which seminars and exchange activities were held, lists major cracked cases, and provides descriptive statistics on drug crime numbers. From this situation, one can understand why the aforementioned reports from the NPA and the MOJ lacked meaningful data analysis in outcome evaluation and contained logical errors—to put it bluntly, it is because such evaluations are fundamentally neglected in normal times.

Returning to the initial question: what is the impact of anti-drug outcomes on society? I think we can currently only say that the impact is unclear. This does not mean it is ineffective, but rather that there has been no serious consideration of what actually makes it effective. Only with this kind of effective or ineffective evaluation and analysis can one turn back and adjust various countermeasures against substance abuse, deciding which to abandon and where to intensify resource allocation. This is the only way to achieve truly efficient utilization of human resources.

From Neglecting Outcome Evaluations to What Outcome Evaluation Indicators Should Be Valued

In terms of the demand for a drug-free society, the most important outcome evaluation indicators should be the number of substance-abusing populations and the scale of the illicit drug market. However, because of the prohibitionist approach adopted, it is difficult to imagine how the government can reliably grasp data for these two areas. This makes the demand for a drug-free society prone to empty slogans, where everyone works desperately, but the outcome effectiveness remains difficult to evaluate. Under such circumstances, it becomes even harder to identify how to adjust resource allocation to avoid wasting human resources.

If the demand for a drug-free society easily devolves into a slogan, can we instead adopt a more pragmatic policy orientation centered on "health"?

Compared to a drug-free society, a drug policy centered on health simultaneously concerns the health of the general public and that of "drug users." In fact, within the orientation of a drug-free society, in order to combat drugs, policies tend to choose to ignore the health of drug users, prioritizing how to prevent more people from using drugs. The side effect of such a policy, however, is that it becomes very difficult to grasp the conditions of the very targets you deem necessary to combat. Such a policy orientation also potentially refuses to invest more resources into drug user treatments, because drug users are easily perceived as inferior people harmful to society who are simply not worth investing resources in, as long as they are isolated so they do not harm society. As for the side effects generated by this approach? They are equally hard to grasp, because this policy orientation inherently struggles to capture the real situation.

Once the focus shifts from combating substance abuse to pragmatically safeguarding the health of the general public and drug users, the reality may actually change. Drug users can transform from targets to be combated into objects of service, thereby potentially fostering a better understanding of the conditions within the drug-using community. The health status of drug users themselves would also become one of the outcome evaluation indicators [3]. Starting from here, we can also examine the relationship between the healthy lives of drug users and their crime rates, thereby observing the impact of drug users' health status on the lives of others. For example, do healthier drug users have lower crime rates?

Furthermore, if a relationship can be established with drug users, reliable information regarding the illicit drug market can also be indirectly obtained. From the perspective of health preservation, the approach might no longer be indiscriminate anti-drug crackdowns, but prioritizing the crackdown on unscrupulous suppliers involved in providing substandard drugs (by having service providers and drug users build relationships at harm reduction centers, understanding their usual drug sources, and even providing drug testing tools. Since drug users also care about their health, discovering that someone is an unscrupulous supplier may give them the motivation to voluntarily provide information). As for grasping more complete drug market information and market control, this would involve the legalization of the drug market, but we will not discuss that here.

Conclusion: Government Resources and Capabilities Are Limited; Anti-Drug Efforts Must Correspond to Outcome Evaluation Indicators

Anti-drug work is grueling—that is indeed true. Conducting drug policy reviews does not negate the hardship of anti-drug operations; rather, it genuinely hopes that the grueling nature of anti-drug work does not go in vain. Current policy evaluations have never seriously established outcome evaluation indicators, and this is the root cause why the hard work of anti-drug operations may be in vain. We look forward to the government facing up to the importance of outcome evaluation indicators, setting reasonable metrics, and providing frontline law enforcement officers with practical and reasonable policy guidance.

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