Text: National Research Council Finds Anti-Drug Effort Lacking

29 March 2001

Text: National Research Council Finds Anti-Drug Effort Lacking

Study urges more measures of effectiveness

The U.S. government has spent 20 years escalating its activities and spending on drug-enforcement, but inadequate data exist to determine whether the effort has been effective, according to a report issued March 29 by the National Research Council (NRC).

Adequate, reliable information on drug consumption and the cost of illegal drugs is lacking, according to an NRC press release, because the data systems and the research infrastructure to gauge drug enforcement activities are not in place.

"It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether, and to what extent, it is having the desired result," said Charles F. Manski, chair of the NRC committee that wrote the report, and a professor of economics at Northwestern University.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) asked for the analysis from the NRC, a division of the National Academy of Sciences.

While significant data exist on national spending on drug enforcement, arrests and incarcerations, the NRC report says no sound analysis exists as to whether any of this activity has actually had an effect on reducing the overall problem. Why a user turns to drugs, accelerates a habit or decides to quit drug use are also questions demanding further research. Further, the report finds that drug prevention programs are poorly monitored to measure their effectiveness.

The NRC committee that compiled the report recommends action to establish better systems for monitoring the effectiveness of drug eradication, interdiction and prevention programs.

ONDCP commended the NRC research and outlined a variety of actions already underway to improve research and assess effectiveness of drug enforcement activities.

Following is the text of the NRC press release on the new report:

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NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

For Immediate Release

March 29, 2001

DATA SORELY LACKING ON EFFECTIVENESS OF NATION'S DRUG-ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS

WASHINGTON -- Although the federal government invests about $12 billion each year in drug-enforcement programs, scant data exist to determine their effectiveness. Federal spending on such research amounts to less than $1 for every $100 set aside for enforcement. As a result, the nation's ability to evaluate whether its drug policies work is no better now than it was 20 years ago, when drug-control efforts began to accelerate, says a new report from the National Research Council of the National Academies.

The assessment of enforcement activities is severely hampered by an absence of adequate, reliable data on both drug consumption and the actual cost of illegal drugs, the report points out. Such data are critical because a major goal of enforcement is to reduce drug supply and drive up costs, thereby cutting consumption. Work should begin immediately to develop better methods for obtaining both types of data.

"Neither the necessary data systems nor the research infrastructure to gauge the usefulness of drug-control enforcement policies currently exists," said Charles F. Manski, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and Board of Trustees Professor in Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. "It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether, and to what extent, it is having the desired result. Our committee strongly recommends that a substantial, new, and robust research effort be undertaken to examine the various aspects of drug control, so that decision-making on these issues can be better supported by more factual and realistic evidence."

In 1998 the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy asked the committee to review the entire range of data and research that might inform policy on illegal drugs, and explore ways to integrate findings from diverse disciplines to enhance understanding of drug abuse and of the operation of drug markets. The following year, the committee released a Phase I report that assessed two prominent cocaine-control studies and found neither adequate to serve as the basis for public policy. This final report offers general conclusions about overall research gaps and makes recommendations to close them.

Enforcement activities, in the committee's view, comprise not only domestic efforts aimed at prohibiting the manufacture, sale, possession, or use of illegal drugs, but also international policies to reduce the supply of drugs through crop eradication and the disruption of drug trafficking. As measured by spending, enforcement activities now represent the primary thrust of U.S. drug-control policies, the report says. Between 1981 and 1999, the country's expenditures in this area jumped more than tenfold. Additionally, U.S. Department of Justice statistics from 1998 show that 1.6 million people had been arrested for drug offenses, three times as many as in 1980. And 289,000 drug offenders were incarcerated in state prisons, 12 times the number in 1980.

But such enforcement measures often are embraced without the benefit of scientific evidence indicating whether they can indeed make much of a difference, or any at all. Existing surveys do not collect enough information to shed sufficient light on how drug markets operate, the committee said. Current surveys also do not illuminate the dynamics of how users begin to consume drugs, how they decide to step up their use, and what factors play a role in their decision to quit. In addition to addressing these gaps, surveys should obtain details about the quantity of drug consumption to more accurately estimate overall consumption rates -- a key factor in determining the economic vitality of illegal drug markets.

Accurate information on how much drugs cost also is needed to better comprehend how drug users respond to price changes. Although the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and other law-enforcement agencies collect some price information, these data do not provide a solid foundation for analyzing the causes and consequences of fluctuations. Current enforcement policy has indeed increased drug prices relative to what they otherwise would be, but the magnitude of the increase is not known. Moreover, there is little understanding of which policy components have brought about this result, the extent to which higher costs have decreased consumption, or which drug users have been most affected.

Better data alone, however, will not boost the country's understanding of effective drug-enforcement policy. The committee called for additional research on the extent to which producers and traffickers thwart enforcement in one geographic area by moving their smuggling routes or production elsewhere. Furthermore, research is needed to determine how the effects of supply-reduction activities should be measured, and to pinpoint the typical time lag between successful enforcement operations and changes in the way that producers and traffickers conduct business.

A rational drug policy also must take into account the costs and benefits of drug penalties, the committee said. For example, the relationship between the severity of penalties and the initiation and termination of drug use should be researched.

As part of its work, the committee reviewed studies on the value of a wide range of prevention activities and found mixed results. Some prevention efforts do appear to be helpful in delaying the initiation of drug use or reducing the frequency of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol use among minors. However, because most attention has been focused on evaluating school-based approaches, the success of many other strategies is unknown, the committee said.

At the same time, many popular programs -- such as "zero tolerance" projects -- have not been evaluated at all, or have been found to have little impact on illegal drug use, as in the case of D.A.R.E. Yet large sums of public funds continue to be allocated for programs whose effectiveness is unknown or known to be limited, the committee noted. Given such trends, current efforts to evaluate drug-prevention strategies should be significantly improved.

The study was sponsored by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides independent advice on science and technology issues under a congressional charter. A committee roster follows.

Pre-publication copies of Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us are available from the National Academy Press at the mailing address in the letterhead; tel. (202) 334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242. The cost of the report is $65.00 (prepaid) plus shipping charges of $4.50 for the first copy and $.95 for each additional copy. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information at the letterhead address (contacts listed above).

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs

Charles F. Manski (chair), Board of Trustees, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics Northwestern University Evanston, Ill.

James Anthony, Professor, Departments of Mental Hygiene and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, and Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

Alfred Blumstein, J. Erik Jonsson Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research, H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh

Richard J. Bonnie, John S. Battle Professor of Law School of Law, and Director Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Jeanette Covington, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.

Denise C. Gottfredson, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of Maryland, College Park

Philip B. Heymann, James Barr Ames Professor, Harvard Law School; Professor John F. Kennedy School of Government; and Director Center for Criminal Justice Harvard University Cambridge, Mass.

Joel L. Horowitz, Henry B. Tippie Research Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, University of Iowa, Iowa City

Robert J. MacCoun, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Department of Public Policy, Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California Berkeley

Mark H. Moore, Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice, Policy and Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

William D. Nordhaus, A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Charles P. O'Brien, Professor and Vice Chair of the Psychiatry Treatment Research Center, and Chief of Psychiatry VA Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Robert H. Porter, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Northwestern University, and Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Evanston, Ill.

Paul R. Rosenbaum, Professor of Statistics, Department of Statistics, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

James Q. Wilson, James Collins Professor of Management, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles

RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF

Carol V. Petrie Study Director

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