Police drug busts can actually cost lives, researchers say

Drug busts like this one in Indianapolis in 2019 have been a standard strategy for law enforcement targeting dealers for decades. Research suggests the raids may be doing more harm than good.

Indianapolis Municipal Police Department

A growing coalition of U.S. politicians want tougher police tactics used against gangs now selling fentanyl, methamphetamines and xylazine.

“We do need to stop the trafficking of these drugs and give law enforcement the tools they need,” said Nevada’s Democratic Sen. Catherine Masto Cortez, lead sponsor of a bill to toughen penalties for dealing the synthetic drug xylazine.

Big drug sweeps, narcotics seizures and mass arrests of dealers have been a cornerstone of America’s war on drugs since the 1970s.

But new research published in the American Journal of Public Health suggests
drug busts and police crackdowns on dealers may actually be making the overdose crisis worse.

The study, which underwent a rigorous peer-review process because of its controversial findings, is based on data gathered in Indianapolis, Indiana that found patterns of overdose and death that followed drug seizures in the city.

“With opioids we saw overdoses double in the area immediately surrounding a seizure, within maybe a five-minute walk of that seizure over the next several weeks,” said Jennifer Carroll, a medical anthropologist at North Carolina University and co-author of the article.

What happens after you arrest a drug dealer?

Law enforcement agencies have argued for years that arresting dealers and disrupting the supply of street drugs would make communities safer.

Lawmakers in state houses and Congress have raced to boost funding for drug interdiction, while toughening criminal…