6 Drugs The Feds Like to Prosecute and the Consequences

Trafficking in these 6 drugs constitutes 97 percent of Federal Drug Prosecutions. How does the DEA, law enforcement, and Federal Prosecutions impact drug trafficking? Sometimes these policy choices impact society in ways that are counter-intuitive. When the focus goes to synthetic opioids like oxycodone, the natural substitute, trafficking in heroin spikes. Recent data shows that the war on pill mills has reduced the supply of pharmaceuticals and driven users to heroin. Heroin overdoses are now spiking. When crack cocaine penalties were reduced, trafficking declined. Here are six drugs to traffic and get a ticket to a federal indictment and prison.

Once the Feds target a drug, the prosecutions and prisoners increase. For example, methamphetamine traffickers decreased after 2006 , then increased again since 2009. Once the war on synthetic heroin, also known as oxycodone was commenced, after remaining stable for much of the past decade, the number of heroin traffickers has increased. Although oxycodone trafficking is low compared to other drug types, there has been a substantial increase. 

Once the Feds reduced sentences and focused elsewhere, Crack cocaine trafficking has decreased since 2008 when reductions in crack cocaine penalties were first implemented. Now that legalization has begun, marijuana trafficking now has seen a sharp decline in  2013. With the sometimes unexpected consequences of drug policies in play, one can wonder why these decisions to target certain controlled substances are made and who is calling the shots?