As an insider in the nation's war against drugs, I spent almost fifteen years in the executive office of the President. Eleven of these years were in the Office of National Drug Control Policy where I served four of the nation's so-called drug czars preparing the federal drug control budget, writing many of the national drug control strategies, and conducting performance measurement and analysis of the efficacy of those strategies. I left government in 2000, but continue to be highly involved in shaping drug policies and measuring performance in drug policy both nationally and internationally.
In the latest 2008 National Drug Control Strategy, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) -- the federal executive office agency charged with shaping this nation's national drug control strategy -- claims that America has reached a turning point in the war on drugs. In reality, we have little reason to believe a significant change has occurred. ONDCP based its claim on declining use for youth -- a trend that long precedes this administration's tenure -- but ignores the lack of progress with regard to adult drug use, rates of drug addiction, the inaccessibility of substance abuse treatment, and new emerging drugs of demand such as pharmaceutical drugs and methamphetamine. If America is to be successful in the fight against drugs, the first priority for the next administration -- Republican or Democrat -- must be to reinventing ONDCP as an effective policy office capable of leading the nation's struggle with drugs.
In the 1980's, the United States essentially focused on supply reduction, largely in response to a cocaine epidemic, and with the belief that source and transit zone interdiction was the most effective means of reducing drug use in the United States. By the 1990's we had learned that interdiction was a relatively ineffective way of reducing drug use -- and expensive besides. So we focused our efforts on demand reduction. Now, at the beginning of the new millennium we have...inexplicably...come to believe again that source and transit zone interdiction is an effective way to reduce drug use in America. There is no evidence to support this belief. And it is all the more surprising that we have refocused our efforts in this way at a time when many of the major drugs of abuse -- including marijuana, methamphetamine, and controlled pharmaceuticals, are produced domestically.
The central task of ONDCP -- and what must now become the central political debate -- is determining how best to combine and fund the five essential ingredients of drug control policy: prevention, treatment, domestic law enforcement, international or source country programs, and interdiction.
Though Congress created ONDCP to formulate research-driven and performance-based policy, assess and modify policy through performance measures, and give a precise accounting of the federal drug control budget, ONDCP fails at all of those tasks. In the 90's ONDCP created a performance measurement system for evaluating the effects of its policies on drug use, drug availability, and the negative consequences of drug use; however, this decade, no such performance measurement system has been utilized. As a consequence, policy is now flying blind resulting in lost opportunities for more success.
Simply put: the cornerstone of all evidence-based policy driven by reliable performance data. Currently, ONDCP has failed to establish baseline measures link to the ingredients of an effective drug policy. This is inhibiting our nation's ability to better assess future action. The first step of any administration must be to reassert ONDCP as the flagship substance abuse organization by instituting a performance measurement system to allow Congress, the American people, and ONDCP itself access to crucial data. To stay ahead of emerging drug trends, ONDCP must once again make knowledge development, data systems and research a priority. Leading drug use indicators must steer drug control policy rather than outdated trends.
Second, ONDCP's budgetary role must be fixed. A review of the Federal drug control budget for this decade shows the following: the Administration's drug control budget since FY02 has emphasized supply reduction programs over demand reduction programs; resources for supply reduction (interdiction of drugs, source country programs, and law enforcement), grew by almost 57% from the FY 02 baseline level to the FY 09 request now before Congress; and by comparison, demand reduction resources (prevention and treatment, including resources for research for agencies like the National Institute on Drug Abuse) grew by only 2.7 percent--prevention is actually cut 25 percent.
This budget trend runs counter to what research would otherwise suggest: that efforts to reduce demand are best addressed through treatment and prevention rather than supply reduction.ONDCP must fully exercise its budgetary authority. Working with the Office of Management and Budget to formulate and distribute an accurate drug control budget to implement its policy priorities is the only way to ensure that research findings are reflected in the drug control budget.
Finally, a new administration must retool and reemphasize ONDCP as an effective policy leadership organization. Right now, ONDCP administers many programs that could be better managed by other federal agencies responsible for drug program administration. ONDCP rediscover its roots by again becoming a leader in policy formulation to develop a drug policy that is evidence-based and includes performance measurement to hold it accountable for results. An outdated organizational structure reflecting the 1980's cocaine war must be abandoned in favor of one that addresses today's multifaceted drug threat, recognizing that drug use occurs in drug markets where the most common drugs are more often domestically produced. Programs which distract from ONDCP's policy-setting mission must be jettisoned to agencies more suited to those particular tasks (e.g. Drug Free Communities to SAMHSA). ONDCP must focus exclusively on policy and budget.
The new administration will face a unique opportunity to reshape American drug policy. ONDCP must develop a strategy that is research- and performance-based. It must present a federal drug control budget that emphasizes effective programs that support an evidence-based, comprehensive drug control policy. It is now up to the next president, be he or she Democrat or Republican, to enable ONDCP to meet the nation's needs to reduce drug use and its damaging consequences.
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1. Drugs become illegal.
2. Only criminals sell drugs.
3. Criminals are not under any regulation
4. Criminals will sell to your children.
5. Criminals will try to get you hooked on drugs which are actually addictive, therefore increasing demand.
6. Criminals like drugs to be scarce because they can charge more.
7. Criminals kill people who stop them from making money.
Vs.
1. Drugs become legal
2. Only reputable sources are allowed to supply drugs.
3. The sources are highly regulated.
4. These sources cannot sell to your children.
5. These sources supply informatio
6. Supply and demand is no longer a factor in drug sales.
7. Criminals cannot compete, and leave the drug market alone (how many criminals sell diapers?).
Do I also need to mention that cannabis use (by population percentage
Why will Congress not do their job and reclassify cannabis? We cannot continue to view cannabis as an illegal drug without medical benefits as long as the law is clear on this one point. The requiremen
"Current known medical use." That's all that Congress needs to act on this issue. Yet, for years they have chosen to ignore science and the medical community. Under the existing laws and regulation
So, I ask you, why hasn't Congress acted to make this change? The law requires it but they are ignoring it. How do these types of actions help or improve the hyprocisy of the War on Drugs?
Just kidding.
The mission of the ONDCP is as fundamenta
Drug use is as old as mankind. Efforts to abolish drug abuse only compound its negative effects without delivering on the promise to abolish it. Our whole strategy against drugs is based on the notion that you can make use of certain drugs so costly that people will lose interest in consuming them. 100 years of pursuing this strategy has proven it to be utterly without merit.
The Republican
All of the other phony "agencies" which squander our money or funnel tax dollars to Republican crooks likewise need to be abolished, the money saved and the people either put to actual work for once, or compelled to look for a real job in the private sector instead of gorging at the federal trough. Those agencies include the DEA, the CIA, the NSA, the "Departmen
All of the fake "drug czars" are interested in enriching themselves at everyone else's expense, but they know and care little or nothing about drugs, their use, and their users. All of the people in the "enforceme
Drug users are largely benign. Drugs are a mixed bag of "benefits" and "harms. Drug warriors, on the other hand, are an unmitigate
These are the folks, for example, that are losing the Afghanista
Taliban is like U.S. gang bangers. Being all tough and hanging out with the guys is fun as long as it means free room board, and a gun. Cut off the money supply, though, and then it just becomes sitting around getting cold and hungry for nothing.
Personally
If marijuana were decriminal
Yet our government continues the Reefer Madness mentality because companies like BUD, RJR and GSK don't want the American people to grow their own smiles in the tomato garden. Better to drinka sixpack, smoke a camel or take some oxycodone.
No politician has the courage to do the right thing.
Do you really believe what you said?
Smuggling would stop immediatel
The main problem with drugs here is the attitude that drugs are not bad.
Where there are no problem with drugs in the general population
Here, movie stars, rich people use it and it is called "recreatio
That is the real problem.
And of course, once people use it, they will keep using it even though they said it is not addictive.
It makes one wonder!
Read a book for god's sake; this isane issue of a "war on drugs" is too costly and too idiotic for people like you to cast about randomly making absurd comments.
When will we learn that getting the government involved makes things worse 90% of the time.
At least special interests can grow fat creating programs for drug eradicatio
Let's hear Obama step up on decriminal
I'm sorry but think about the prison industry and the drug testing industry please. Who in the hell do you think they get their employment from? Do you see how our SWAT teams have popped up in every town in this country? For what? Busting down doors to MAKE A PROFIT ON THE HELPLESS! Prisons are growing faster than schools and we are paying for it!
please visit leap.org
I've read that since Nixon's 'war on drugs' arose, it's cost America one trillion dollars -- and there are more and better drugs available than ever. Truly, the 'war on drugs' outcome has been a triumph for a real 'free market', albeit illegal. Supply-and
If you really want "to enable ONDCP to meet the nation's needs to reduce drug use and its damaging consequenc
1. Legalize drugs.
2. Tax drugs.
3. Shut down the ONDCP.
The central task of ONDCP -- and what must now become the central political debate -- is determinin
Why have five ingredient
Unfortunat
The ONDCP needs to be abolished along with the Controlled Substances Act. Not only are the effects of the policy morally reprehensi
I say to you that it is preferable to lose someone to overdose than it is to lose them to murder. Overdoses can be prevented by education and antidotes. Murders are encouraged by Prohibitio