If we want to shift the balance, law enforcement must pivot from chasing kilos to disrupting profits, treating drug markets not just as criminal enterprises, but as global, agile economies vulnerable to targeted economic attack.
Australia is losing the fight to disrupt illicit drug supply chains, not for lack of effort, but because we need additional weapons and new approaches. Despite record-breaking seizures and sophisticated policing, national wastewater data tells a grim truth: drug consumption is not falling.
If we want to shift the balance, law enforcement must pivot from chasing kilos to disrupting profits, treating drug markets not just as criminal enterprises, but as global, agile economies vulnerable to targeted economic attack.
For decades, Australia’s illicit drug strategy has been grounded in the triad of harm minimisation, demand reduction and supply control. While the first two pillars continue to evolve through public health programs and community education, supply reduction has seen enforcement innovation but not new strategies.
On paper, their efforts are formidable: container inspections, border operations, surveillance, undercover operations, arrests and record seizures. But despite operational successes, the actual availability of drugs on Australia’s street appears unchanged. We’re seizing more, but the market is not shrinking. Moreover, this reveals we are not affecting criminal profits.
Finding a new way forward
This isn’t a criticism of those on the front lines. Law enforcement agencies across Australia – federal, state and territory – have adapted to an increasingly sophisticated and decentralised drug trade.
The Australian Border Force, Australian Federal Police and state drug taskforces have all innovated and collaborated with increasing effectiveness. But if ever-greater enforcement doesn’t translate to reduced supply or lower usage, we must ask ourselves what we are actually achieving.
These actors aren’t just traffickers; they’re logistics experts, supply chain innovators and sophisticated financiers. Our enforcement strategy needs to reflect that reality.
To find a new way forward, we must start by asking a more complex, more fundamental question: why has our drug market remained so resilient, despite enormous efforts to disrupt it?
Illicit drug markets aren’t static smuggling operations. They’re commercially driven, globally networked industries.
From synthetic drug production in South-East Asia to cocaine transits through the Pacific and dark web marketplaces, the criminal economy is agile, adaptive and profit-motivated.
These actors aren’t just traffickers; they’re logistics experts, supply chain innovators and sophisticated financiers. Our enforcement strategy needs to reflect that reality.
Underutilised strategic perspectives
There are two underutilised strategic perspectives we should be considering. First, a commercial lens, treating the drug market as a business and asking where we can make it unprofitable.
We know that opium farmers in Afghanistan or Myanmar earn only a tiny fraction of the final street price. In the early stages of the supply chain, small interventions can have a disproportionately large impact.
The police maxim ‘follow the money’ remains valid, but it must be applied with nuance. Follow the logistics. Follow the cyber nodes. Follow the procurement channels for precursor chemicals. Follow the shipping anomalies.
Could we displace production with alternative economic incentives? The goal should be to drive up cost, risk and friction at every stage of the supply chain well before the product reaches Australian shores.
Second, we need an economic vulnerability approach that focuses on identifying and exploiting chokepoints in drug supply chains. That means using financial intelligence not just to freeze assets after the fact, but to trace and model supply chains in real-time.
It means targeting transport, warehousing, digital platforms and cross-border financial infrastructure, all of which are essential to the modern drug economy.
The police maxim ‘follow the money’ remains valid, but it must be applied with nuance. Follow the logistics. Follow the cyber nodes. Follow the procurement channels for precursor chemicals. Follow the shipping anomalies. Not just to seize a shipment, arrest offenders or disrupt a syndicate, but to mitigate vulnerabilities and reduce commercial viability of criminal enterprises.
This requires law enforcement capability and deep collaboration with private sector entities and the departments of the Treasury and Home Affairs.
Australia’s struggles with medical supply chains during the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of even our most robust systems to disruption. Yet in those same months, drug markets remained robust. That’s not just a reflection of criminal ingenuity; it’s a warning about our current assumptions regarding enforcement.
If we’re serious about reducing drug availability, we need to think like strategists, not just tacticians. That means attacking the economics, not just the endpoints.
Cultural, legal and strategic changes
Of course, this approach will require cultural, legal and strategic changes. Law enforcement has historically been evaluated on tangible outputs: arrests, seizures and prosecutions. We need to shift toward measuring disruption, deterrence and network degradation.
We must also acknowledge that law enforcement alone cannot and shouldn’t carry the burden of drug strategy. Public health responses, education and rehabilitation services remain essential pillars of the healthcare system.
That’s a harder sell politically, but a necessary one. It also demands more integration between departments and a whole-of-government commitment to economic disruption, not just criminal prosecution.
We must also acknowledge that law enforcement alone cannot and shouldn’t carry the burden of drug strategy. Public health responses, education and rehabilitation services remain essential pillars of the healthcare system.
Our national approach must continue to prioritise harm minimisation and demand reduction. After all, addiction is a health problem. But within the supply reduction pillar, it’s time to evolve. If our current methods aren’t delivering reduced supply, then holding the line is no longer good enough.
The path forward won’t be easy. It will require us to recalibrate entrenched systems, foster new partnerships and invest in intelligence-led disruption. But if we want to gain the strategic initiative in the fight against illicit drugs, it’s the only path worth taking.
This article first appeared on the ASPI Strategist, and is republished under a creative commons licence; you can read the original here.
Picture © Roman R / Shutterstock
