This article presents a study on criminal lawsuits for drug trafficking, focusing on the organizational actors and decision-making processes that make up the criminal process of this type of crime. The main question concerns who governs the anti-drug criminal policy, seeking to understand the relationships set among the organizations that make up the Brazilian criminal justice in processing drug crimes at the federated state level: military and civil police, Public Ministry and state courts of justice. The paper is based on qualitative research of criminal records collected at the Court of Justice of the State of Rio Grande do Norte (TJRN). Additionally, the paper is based on data from a survey of criminal case files carried out by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea). Converging with part of social sciences research on the subject, this work points to the centrality of bureaucratic procedures handled by police -- in particular, arrest in flagrante delicto -- for the decision-making processes that make up the flow. It was observed that the arrest in flagrante delicto act is the document that provides the account of the criminal fact and the vocabulary of avowals for the arrest; such accounts are received and valued in documents produced lately within the flow. Key words: Criminal policy; Drug trafficking; Criminal justice flow; Decision-making process; Brazil.