Rethinking Drug Seizure Coverage: A Call for Health-Centred Narratives

Rethinking Drug Seizure Coverage: A Call for Health-Centred Narratives

Mangalore Today News Network

By Dr G Shreekumar Menon

Mangaluru, December 4, 2025: Currently, the coverage of drug seizures is used to suggest effectiveness of enforcement and reinforce support for punitive measures which are at direct cross-purposes with evidence-based public health interventions. Misinformation and fear-invoking language are hallmarks of drug policy coverage. Additionally, images of confiscated drugs, weapons, and cash captioned with emphasis on potential lives saved are there to engender support for increased drug enforcement.

Providing guardrails for media disclosure and coverage of drug seizures is critical for directing attention and resources towards post-seizure guidance that includes substance use treatment and recovery support. Law enforcement has typically had a symbiotic relationship with mainstream media, amplifying police narratives as news, and sometimes at the expense of critical scrutiny. Nearly all media coverage stories followed a typical drug law enforcement perspective, framing seizures as positive public safety efforts to deter drug use through interdiction. Only very few articles mention of substance use treatment, recovery support services, or overdose prevention, including harm reduction resources. There is an opportunity to refocus drug policy and enforcement-related discourse toward providing links to meaningful resources to address drug addiction. Systematic efforts should be made across sectors to redirect attention away from fear-mongering narratives.

A key feature of the drug phenomenon is its shifting, dynamic nature, which should not be made accessible to vested interests. It is only needed by policy-makers, who need to use this information to help formulate coherent national and community drug strategies. Also to be served are professionals and researchers working in the field of drugs.  Drug seizure-related media coverage is a missed opportunity to prevent drug-related harms. The lack of public health messaging in drug seizure-related media coverage should be rectified by refocusing coverage away from drug enforcement narratives and instead provide guidance towards evidence-based resources and services. Research, analysing media coverage, of drug seizures, has found a strong focus on law enforcement, while substance use treatment and public health resources are rarely mentioned. 

A 2025 study in USA found that out of 211 articles on drug seizures published between January 2022 and May 2024, only three mentioned substance use treatment or other public health resources (Science Direct – “Missed opportunities: Public health messaging in media coverage of drug seizures”).

Many scholars opine that news coverage of the drug issue in the United States during the 1980s helped to fuel support for the war on drugs by sensationalizing and exaggerating the "epidemic" nature of drug use, misrepresenting key aspects of the drug problem and by framing the issue almost exclusively as a matter of law. To effectively supplement this narrative, Law-enforcement agencies often create misleading estimates based on more expensive retail values, rather than on prices higher up the chain of supply. Authorities usually refer to “street” value, rather than the lower prices at the trafficking/domestic wholesale level – where the drugs are intercepted.

Given the manifest inability of law enforcement globally, to control the illicit drugs trade, it is worth questioning why so much emphasis is placed on law enforcement over other, more effective, evidence-based drug policies. Many nations are beginning to appreciate that the correct approach to illicit drugs should be on harm minimisation. This consists of three pillars: supply reduction, demand reduction, and harm reduction.
    • Supply reduction focuses on reducing the supply of illicit drugs through law enforcement (like police and border control).
    • Demand reduction involves both treatment services and preventive strategies that aim to reduce drug use.
    • Harm reduction accepts that some people will continue to use drugs despite the other two pillars, and aims to reduce the harms associated with their drug use.

The amount of government money spent on these three pillars is far from equitable. In most countries studies indicate that around 66% is spent on law enforcement. Spending on treatment is just 21%. Only 9% is spent on prevention, and a miniscule 2% spent on harm reduction. For enforcement agencies, and politicians wanting to showcase law-and-order policies, drug busts provide an opportunity for highly choreographed media events. They are public relations opportunities, to justify the enormous and disproportionate sums of taxpayer’s money spent every year on ineffective, costly and counter-productive enforcement-led supply reduction. Every drug-bust gets labelled as “record seizure” as with countless others preceding it, and made into a news spectacle. It culminates in live, nationally broadcast press conferences. Later comes the wall-to-wall media coverage across TV, print, radio and digital platforms.

Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for a shift in his 2024 speech to a health-centered model, stating, "Instead of punitive measures, we need gender-sensitive and evidence-based drug policies, grounded by public health". Speaking at the ‘Dealing with Drugs II’ conference in Warsaw on 5th December 2024, High Commissioner Volker Türk highlighted the urgent need for a human rights-based approach to drug regulation, pointing to record numbers of drug-related deaths and increasing drug use disorders. “The ‘War on Drugs’ destroyed lives and damaged communities. Criminalisation and prohibition have failed to reduce drug use and deter drug-related crimes. We need new approaches prioritising health, dignity and inclusion, guided by the International Guidelines on Human Rights & Drug Policy”.

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Dr. G. Shreekumar Menon, IRS (Rtd), Ph.D. (Narcotics)

Former Director General of National Academy of Customs Indirect Taxes and Narcotics & Multi-Disciplinary School Of Economic Intelligence India; Fellow, James Martin Centre For Non Proliferation Studies, USA; Fellow, Centre for International Trade & Security, University of Georgia, USA; Public Administration, Maxwell School of Public Administration, Syracuse University, U.S.A.; AOTS Scholar, Japan. He can be contacted at shreemenon48@gmail.com