# Presentation: 057626

## Office of NationalDrug Control Policy              

- National Drug Strategy Overview

## Office of National Drug Control Policy

-  via National Strategy
- Advises on goals, objectives, priorities
- Monitors program budgets, performance, compliance

## National Strategic Goals (2002)

- 10% reduction in current rates (2 years)
- 25% reduction in current rates (5 years)

## National Drug Control Strategy

- Promotes a Balanced Approach
- Stopping use before it starts
- education and community action
- Healing America’s drug users
- getting treatment resources where they are needed
- Disrupting the market
- attacking the drug trade’s economic basis

## Overarching Goals

- Use proven techniques
- Promote coordination
- Gather and maintain data

## Key Measures of Strategy Impact

- Current use
- Arrestee drug use
- Emergency room mentions
- Price and purity
- Student drug testing
- Drug courts
- Coalitions

## Reducing the DEMAND for Drugs

- Public Health Response

## Demand Reduction Approach

- Categories of Target Populations
- Non-users
- Never used
- Not using
- Never to use again
- Non-dependent users
- Dependent users

## Prevention

- Diverting individuals from the road to drug use

## Demand Reduction Priority: Stop Initiation

- Strategic target: non-user
- Increase cultural disapproval
- Reinforce non-using norms
- Deter use
- Basis of strategy: Address the variablesto experimentation

## Environment of Experimentation

- Availability
- Perceived risk
- Tendency to respect social norms
- Opportunity
- Drug using behavior of peers
- Prior experience

## Sources of Prevention Resources

- Media Campaign
- Law Enforcement Prevention efforts
- Community coalitions
- Department of Justice
- Department of Education
- Etc.

## Intervention

- Deter the non-dependent user from further use

## Demand Reduction Priority: Intervention

- Strategic target: non-dependent user
- Promote zero tolerance!
- Uncover use
- Stop the vector
- Basis of strategy: Emphasize prohibition, responsibility, and illegality

## Prohibition, Responsibility, Illegality

- Policy sets the rules
- Testing is the radar
- Discipline provides results
- Promote a shift in the risk-benefit analysis for the drug user

## Sources of Intervention Resources

- Education and enforcement create pressure to Stop use
- Multiple access points for screening, intervention, and referral

## Treatment

- Help drug-dependent users recover their lives

## Demand Reduction Priority: Improve Treatment

- Strategic target: dependent user
- Basis of strategy:
- Where there is a ***Denial ***gap (no recognition of problem; no treatment sought), ***Create desire ***
- Where there is a ***Motivation ***gap (recognition of problem; no treatment sought), ***Harness desire***
- Where there is a ***Treatment ***gap (recognition of problem; no treatment available), ***Provide access***
- Where there is an ***Outcome**** *gap (obtains treatment; barriers to success), ***Support recovery***

## Sources of Treatment Resources

- Criminal Justice
- Labor and Employment
- Department of Health
- Faith-Based Providers

## Reducing the SUPPLYof Drugs

- Public Safety Response

## President’s National Drug Control Strategy:A Market Approach

- Drug market like any other market—driven by supply and demand.
- Goal: increase risk/cost to drug dealers to “break” the market

| Attacking Demand |  |  | Attacking Supply |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Prevention (demand) | Treatment (demand) | Law enforcement (supply and demand) |  | International operations (supply) |
|  Student Drug Testing: deter and detect drug use among youth
 Drug-Free Communities
 Safe & Drug-Free Schools
 Media Campaign: focus on youth, marijuana  |  Access to Recovery: President’s treatment initiative.
 Drug courts: find appropriate mix of treatment and sanctions
 Brief interventions | Possession arrest: gets users into treatment (demand reduction); deters buyers (supply reduction)
Distribution arrest: Stops flow of drugs; gets dealers off street; results in intelligence to dismantle organizations (supply reduction).
Manufacturing arrests (meth, marijuana): stops drugs at source (supply reduction).
Forfeiture/money laundering: increases cost/risk to traffickers, breaks market (supply reduction) |  | Colombia—air bridge denial, eradication, go-fast boat disruption 
Andean Ridge: Peru terrorists; Colombia situation; Bolivian eradication  
Mexico—cooperation with U.S.; corruption reforms; cartel disruption
Afghanistan—rebuild drug control
Western Europe—monitor shift in cocaine flow from U.S. markets to Europe, impact of decriminalization efforts
 |

## Principles of Disruption (focus on law enforcement)

- Treatment, prevention and law enforcement all have equally important roles to play.
- Law enforcement is unique in being able to directly impact _both_ demand and supply through the power of arrest.
- A key method of getting people into treatment – e.g., drug courts – is through the power of arrest.
- Arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating drug traffickers is a tried and true method of increasing risk to drug traffickers and dismantling organization – impacting supply.
- Nationally, the President, Drug Czar, and Attorney General agree: Go after the organizations and the money.
- Targeting sectors is important: production, transportation, distribution, financial.

## FAST FACTS about the DRUG MARKET 

**Estimated amount of drugs in United States (2002)**:
- _Marijuana_:  15,000 metric tons (mt). Accounts for 74.7% of illicit drug use. Of these, 55% of users use marijuana alone; 20% use in combination with another drug.
- _Prescription drugs (misuse)_:  Accounts for 31.8% of illicit drug use.
- _Cocaine_:  250 mt. Accounts for 10.3 % of illicit drug use.
- _Ecstasy_:  8 mt. Accounts for 3.5 % of illicit drug use.
- _Meth_: 120 mt. Accounts for 3.1 % of illicit drug use.
- _Heroin_: 15 mt. Accounts for 0.9 % of illicit drug use.
**Costs of illicit drug use**:
-  Social and economic costs estimated at more than $160 billion (2000).
-  U.S. drug users spent about $65 billion since 2000 annually on direct purchases.
-  Emergency room admissions related to illicit drugs accounted for 670,307 episodes in 2002.
-  A median of 64% of adult male arrestees, and 67% of female arrestees tested positive for illicit drugs in 2002.

## One business model:The International Cocaine Market 

**CULTIVATION**

**PRODUCTION**

**EXPORT**

**TRANSPORTATION**

**WHOLESALE**

**RETAIL**

**$100**

**$1,000**

**$10,000**

**$1,000,000**

**$100,000**

**$500**

**$1,500**

**$4,500**

**$150,000**

**$25,000**

**$15,000**

*Value of pure1 kg HCL*

*Cocaine Sectors*

## Example #1: Measuring the effectiveness of law enforcement

- _Concept_: Change in risk of drug trafficking affects price and/or purity of drugs*.
- _Recommended initiative_: Additional monitoring of factors such as price, purity, treatment admissions, number of new users.
- _Example_: In Washington, the State Police Crime Lab is working with the NW HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) Program to test for purity a cross-section of about 10% of all drugs submitted by police. These results will be analyzed and correlated with law enforcement activity, in part to measure the effectiveness of law enforcement initiatives. The initiative is costing little or no money because the crime lab is using a (qualified) intern to provide the service.
- * Caveat: Impact may differ for marijuana and, to a lesser degree, methamphetamine, because marijuana cannot be “cut” as easily, and methamphetamine is also domestically manufactured.

## Example #2: Targeting open-air drug markets

- _Concept_: Use the power of arrest to divert open-air drug market users into treatment and prosecute open-air market drug dealers.
- _Recommended initiative_: Work with city council to enact trespass-based drug-free zones in areas with open-air drug markets.
- _Example_: In Portland, police and community activists persuaded the city council to designate certain areas as “drug free zones.” Upon arresting someone for possessing drugs, a police officer could also “trespass” the offender from that zone for 90 days (with exceptions if the offender had a reason to be in the zone, e.g., work, residence, or medical appointment). If the offender was found in that zone during the 90 day period, he or she could be taken out of that “area of temptation” by an arrest for trespass – which also allowed for a search for drugs. In other words, police didn’t have to wait to see another drug deal go down. They could clean up the area, and also divert more users into treatment.

## Sources of Supply Reduction Resources

- Drug Courts
- Executive Office for Weed and Seed
- High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA)
- Local Law Enforcement Block Grant (LLEBG)
- Community Oriented Policing Services** **

## National Drug Control Strategy

- A Balanced Approach
- Public Health *AND *Public Safety
- Reduce the Demand for Drugs*AND *the Supply of Drugs
- _[www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov](http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/)_