The National Drug Control Strategy - The Federal Drug Budget

Redoing the Accounts

Table 10.4 presents an overview of drug control spending in the federal budget. In its 2002 National Drug Control Strategy, the ONDCP published budget requests for Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 of $19.2 billion. A year later the FY 2003 budget had shrunk to $11.4 billion. This change was not the consequence of a severe cut in the drug budget but, rather, the consequence of a one-time reorganization of the budget categories that define drug control spending. The missing $8 billion was still in the overall FY 2003 federal budget, but the sum had been taken out of the "drug control" category as newly defined by the office.

In every category of expenditure, changes had taken place because of the reorganization, but the largest change came in the category of domestic law enforcement, where the change between the new and the old way of reckoning the budget had resulted in a decrease of $6.5 billion, accounting for 82% of the downward shift in the total budget. Nearly 70% of domestic law enforcement expenditure was moved out of the new, more narrowly defined "drug control" category. The prevention budget lost 21%, treatment 13.9%, interdiction 14.4%, and international operations 4.3% of funds. At the same time, ONDCP also restated previous years' budgets using the new definitions back to FY 1995.

The principal reason for this budgetary reorganization was to show clearly what funds were being (and had been) expended on the actual control of the drug phenomenon, rather than including in the federal definition funds expended in dealing with the consequences of drug use and trafficking. Thus, for instance, funds that had been allocated to the prosecution and incarceration of drug offenders were removed from the "control" categories. Expenditures on consequences, according to

TABLE 10.4
Total federal drug control budget, 1996-2005
SOURCE: "Total Federal Drug Control Budget (in Millions)," in Drugs and Crime Facts, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/contents.htm (accessed February 14, 2005)

ONDCP's discussion of this subject in NDCS 2003, would henceforth still be reported in the agency's report (cited above) on The Economic Costs of Drug Abuse in the United States but would be excluded from the drug control budget definition.

Using the old method, in the 1995-2003 period (fiscal years), $146.5 billion had been expended on drug control; using the new method, $83.7 billion had been expended—suggesting that 42.9% of historical expenditures at the federal level had gone for managing the consequences of drug abuse rather than for trying to control the phenomenon. During the entire period, most of the funding excluded from the new definition was associated with domestic law enforcement activities. Domestic law enforcement has not been eliminated under the new accounting method, but it is no longer the dominant category it has been. Under the new budgetary definition, treatment programs, including associated research, are the leading category of expenditure.

Budget Components

The national drug control budget (using the new accounting method) is shown as Table 7.3 in Chapter 7. Data are from FY 1996 to the budget request for FY 2005. The federal fiscal year extends from October 1 through September 30, so that FY 2005 dollars include funding for the last quarter of calendar year 2004 and the first three quarters of 2005. The budget has grown from $6.3 billion in FY 1996 to well over $12 billion in FY 2005, an annual percentage increase of 5.8%.

The budget is divided into two broad components aimed at reducing the demand for drugs and disrupting their supply. The budgets span five years of the Clinton administration and five years (including one projected based on the 2005 request) of the George W. Bush administration. One administration was Democrat, the other Republican, yet the allocation of funding to the demand and the supply sides have been similar. Both the highest and lowest percentage of funds allocated to the demand side took place in the Clinton administration, the highest in FY 1998 when 50.1% of the budget went to treatment and prevention, the lowest in FY 2000, when only 43.2% of funds went to stem demand. FY 2000, conversely, also saw the highest allocation of funds to disrupting the supply of drugs, 56.7% of the budget. The Bush administration's request for FY2005 divided funding 45% for demand reduction and 55% for disrupting supplies. In every year since FY 1998, funds for law enforcement, interdiction, and international programs have been higher than funds allocated to treatment, prevention, and the research to support these efforts.

CURBING DEMAND.

Funding aimed at stopping drug use has been divided (unequally) between drug abuse treatment and programs of prevention. Treatment has received 24.5% of the total budget during the FY 1996-2005 period, prevention 14.4%. In the requested budget for FY 2005, treatment made up 24.4% and prevention 12.4%, both increases over the previous few years, but still below historic averages over the previous decade.

When the research funding to support these two activities is added, treatment got 29.2% of total budget over the period and 29.4% in the 2005 budget request (28.1% enacted in 2004); prevention, with research, averaged 17.6% over the ten-year period and received 15.6% in the 2005 budget request (16.4% enacted by Congress in FY 2004). (See Table 7.1 in Chapter 7.)

On average, over the ten-year period shown, treatment (with research) received 62.5 and prevention (with research) 37.1% of the demand reduction component of the budget. Treatment funds go into actual treatment of individuals, typically through grant programs to states. Prevention budgets support many educational activities, including television ads.

DISRUPTING SUPPLY.

During the entire ten-year period shown in Table 7.3 in Chapter 7, supply disruption consumed 53.2% of the total federal drug control budget—slightly less the percentage that it was allocated in the FY 2005 budget request. Within this component, domestic law enforcement was the largest piece (46.6% over the ten-year period). Interdiction came next (36.9%) and international programs were last (16.5%).

Most domestic law enforcement funds are spent by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) (or on its behalf) and underwrite the operations of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the chief domestic drug control agency. Interdiction funds are managed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which now oversees all border control functions and the U.S. Coast Guard. International funds are divided roughly equally between the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Defense. The Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is the lead agency managing international programs. The Department of Defense is involved in supporting anti-insurgency programs in the Andean region and elsewhere.

As shown in Table 7.3 in Chapter 7, the most budgetary fluctuation over time has been associated with international programs. Funds ranged from 3.9% of total budget (FY 1996) to 15.9% (FY 2000); in 2001 funding dropped again to 6.3%. Significant portions of this budget are expended on supporting international eradication efforts which, in turn, depend on the cooperation of other countries and on the U.S. drug certification program, which may temporarily deny funding to certain regimes.

Seen as part of the total drug control budget, domestic law enforcement has represented 27.4% of the budget on average in the FY 1996-2005 period, interdiction 17.9%, and international programs 7.9%. In the FY 2005 budget request, the corresponding allocations are 25.3% for law enforcement, 20.6% for interdiction, and 9.1% for international activities.