NATION'S DRUG-ENFORCEMENT
PROGRAMS
WASHINGTON -- Although the federal
government invests about $12 billion
each year in drug-enforcement programs,
scant data exist to determine their
effectiveness. Federal spending on such
research amounts to less than $1
for every $100 set aside for enforcement.
As a result, the nation's ability
to evaluate whether its drug policies work
is no better now than it was 20
years ago, when drug-control efforts began
to accelerate, says a new report
from the
National Research
Council of the National Academies.
The assessment of
enforcement activities is severely hampered by an absence
of adequate,
reliable data on both drug consumption and the actual cost of
illegal drugs,
the report points out. Such data are critical because a
major goal of
enforcement is to reduce drug supply and drive up costs,
thereby cutting
consumption. Work should begin immediately to develop
better methods for
obtaining both types of data.
"Neither the necessary data systems nor
the research infrastructure to
gauge the usefulness of drug-control
enforcement policies currently
exists," said Charles F. Manski, chair of the
committee that wrote the
report, and Board of Trustees Professor in
Economics, Northwestern
University, Evanston, Ill. "It is unconscionable for
this country to
continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and
cost without
any way of knowing whether, and to what extent, it is having
the desired
result. Our committee strongly recommends that a substantial,
new, and
robust research effort be undertaken to examine the various aspects
of drug
control, so that decision-making on these issues can be better
supported by
more factual and realistic evidence."
In 1998 the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy asked the
committee to
review the entire range of data and research that might inform
policy on
illegal drugs, and explore ways to integrate findings from
diverse
disciplines to enhance understanding of drug abuse and of the
operation of
drug markets. The following year, the committee released a
Phase I report
that assessed two prominent cocaine-control studies and
found neither
adequate to serve as the basis for public policy. This final
report offers
general conclusions about overall research gaps and makes
recommendations to
close them.
Enforcement activities, in the committee's view, comprise
not only domestic
efforts aimed at prohibiting the manufacture, sale,
possession, or use of
illegal drugs, but also international policies to
reduce the supply of
drugs through crop eradication and the disruption of
drug trafficking. As
measured by spending, enforcement activities now
represent the primary
thrust of U.S. drug-control policies, the report says.
Between 1981 and
1999, the country's expenditures in this area jumped more
than tenfold.
Additionally, U.S. Department of Justice statistics from 1998
show that 1.6
million people had been arrested for drug offenses, three
times as many as
in 1980. And 289,000 drug offenders were incarcerated in
state prisons, 12
times the number in 1980.
But such enforcement
measures often are embraced without the benefit of
scientific evidence
indicating whether they can indeed make much of a
difference, or any at all.
Existing surveys do not collect enough
information to shed sufficient light
on how drug markets operate, the
committee said. Current surveys also do not
illuminate the dynamics of how
users begin to consume drugs, how they decide
to step up their use, and
what factors play a role in their decision to
quit. In addition to
addressing these gaps, surveys should obtain details
about the quantity of
drug consumption to more accurately estimate overall
consumption rates -- a
key factor in determining the economic vitality of
illegal drug markets.
Accurate information on how much drugs cost
also is needed to better
comprehend how drug users respond to price changes.
Although the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration and other law-enforcement
agencies collect some
price information, these data do not provide a solid
foundation for
analyzing the causes and consequences of fluctuations.
Current enforcement
policy has indeed increased drug prices relative to what
they otherwise
would be, but the magnitude of the increase is not known.
Moreover, there
is little understanding of which policy components have
brought about this
result, the extent to which higher costs have decreased
consumption, or
which drug users have been most affected.
Better
data alone, however, will not boost the country's understanding of
effective
drug-enforcement policy. The committee called for additional
research on the
extent to which producers and traffickers thwart
enforcement in one
geographic area by moving their smuggling routes or
production elsewhere.
Furthermore, research is needed to determine how the
effects of
supply-reduction activities should be measured, and to pinpoint
the typical
time lag between successful enforcement operations and changes
in the way
that producers and traffickers conduct business.
A rational drug
policy also must take into account the costs and benefits
of drug penalties,
the committee said. For example, the relationship
between the severity of
penalties and the initiation and termination of
drug use should be
researched.
As part of its work, the committee reviewed studies on
the value of a wide
range of prevention activities and found mixed results.
Some prevention
efforts do appear to be helpful in delaying the initiation
of drug use or
reducing the frequency of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol use
among minors.
However, because most attention has been focused on evaluating
school-based
approaches, the success of many other strategies is unknown,
the committee
said.
At the same time, many popular programs --
such as "zero tolerance"
projects -- have not been evaluated at all, or have
been found to have
little impact on illegal drug use, as in the case of
D.A.R.E. Yet large
sums of public funds continue to be allocated for
programs whose
effectiveness is unknown or known to be limited, the
committee noted. Given
such trends, current efforts to evaluate
drug-prevention strategies should
be significantly improved.
The
study was sponsored by the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the
National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is
a private, nonprofit institution that provides independent advice on
science and technology issues under a congressional charter. A committee
roster follows.
Pre-publication copies of INFORMING AMERICA'S
POLICY ON ILLEGAL DRUGS: WHAT
WE DON'T KNOW KEEPS HURTING US are available
from the National Academy
Press at the mailing address in the letterhead;
tel. (202) 334-3313 or
1-800-624-6242. The cost of the report is $65.00
(prepaid) plus shipping
charges of $4.50 for the first copy and $.95 for
each additional copy.
Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of
News and Public Information
at the letterhead address or contact :
Vanee Vines, Media Relations Associate
or Kathi McMullin, Media Relations
Assistant
(202) 334-2138; e-mail <news@nas.eduNATIONAL
RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education
COMMITTEE ON DATA AND RESEARCH FOR POLICY ON ILLEGAL
DRUGS
CHARLES F. MANSKI (CHAIR)
Board of Trustees
Professor of Economics
Department of Economics
Northwestern
University
Evanston, Ill.
JAMES
ANTHONY
Professor
Departments of Mental Hygiene and Epidemiology
School
of Public Health, and
Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Sciences
School of Medicine
Johns Hopkins
University
Baltimore
ALFRED BLUMSTEIN1
J. Erik Jonsson
Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research
H. John Heinz III School
of Public Policy and Management
Carnegie Mellon
University
Pittsburgh
RICHARD J. BONNIE2
John S. Battle
Professor of Law
School of Law, and
Director
Institute of Law,
Psychiatry, and Public Policy
University of
Virginia
Charlottesville
JEANETTE COVINGTON
Associate
Professor
Department of Sociology
Rutgers University
New Brunswick,
N.J.
DENISE C. GOTTFREDSON
Professor
Department of Criminal
Justice and Criminology
University of Maryland
College
Park
PHILIP B. HEYMANN
James Barr Ames Professor
Harvard Law
School;
Professor
John F. Kennedy School of Government;
and
Director
Center for Criminal Justice
Harvard
University
Cambridge, Mass.
JOEL L. HOROWITZ
Henry B. Tippie
Research Professor of Economics
Department of Economics
University of
Iowa
Iowa City
ROBERT J. MACCOUN
Associate Professor of Public
Policy
Department of Public Policy
Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of
Public Policy
University of California
Berkeley
MARK H.
MOORE
Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice Policy and Management
John
F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge,
Mass.
WILLIAM D. NORDHAUS
A. Whitney Griswold Professor of
Economics
Department of Economics
Yale University
New Haven,
Conn.
CHARLES P. O'BRIEN2
Professor and Vice Chair of the
Psychiatry Treatment Research Center, and
Chief of Psychiatry
VA Medical
Center
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
ROBERT H.
PORTER
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Economics
Department of
Economics
Northwestern University, and
Research Associate
National
Bureau of Economic Research
Evanston, Ill.
PAUL R.
ROSENBAUM
Professor of Statistics
Department of Statistics
Wharton
School
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
JAMES Q.
WILSON
James Collins Professor of Management
Department of Political
Science
University of California
Los Angeles
RESEARCH COUNCIL
STAFF
CAROL V. PETRIE
Study Director
1 Member, National
Academy of Engineering
2 Member, Institute of
Medicine