Former Staffer Accuses Drug Czar of Ignoring Research
Recent years have brought a long overdue and richly deserved implosion in the Drug Czar's credibility. It seems the truth is slowly catching up with the entrenched drug warriors at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as the U.S. Senate, the anti-drug community, and even former staffers have joined the chorus to demand accountability from one of Washington D.C.'s most insulated institutions.
Today John Carnevale, a long-time ONDCP insider who served under four Drug Czars, has publicly slammed ineffective supply reduction efforts and called for a redistribution of federal anti-drug funding. A press release from Carnevale Associates, LLC. entitled "FY02-09 Budget Emphasizes Least Effective Ingredients of Drug Policy" directly questions the Drug Czar's strategy and accuses the nation's top drug office of wasting resources:
A review of the federal drug control budget shows that the current administration continues to favor supply reduction programs over demand reduction programs to reduce the demand for drugs by youth and adults. Since federal fiscal year (FY) 02, the budget has emphasized what research has shown to be the least effective ingredients of a federal drug control policy. This translates into almost a decade of lost opportunity in achieving performance results.
These charges are just remarkable considering their source. While Carnevale remains committed to many of the most destructive aspects of the U.S. war on drugs, these criticisms of his former office reflect a growing consensus that ONDCP has become utterly divorced from reality. The office has simply lost its prestige within the anti-drug community and, with the flood gates fully opened, must now absorb biting criticism from every conceivable constituency. Once disgraced, the schoolyard bully can now expect to be kicked in the shin routinely and can't anticipate where the next challenge will come from.
Of course, our nation's costly and fantastically unsuccessful supply reduction efforts are just the tip of the drug war iceberg. But it is notable to witness drug war insiders beginning to come to terms with our failed international drug war diplomacy. By exposing ONDCP's propensity for ignoring research, Carnevale inadvertently reveals a great deal about how that office approaches basically everything.
digg
redditLaw Enforcement Key
Comment posted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 8:14amLaw enforcement "benefits" from supply reduction. They don't from demand reduction.
This "benefit" comes at the expense of freedom, heavy financial resources, and various degrees of shattered lives.
"We the people", in majority form, need to be made well aware of this.
Law enforcement is completely out of control.
How our country deals with this major problem will be a true test of our worth as a freedom-loving society?
john Walters
Comment posted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 9:15pmwhat do you expect from such a goofy-looking dufas. Drug law enforcement is one of the biggest criminal enterprises going. there isn't an excuse for their behavior; it's insane.
TV ARENA ...drugs and circus
Comment posted by Anonymous on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 11:12amHave you seen Arts & Entertainment TV's (wtf ! ) new offering of SWAT Detroit and SWAT Dallas? Lots of small time busts with SWATS big time "toys". Ridiculous , would be an understatement.HUT...HUT...HUT...tough on crime is for the soft in the head.
VIVA MEXICO CABRONES !!!! by Hugo Astorga
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 5:27pmTHIS IS A BUSINESS TREMENDOUSLY PRODUCTIVE !!!!!!
Medical evidences definitively demonstrate that cerebral cells are receiving compatible to the canabinoides, which as well demonstrates to genetics and undeniably the relation between the substance and the human species, therefore, the necessity of their use, then, perversely visionary politicians, allies with producers of marijuana plants, secure to the prohibition, winning money in the black market, and also they receive federal financing, having financial gains by both sides.
Now we buy cows, and we prohibit milk… and to make money!!!!
.org
Reduction Strategies
Comment posted by Giordano on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 2:44am“…supply reduction... translates into almost a decade of lost opportunity in achieving performance.”
Demand reduction and supply reduction are separated by degrees of failure, not failure versus success. Demand reduction merely fails less than supply reduction. However, demand reduction strategies would still add another decade or more to lost performance opportunities because many demand strategies cannot completely work either.
What really separates demand and supply reduction strategies, from the public’s point of view at least, is drama. Drug supply reduction gives us the attention-grabbing police shootouts that compare favorably with the blood and gore of the Roman arena, replaced in this case by the bloodlust of the gawking TV spectator. With supply reduction, minorities, intellectuals and political activists can be targeted when it’s possible to do so. Drug and cash hauls can be skimmed by arresting officers. The government can conspire with drug runners to assassinate foreign leaders, or to control and monitor foreign international boundaries. Property forfeitures, hefty bribes and underground job opportunities for police department moles make up a huge cache of fringe benefits for many more cops than may be immediately apparent.
Demand reduction is a peaceful walk in the park compared to supply reduction. Proper demand reduction would focus on areas of truthful public education about drugs, research on addiction and human behavior, better mental treatment facilities in the United States, universal health care, rational and scientific distinctions between different illicit drugs that get reflected in the laws that get enforced, and a whole collection of other boring stuff no one will ever want to watch on the next COPS episode.
The drug war culture survives and evolves largely by preventing itself from being found out. It now comprises a kind of political theater that must keep performing in ways that will fixate a crowd of onlookers, those who dole out tax dollars for more of the same, while expecting a different result. Since failure can be expected in any case, the drama of the least effective approach, excitement-and-profit-ridden supply reduction, is likely to be preferred by the drug warriors over that of more peaceful demand reduction policies.
Giordano