Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

;:;82terials. If they could introduce an identifiable tag at the poppyfieldand intercept some of that material at several points in the distributionnetwork, a much clearer description of that network would result.The operational possibilities for such tracer materials are numerous.The problem is in finding suitable tags which are, among other things,reliable and safe.SensorsAnother problem susceptible to technological solution is the detectionof concealed drugs at short distances. It would be of immeasurablevalue to be able to reveal the presence of drugs hidden in suitcases,automobiles, packages, on the person, and in many other places.Devices are needed which can detect extremely small amounts of opiatesw^ith response times of seconds and reliability in the upper 90percentile. The requirements of sensitivity, speed, and reliability tendto be mutually exclusive and difficult to achieve. Development of suchdevices requires extensive research and design and some amount oftradeoffs in design.Data BankThe complexity of the international drug enterprise is reflected inthe great amount of information needed to describe the production,distribution, and consumption of the products. The effectiveness ofdrug control is dependent on access to that information. And the effectivenesswill also be a function of how timely the retrieval is and ofhow complete is the data produced.It follows that a comprehensive data bank is required as a repositoryof worldwide information on all aspects of the drug problem.Narcotics agents at all levels should be able to request rapid retrievalof information. The high mobility of dealers in drugs and the worldwidenature of their operations suggest the need for a similarly extensivedata bank.O'perations AnalysisReferring again to the intricate nature of the illicit drug business,it is often difficult to predict the ultimate consequences of any controlactivity. Squeezing the balloon at one place may simply cause it toexpand some place else. A comprehensive, systematic, analytic methodis needed which can help to identify how other parts of the systemwill be affected if one part is changed.A corollary problem is the allocation of drug control resources.Like managers in all other situations, drug control administratorsmust decide how to assign their personnel, equipment, dollars, andmanagement attention so as to realize the most beneficial results. Itwould help these people to have a technique for anticipating theeffects of their allocation decisions. No such technique will replace agood manager, but it can provide him with information he wouldotherwise not have.BENEFITSSome of the benefits which should be derived from such effortsby the scientific and engineering community areWorldwide location of opium cropsInformation on potential yield of opium crops