Washington, DC: Revised budget numbers released this week for the Bush Administration’s 2003 “National Drug Control Strategy” are not what they seem, according to an analysis by Common Sense for Drug Policy and the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). Both groups note that this year’s budget deliberately conceals billions of dollars in law enforcement spending, while inflating expenditures on treatment services.
In 2002, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) announced, “The Administration will develop a new methodology for reporting the drug budget.” As a result of this restructuring, this year’s reported total budgetary expenditures total less than $12 billion dollars – far less than last year’s record $19.2 billion budget. Nevertheless, ONDCP annual spending and priorities are little different than in years past.
“An analysis of the new budget numbers revealed that by hiding the costs of incarceration, military activities and other known costs of the drug war, the Office of National Drug Policy Control was able to bring their enforcement to treatment levels more into line with public sentiment,” the DPA. The DPA further found that the ONDCP is inflating their spending on drug treatment programs by including funding for alcohol treatment, “which by law is specifically excluded from their scope of responsibilities.”
Among drug-war related costs dropped from this year’s budget is approximately $3 billion in funding associated with the incarceration of federal drug prisoners. The ONDCP claims that these costs have been excluded from the budget “based on the criterion that they are associated with the secondary consequences of the government’s primary drug law enforcement and investigative activities.”
NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre accused the White House of “hiding the ball” when it came to estimating the true cost of the government’s war on drugs. “The ONDCP recognizes that they no longer enjoy the public’s trust and are incapable of crafting a functional drug policy that Americans support,” he said. “As a result, they are now trying to conceal from taxpayers the true financial burden of their failed policies.”
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of The NORML Foundation at (202) 483-8751. An analysis of the ONDCP budget by Common Sense for Drug Policy is available online.