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If you have issues viewing or accessing this file contact us at NCJRS.gov. • ~ .... ~ I ..I \ • e ••• - .. - .. • .. National Drug Control Strategy 121637 u.s. Department of JUstice National Institute of Justice This document has been reproduced exactly as received from the person or organization originating It. Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or pOlicies of the National Institute of Justice. Permission to reproduce this, hJ material has been grante9 by " PubLic Domain/The White House Office of Nat'l Drug Control Policy to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). Further reprodUction outside of the NCJRS system requires permis­ sion of the ,--cr:r • lo\vner. January 1990 The White House TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: Consistent with section 1005 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-690), I am today pleased to transmit my administration's 1990 National Drug Control Strategy for congressional consideration and action. This report should be viewed as a companion volume to the National Drug Control Strategy that I sent to the Congress last September. In it you will find a comprehensive blueprint for Federal drug control activities for the next fiscal year. The principal goal of our strategy, however, remains the same: to reduce the level of illegal drug use in America. To help determine the most effective means of pursuing that objective, my administration has once again been aided by broad consultation with Members of Congress, Federal, State, and local officials, experts in the fields of drug prevention, treatment, and enforcement, and hundreds of interested and pUblic-spirited citizens. The result~ I believe, is a truly national plan to combat the illegal use of drugs, one that will bring us success in this new decade. I am grateful for the enthusiastic and bipartisan support that the Congress gave to the National Drug Control strategy last year, and I turn to you for that support again. I know that every Member of Congress shares my desire to overcome the terrible scourge of drugs. And so I ask you to join me in moving quickly to fund and implement the proposals and initiatives contained in this report. Full congressional support of this national strategy is essential if we are to give Americans the thorough and effective drug control policy they expect and deserve. THE WHITE HOUSE, January 25, 1990. Contents Introduction ........................................................................... 1 National Priorities The Criminal Justice System............................................... 13 Drug Treatment ................................................................... 29 Education, Community Action, and the Workplace .............. 39 InteITIational Initiatives ....................................................... 49 Interdiction Efforts .............................................................. 65 A Research Agenda .............................................................. 75 An Intelligence Agenda ........................................................ 83 Appendices A. High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas.... .................. ...... 89 B. Federal Implementation and Resource ReqUirements ..... 99 C. Drug Policy Management Agenda................................. 107 D. Quantified Two- and Ten-Year Objectives ..................... 117 E. Information Management ............................................. 123 F. Acknowledgments......................................................... 129 Introduction Last September, President Bush unveiled the National Drug Control Strategy, which explained the nature of the drug crisis in America and proposed policies for overcoming it. That Strategy provides a unified, integrated, and truly national policy aimed at the complicated array of problems posed by illegal drugs. It includes a role not only for the Federal government, but for our State and local governments, the private sector, and community leaders and citizens alike. Its goals are ambitious but straight-forward: to restore order and security to Ameri­ can neighborhoods, to dismantle drug trafficking organizations, to help people break the habit of drug use, and to prevent those who have never used illegal drugs from starting. Those goals can only be reached through a strategy that attacks drugs on several fronts in a cohesive fashion - not merely along the organizational lines of government bureaucracy. That is why it is the policy of the United States to disrupt, to dismantle, and ultimately to destroy the illegal market for drugs by attacking both the supply and demand sides of the drug problem. Since assuming office I have seen the squalid face of that problem close up, I have visited many cities and towns across America. On occasion what I have seen has been an education in despair, waste, and degradation. But I have also seen signs -sometimes astonishing signs, often heartening signs - of hope. I have seen some of the ideas of our national drug strategy in practical operation, and I can report that they are working and that they do succeed. I have met. ,vith parents, teachers, police officers, judges, doctors, government offiCials, and school children. I've listened to their words, engaged in serious conversation \vith them, sounded them out on the topic of drugs. Based on those exchanges, I am confident - and encouraged - that there is a genuine national conversation about drugs and drug policy. National Drug Control Strategy 1 Introduction The foundation of that conversation is, and should remain, drug use. There are too many dn1gs in America, and too many Americans use them. We can talk about the causes of this phenomenon, we can talk about its effects; we can cite the violent crime, the broken homes, the bad schools that are closely associated with.- and often mistaken for - the country's drug problem; we can speak of poverty, of disease, of racism. All these are important concerns, and all are addressed, directly and indirectly, by the many proposals in the National Strategy. But the heart of our drug problem is use, and the heart of our drug policy must be reducing that use. How? For reasons both political and institutional, much public dis­ cussion has been bedeviled by a persistent but sterile debate over "supply" versus "demand" solutions. But to repeat what we have been saying for almost a year, the reality of the drug problem cannot be met through an exclusive "law enforcement" strategy on the one hand, or a "prevention and treatment" strategy on the other. Most Americans recognize by now that we require both approaches. An effective criminal justice policy needs a good treatment policy: a successful treatment system is hampered by the easy availability of drugs and will ultimately be overwhelmed without a good prevention program; and good preven­ tion programs are harder to carry out absent vigorous efforts directed at international and domestic drug traffickers who are largely responsible for making drugs so ubiquitous in the first place. Only a few months ago I spoke with a teenage boy who had just been released from his fifth drug treatment program. Each time in the past that he had completed treatment he found himself back on the street, surrounded by drugs that were cheap and readily available. His pitiful story reminds us that it is futile to think about anyone element of our drug policy in isolation. A drug strategy - if it is really a strategy - reflects the fact that effective poliCies to reduce demand and supply are inseparable. The National Drug Control Strategy is designed to erode the power and spread of drugs by conSistently keeping pressure on an the avenues through which illegal drugs are made available or desirable and, fur­ ther, to hold those who use drugs accountable for their actions. That means, first, that schools must teach our children to stay away from drugs and how and why to say no to friends who tempt them. Parents and community leaders can reinforce those lessons by providing young people with the kind of lifetime interests - books, hobbies, sports, social activities - that prevent them from drifting towards aimless adolescent drug use. Unfortunately, for some these efforts come too late. Drugs have become a part of their lives, and in many cases, a habitual part. They need treatment that will get them off drugs - for good. In this way, treatment and prevention work two sides of the same problem to reduce drug use. 2 National Drug Control Strategy Introduction But our National Drug Control Strategy recognizes that prevention and treatment, however successful, require the support of drug enforce­ ment activities that lead to the arrest of drug traffickers, that stop drugs from being smuggled into the country, and that keep dealers off the streets. Effective drug enforcement makes drugs expensive, difficult to obtain, and dangerous to seek out. A strong criminal justice system deters drug use. Most leaders of prevention and treatment programs recognize this; their task is made easier when drug enforcement works. That is why our Strategy ties all these elements together - to prevent people from using drugs, to keep them off drugs, to disrupt the drug market, and thereby to reduce drug use in the United States. We have been pursuing this Strategy for a little over four months and have seen encouraging signs. We will continue to pursue it. The First Four Months The first four months after President Bush appeared on national television

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