Any views or opinions expressed in this column are of the individual, group, or entity who submitted it and not the publication, owner(s), its advertisers, or affiliates.
By David Stephen
There is a recent [June 29, 2026] analysis on Filter Magazine, If the DEA Gets Bad Press for Not Seizing Fentanyl, the DEA Still Wins, stating that, “In the week since the Associated Press and Albuquerque Journal separately reported on the Drug Enforcement Administration allowing certain fentanyl shipments to “walk” in order to keep building evidence for high-profile trafficking cases, a growing number of public officials have made outraged statements claiming the agency put prosecutions over public safety. At least one investigation has been opened, while another is being discussed. No matter what they find, the DEA is going to come out ahead.”
“Because in order to be outraged at the DEA for watching any quantity of fentanyl go by without stopping it, you have to validate the myth that seizing fentanyl actually keeps it off the streets.”
“Either way, the DEA still wins. The takeaway is that fentanyl needs to be seized and that when it isn’t, people die. Some government entity therefore must exist to do all the fentanyl-seizing, and it’s going to be the DEA.”
If the DEA exists to interdict drugs, what has the DEA been able to understand about how drugs work in the mind, to make the approach of prosecution their most effective?
Yes, no drugs. No access. No supply. There have been a lot of success. Yet, some of the drugs have changed and the people or locations involved, as well. This means that with the clear danger of drugs, why is there any demand for it?
The DEA should have evolved into two major divisions over the years, demand division and supply division. While the bulk of the efforts would go to mitigating supply, there will be a lot of quiet and ambitious work in solving the demand problem.
Yes, the DEA does campaigns, but there is little to no difference between those campaigns and several others around drugs that indicate that the campaigns are extremely potent, just from what seems to be basic fear against drugs without offering a deeper or more approachable understanding of mind.
While there are lots of agencies across departments in the United States that are dedicated to solving the drug demand problem, they also have not simplified it enough. They include National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA], Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA] and Office of National Drug Control Policy [ONDCP]. There is now the Great American Recovery Initiative [GARI].
They often give grants, to conduct research and for different levels of interventions. Some, like NIDA does extensive intramural research. Yet, there is still a lot of demand for illegal drugs.
Even the DEA has drug scheduling. The DEA explained, “Drugs, substances, and certain chemicals used to make drugs are classified into five (5) distinct categories or schedules depending upon the drug’s acceptable medical use and the drug’s abuse or dependency potential. The abuse rate is a determinate factor in the scheduling of the drug; for example, Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse and the potential to create severe psychological and/or physical dependence.”
OK, but what to ask is that how do drugs work once they get to the mind that can be easily explained, in video, audio, text and images that would mean a better way to understand that any drug use is dangerous, necessitating a battle against demand at the source, the mind.
Most of the research and funding that NIDA, SAMHSA, ONDCP, GARI and others do can be assumed to be longer-term and complex, where the information may not be so digestible sometimes to carry the public along for safety.
This means that the DEA would need to have a major anti-drug demand division, based on electrochemical psychiatry. The purpose of this department will be to work as hard as possible on several postulates on how drug influences the mind, to stiffen intentional deterrence.
Electrochemical Psychiatry
The functions of the brain, for human life and experiences, are mostly carried out by neurons, according to established empirical evidence in neuroscience. However, neurons do so with their electrical and chemical signals.
There is no central story to be told about drugs and experiences beyond what electrical and chemical signals do. While it is true that there are mechanistic ways to explain illegal drugs by chemical molecules only, or other biological factors, the principal story of experience has to do with both electrical and chemical signals.
This means that the stimulant or sedative experience is a function of the interaction of electrical and chemical signals, operating in sets, in clusters of neurons, conceptually.
So, there is possibility to theorize extensively around electrical and chemical signals, for their interactions and attributes. Then use those to explain the danger of drug addiction to social and occupational functioning, as well as to internal senses, like respiration and so forth.
Simply, this would be explaining drug use and how they define experiences, in the near term and over an interval. It will especially show how there are interlinks, underscored by both electrical and chemical signals.
For example, in the brain, there are ion channels, synaptic vesicles opened at the cleft, there are also receptors. If certain ion channels are inhibited or induced, there would be functional or experiential affect. If receptors are blocked because some other molecule binds there first, or somehow vesicles are impeded, there will also be experiential or functional affect.
Simply, electrical signals [derivative of ions] and chemical signals [mostly neurotransmitters] pass through channels. If somehow, they become more or less, due to inducing or inhibition of the channels or receptors, then alterations in outcomes could become evident.
This is a major part of the story of addictions, mental disorders and so forth.
Then there can be variations of explanations across drug experiences, shaping how people come to know what goes on internally, against the current opacity, and that some people do not want to be told what to do, without better persuasive evidence.
This is what the DEA should consider through July, 2026, and have at least a display for the public, by September, using pamphlets, digital displays, skits and so forth.
Just to ensure that demand is made weaker by strengthening intent. The DEA Administrator Terrance C. Cole can make this a priority as a way for restitution against the allegations in New Mexico. The New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham can also explore how to work against drug demand in the State, to ensure that her people are not victims to the arrest agenda of the DEA.
There is possibility to start with the postulate in Conceptual Biomarkers and Theoretical Biological Factors for Psychiatric and Intelligence Nosology.
