Legal-linguistic understanding of the concept of illegal drug trafficking: Theoretical, administrative and criminal aspects
Author(s): Olena Stanislavivna Osetrova*, Svitlana Volodumurivna Shaputko, Vladyslav Karelin, Vladyslav Serhiichuk and Artur Makarov
Abstract
Aim: The article carries out a comprehensive legal and linguistic study of the concept of “illegal drug business” through the prism of theoretical and legal, administrative and legal, and criminal law approaches.
Methods: The methodological basis of the study is a complex of general scientific and special legal methods. The legal-linguistic method was used to establish the content and correlation of terms that characterize drug crime. Semantic analysis allowed us to determine the meaning of individual components of the concept of “illegal drug business” and establish their relationship. The formal-legal method was used to study the provisions of the criminal code of Ukraine, the code of Ukraine on administrative offenses, the law of Ukraine “On narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors” and other regulatory legal acts.
Results: It is substantiated that the term “illegal drug business”, despite its widespread use in scientific literature, mass media, international documents and law enforcement practice, does not have a universal normative definition in the legislation of Ukraine. In this regard, there is a need to distinguish it from such related concepts as “illegal drug trafficking”, “drug trafficking”, “drug trade”, “drug crime” and “illegal drug market”.
Conclusion: The application of a legal-linguistic approach has made it possible to establish that the phrase “illegal drug business” is a complex terminological construct in which the economic component “business” is combined with the criminological and legal characteristic “illegal”. Unlike the category “illegal drug trafficking”, the concept of “drug business” focuses not on a single illegal operation, but on systemic activities related to the functioning of the illegal drug market, obtaining economic benefits, the distribution of roles, the organization of production, supply, sales and financial support of the relevant activity. International and European terminology has been studied, in particular the categories of illicit drug trafficking, illicit drug trade, drug market, drug trafficking networks. The feasibility of using a differentiated approach in Ukrainian legal doctrine is substantiated, according to which “illegal drug trafficking” is considered as a regulatory and legal category, while “illegal drug business” is considered as a complex doctrinal and criminological category that characterizes organized, systemic and economically motivated activities on the illegal drug market.
