Substance Abuse Prevention Spending

The nation's "balanced" drug control program stands at about 14% for prevention and over half for law enforcement ("supply disruption").  The "prevention" section includes community coalitions, which are supposed to coordinate ALL aspects of drug control, and drug testing kids, which is law enforcement!

 

Carnevale Associates publishes an annual analysis of the National Drug Control Budget.

This analysis shows prevention spending dropped from 19% of the 2002 FY budget to 11% of the FY 2009 requested budget.  Total "demand reduction" (treatment and prevention) dropped from 45% of the FY 2002 budget to 35% of the requested FY 2009 budget.  That means nearly 2/3 of the budget went for "supply disruption" (law enforcement, interdiction, international enforcement).  John Carnevale summarized national drug policy and the need for change in a July 14, 2008 Huffington Post article.

 

The Office of National Drug Control Programs (ONDCP) publishes an annual "National Drug Control Strategy" and associated "National Drug Control Budget."  There is an historical spending table, showing an absolute reduction in prevention spending from $2 billion in 2002 to $1.5 billion requested for 2009 (a 25% reduction), while overall spending rose from $10.8 billion to $14.1 billion (a 31% increase).