Police announced that in an anti-drug operation 12 young people were detained at several locations across the country - from Gostivar and Mavrovo to the Skopje neighbourhoods and Bitola. Criminal charges will follow, but the picture that emerges is more widely known: drugs circulate everywhere, and it's mostly the youngest who get caught.

In Debreše near Gostivar, three men aged 21 to 22 were stopped in a "Volkswagen" with marijuana hidden in the front of the vehicle. Near Mavrovi Anovi, a thirty-year-old from Skopje was stopped in a "Suzuki" with marijuana in a backpack. In Skopje's City Park, a nineteen-year-old from Serbia was caught with a white powdery substance at two in the morning.

There were further arrests in Bit Pazar, Aerodrom, Đorče Petrov and Bitola, involving marijuana and a white granular substance. Police announced that once the documentation is complete, they will file criminal charges with the prosecution.

Numbers like these regularly fill police statements, but the question rarely asked is a different one: does arresting twelve young people with a few grams of drugs each really touch the network that puts it on the street? It's easy to catch the users at the end of the chain. It's harder - and rarer - to reach those at the top.