In
our book – Lies,
Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics – my co-author and I found
numerous
examples of misleading and outright false claims by the Office of
National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP), the federal agency of accountability in the
nation’s
drug war. Among the many forms of misleading claims are improper
presentations
of statistics with regard to drug use trends; the (in)effectiveness of
several
drug war efforts such as market disruption and student drug testing
programs;
and even the presentation of partial drug war budget data.
The
Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) was among the first
organization to call ONDCP on its “fuzzy math” in the drug war budget.
DPA
found that, beginning with the 2003 National Drug Control Strategy,
ONDCP
removed from the budget those dollars spent on the drug war that did
not
directly relate to reducing drug use. Somehow, ONDCP reasoned it did
not need
to include in the drug war budget things like arresting and
incarcerating drug
offenders! ONDCP explained, in the 2003 Strategy, that “the budget
reflects
those expenditures aimed at reducing drug use rather than, as in the
past,
those associated with the consequences of drug use” (p. 6).
Of
course, getting arrested and sent to prison for using
drugs is not a consequence of drug
use, as claimed by ONDCP, but rather is a consequence of the nation’s
prohibitionist drug policy. Leaving this point aside, it boggles the
mind to
think that failing to include such
spending in the drug war budget makes the budget more useful for
policymakers,
but that is exactly what ONDCP claims!
The
net effect of the changes to drug war budget is the appearance
that: 1) we are spending less
money on the nation’s drug war than we actually are (the drug war
budget was
magically reduced from more than $19 billion in 2002 to only about $11
billion
in 2003); and 2) a higher proportion of drug war spending was going to
the more
successful demand side efforts of prevention and treatment rather than
the less
successful supply side efforts of market disruption. Table 2 of the FY
2003
budget summary, contained in the 2002 Strategy, reports that 67% of
spending went
to supply side measures versus only 33% to demand side measures. Yet,
Table 2
of the FY 2003 budget summary, contained in the 2003 Strategy, reports
that 53%
of spending will go to supply side measures versus 47% to demand side
measures!.
Get that? Just by changing the budget format, ONDCP magically shrank
the amount
going to supply side measures from 67% to 53% and grew the amount going
to
demand side measures from 33% to 47%.
Notice
that I wrote “appearance” above, because the fact
remains that: 1) taxpayers are still paying billions of additional
dollars to
fight the drug war (even though it is not shown in ONDCP’s budget); and
2) the
vast majority of drug war spending is still going to supply side
efforts rather
than the more effective demand side measures.
Presently,
ONDCP is nearing release of its 2008 National
Drug Control Strategy, which promises more of the same drug war
rhetoric found in
past versions. The FY 2009 drug war
budget shows that funding for supply side measures will
grow to
65.2% of total funds, versus only 34.8% for demand side measures. Yet,
ONDCP
continues to call the drug war “balanced and compassionate.”
This
is astounding, because even after ONDCP’s budget
change, the disparity between supply side and demand side spending has
grown
rapidly. In FY 2002, supply side spending made up 55.1% of the budget,
then
grew to 56.6% in FY 2003, 58% in FY 2004, 60.4% in FY 2005, 63% in FY
2006,
63.4% in FY 2007, 64.4% in FY 2008, and ultimately 65.2% in FY 2009. To
be
clear, this is money spent on the “war” part of the drug war, including
law
enforcement, interdiction, and international spending.
Unfortunately
for ONDCP and our nation, research shows that
the most effective and cost-effective drug reduction approaches are
demand side
approaches such as prevention and treatment. One might then wonder why
funding
for these demand side measures has fallen from 49.6% in FY 2001 to only
34.8%
for FY 2009.
Research
very clearly points out that drug treatment works. One
might then wonder why funding for drug treatment does not make up a
larger
portion of the drug war budget (funding for treatment in FY 2009
consists of
only 24.1% of funds, and this includes money spent on treatment
research)?
Research
also shows that well-designed prevention messages
reduce drug use among young people. One might then wonder why funding
for
prevention does not make up a larger portion of the drug war budget
(funding
for prevention in FY 2009 consists of only 10.7% of funds, and this
includes
money spent on prevention research)?
When you
see the 2008
National Drug Control Strategy, you might also wonder why ONDCP
continues to support
funding for prevention efforts such as the Department of Education’s
Student
Drug Testing program and ONDCP’s Drug-Free Communities and National
Youth
Anti-Drug Media Campaign, when evidence shows these measures are
ineffective?
These are
questions
ONDCP must answer. After all, this is our
drug war and ONDCP works for us.