An atmosphere of ineffectiveness regarding the ability of police to address crime problems in general and street-level drug problems in particular prevailed in the 1980s. Law enforcement tactics in the 1980s were typically reactive, unfocused and generally failed to disrupt street-level drug market activity. Development of focused proactive policing strategies during the 1990s, such as problem-oriented policing and partnerships with third parties, led to a renewed faith in the capacity of the police to efficaciously deal with street-level drug problems.The objectives of this review is to utilize meta-analytic procedures to assess the relative effectiveness of police-led drug law enforcement interventions. Specifically, The authors examined the relative effectiveness of a number of policing approaches, including problem-oriented policing, community-wide policing, and hotspots policing compared to the standard, reactive mode of drug law enforcement that dominated police practice until the 1990s.