A future president McCain or Obama should adopt a national drug-control strategy that reflects research showing that prevention and treatment are more effective than international drug interdiction, according to policy researcher John Carnevale, Ph.D.

Under federal law dating back to the 1980s, the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is required to draft an annual drug-control policy and budget. Since its inception, the ONDCP budget has been skewed by a ratio of up to 2:1 toward "supply reduction" activities like international interdiction and law enforcement rather than "demand reduction" strategies like treatment and prevention.

In a new policy brief, "Back to Basics: Principles of an Effective National Drug Control Policy," Carnevale Associates calls for the next administration to "rely on data and research" when formulating its drug-control strategy, saying that the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) shows that "prevalence of illicit drug use has remained largely unchanged for more than five years," and that a recent Zogby survey found that three-quarters of Americans believe the U.S. is losing the War on Drugs.

Carnevale also said that poppy and coca cultivation "are at near record levels" and noted the bloody war now being fought between Mexican drug cartels and the government. "These facts should provide a clarion call to policymakers that our national drug strategy needs to change and become more evidence-based," said Carnevale.

ONDCP and its current "drug czar," John Walters, have consistently claimed success under the Bush administration's drug-control plan, pointing to a 24-percent reduction in past-month youth drug use between 2001 and 2007 as reported by the Monitoring the Future survey and similar findings in the 2007 NSDUH. "Our efforts against methamphetamine, cocaine, and other illegal drugs are working," said Walters. "The markets for these poisons are shrinking."

The Bush administration has been a strong advocate of international interdiction programs like the multibillion dollar Plan Colombia and the more recent Merida Initiative, both of which received bipartisan support in Congress and will send billions to Mexico and Central American nations to battle drug trafficking. Earlier this year, ONDCP reported to reductions in positive workplace drug tests for methamphetamines and cocaine as evidence of "continued disruptions in the supply of both drugs."

"Increased drug prices and decreased purity confirm what DEA agents are seeing across this country: a hard hit on the drug supply," said DEA acting administrator Michele M. Leonhart in March. "DEA and our partners are attacking traffickers' movement of drugs, money, and chemicals like never before, and the data is a strong indicator that we have struck the traffickers a severe blow. The impressive decline in drug use by America's workers is further evidence that our collective efforts are working."

Demand Reduction IS Supply Reduction

The Carnevale policy brief, like ONDCP's National Drug Control Strategy itself, calls for a comprehensive approach to fighting drugs that includes treatment, prevention, domestic law enforcement, interdiction, and source-country initiatives. "But these ingredients are not all of equal value and represent very different returns on investment," according to Carnevale. Trying to eradicate drug crops is "expensive and unproductive," the policy brief contends, while "investing in prevention and treatment is a more effective means of reducing drug demand and use."

"However, the scale and scope of substance abuse treatment must be greatly expanded to further mitigate drug use and addiction," said Carnevale, including more funding for community-based treatment and prevention programs like Weed and Seed and the Drug-Free Communities program, as well as drug courts.

"Good treatment policy is smart supply reduction policy," noted Carnevale.

Both GOP presidential candidate John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have expressed strong support for drug courts; Obama also has explicitly stated that he would increase funding for the Drug-Free Communities program. McCain and Obama also both supported the recent approved federal parity bill designed to increase access to addiction treatment, as well as legislation that will improve treatment access for criminal offenders.

On the other hand, the Republican and Democratic campaign platforms also call for cooperation with countries like Mexico and Colombia to combat the drug trade, and neither campaign has indicated whether demand or supply reduction would be the main focus of their antidrug strategy and budget.

Carnevale told Join Together that he is confident that either McCain or Obama would take a hard look at reordering the nation's antidrug priorities. For decades, the federal drug budget has been heavily weighted towards supply reduction regardless of the stated commitment to treatment and prevention given by various administrations and drug czars. Carnevale noted that supply-reduction funding has increased 57 percent since 2002, while demand reduction spending rose by less than 3 percent during the same time period.

"Any new administration must ensure that there is a match between the goals of the federal drug-control strategy and the budget to support it," according to the policy brief. "This will require that the next administration focus on reshaping our national drug-control strategy in a manner consistent with the knowledge regarding the effectiveness of supply- and demand-reduction initiatives and undertake a bottom-up review of the federal drug-control budget with regard to its ability to support its strategy."

Going forward, ONDCP needs to have a performance-measurement system that will assure policymakers that the investments in drug-control strategies are both effective and cost-effective. Rather than the current drug strategy -- which measures only reductions in drug demand -- future performance measures also need to consider the policy's impact on consequences such as drug-related crime and health problem and the availability of illicit drugs, Carnevale said.

Both McCain and Obama seem to be committed to performance-driven budgeting, he said, and "with the budget deficit that will take on new meaning and will be applied to this issue," Carnevale predicted.

Carnevale also expressed hope that McCain or Obama will refocus their drug czar on the job of building antidrug infrastructure -- such as the strategic prevention framework and creating a system of electronic recordkeeping for addiction treatment programs -- and step away from the political role embraced by Walters and the Bush administration, which has routinely sent ONDCP officials to the states to lobby against issues like medical marijuana and drug-policy reform.

"ONDCP is not supposed to be a political agency," said Carnevale. "By law, the head of the agency is not supposed to engage in any political activities. The next president needs to sit their drug czar down and give them a good lecture on what the job is about ... It's all about leadership."