Drugs and Thugs (Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs nickname)

The Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) advises the President, Secretary of State, and numerous government departments. The INL nickname of the “drugs and thugs” bureau has been cited in print since 1993.
   
 
Wikipedia: Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
The Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) is a part of the Department of State within the United States government that advises the President, Secretary of State, other bureaus in the Department of State, and other departments and agencies within the U.S. Government on the development of policies and programs to combat international narcotics and crime. The head of the bureau is the Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, who is currently David T. Johnson.
 
The bureau manages the Department of State’s Narcotics Rewards Program in close coordination with the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other interested U.S. agencies.

INL is not a law enforcement organization. The primary federal law enforcement agency within the U.S. State Department is the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS).
 
New York (NY) Times
EXECUTIVE BRIEF: THE STATE DEPARTMENT; They Talk Not of Bosnia, But of Plans to Cut Jobs
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: February 04, 1993
(...)
One new bureau has already been named “drugs and thugs” by the corridor gossips. It is to have responsibility for “all of the nasty bits,” as one insider put it—narcotics and global crime and counterterrorism.
   
26 April 1994, Washington (DC) Post, “One Year After Starting Work, Wirth Close to Getting the Job; Bill Conferees Give a Title to the State Department Position” by Thomas W. Lippman, pg. A13:
The department planned to merge its counter-terrorism shop with its international narcotics and organized crime unit - popularly known as “Drugs and Thugs” - and have the reorganized office report to [Timothy E. Wirth], rather than directly to Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
 
Google News Archive
12 July 1996, Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, “U.S. revokes Colombian president’s visa” by Michael Dobbs (Washington Post), pg. A8, col. 5:
According to Assistant Secretary of State Robert Gelbard, the State Department’s point man for “drugs and thugs,” Colombia is the source of 80 percent of the world’s production of cocaine.

Washington (DC) Post
Under Obama, the Envoy Convoy May Screech to a Halt
By Al Kamen
Thursday, November 6, 2008
(...)
Rand Beers, a Foreign Service officer who handled intelligence, counterterrorism and peacekeeping issues on the National Security Council and was later assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, (the bureau also known as drugs ‘n’ thugs), is working the Homeland Security Department’s transition portfolio.

Foreign Policy
Names: House staffer moves to State’s ‘drugs and thugs’ bureau
Posted By Josh Rogin Thursday, January 7, 2010 - 11:39 PM
Todd Levett is the latest congressional staffer to take up a post in the Obama administration, accepting an appointment as special assistant for the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). 
(...)
Now he joins the INL bureau, known as “drugs and thugs” because they deal with international narcotics control strategy and law enforcement development in conflict and post-conflict countries.