Awards were also presented to individuals and organizations whose efforts advanced the program.
Authorities will build public confidence in the government by continuing to combine regional joint control and prevention by all levels of law enforcement with the three principal measures of pursuing group cooperation, embedding deeply in communities, and tracing crimes to their source.

This round of enforcement has taken many novel approaches, said Premier Lai. The first is group cooperation among prosecutors, police, investigators, military police, the coast guard, and customs officials to fight drug crimes in the nation’s eight enforcement regions established by the Ministry of Justice. The second has been for authorities to embed deeply within communities, stationing themselves where drug crime is highest and coordinating citizen action through such channels as community security guards and resident management committees. The third is rooting out users, producers, sellers and transporters of illicit substances. Authorities arrested 431 people suspected of manufacturing, selling or transporting drugs, and shuttered 11 locations where drugs were being produced and packaged or marijuana was cultivated. This period also saw the largest-ever ketamine seizure, with a market value of NT$3 billion (US$102 million).

The detention rate in these cases also rose to 65 percent, up from 16.6 percent in 2017.
Law and order—and drug enforcement in particular—is currently foremost among the issues of greatest concern to the public, said the premier, demonstrating people’s need for a safe environment for work and life. The government has an absolute duty to respond to this need, and President Tsai Ing-wen has publicly committed the strength of the entire nation to the fight against drugs.