Pubdate: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 Source: Washington Post (DC) Page: A17 Copyright: 2008 The Washington Post Company Contact: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491 Author: Christopher Lee, Washington Post Staff Writer DRUG OFFICE'S BUDGET TACTICS FAULTED Experts Note Difficulty in Tracking and Evaluating Priorities Despite congressional demands for transparency, the Office of National Drug Control Policy has a murky budget that understates its emphasis on popular law enforcement efforts over treatment and prevention programs, budget and drug policy experts say. In February, the White House requested $14.1 billion for drug control efforts in fiscal 2009, a 3.4 percent increase. Nearly two-thirds would go to law enforcement, interdiction efforts and programs to destroy drug crops abroad. Just over a third, or $4.9 billion, would fund treatment and prevention efforts. "The federal government will continue to do its part to keep our young people safe, and I urge all Americans to do the same," President Bush said in a March 1 radio address. But the White House has made the job harder, experts say. In 2002, the administration narrowed the way it counts federal anti-drug spending, which is scattered across programs in about two dozen agencies. As a result, billions of dollars spent by several agencies moved off of the drug control office's books. The White House argued that the new budget method merely stripped out spending over which the drug control office had no influence, such as law enforcement grants that only minimally involved anti-drug efforts. "The way the budget had been compiled for years was designed to make the drug control budget look as big as it possibly could," said Tom Riley, a drug office spokesman. "This was to really say, 'Let's make the budget more about the things we actually manage and the things that we actually do focus on.' " But some lawmakers have complained that the new method does not provide the full picture, and in 2006 Congress directed the administration to return to the old one. That has not happened. The latest budget request contains an appendix summarizing nearly $4.8 billion in spending of the sort lawmakers want in the more detailed main budget, including more than $4 billion at the Justice Department. The drug office's failure to comply "is part of a pattern of practices that frustrates Congress's and the public's ability to measure the effectiveness of our nation's drug control policies," said Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), chairman of a House oversight subcommittee that will hold a hearing on the office's budget today. Experts say lawmakers and the public need a more complete accounting to properly assess federal anti-drug efforts. In an analysis of past budgets, John Carnevale, a former Clinton administration drug control office budget director, found that since fiscal 2002 federal spending on "supply side" efforts -- interdiction, law enforcement and overseas activities -- has grown 57 percent. Spending on treatment and prevention grew 2.7 percent. Yet research has found that prevention and treatment do more to reduce drug consumption and drug-related crime, said economist Rosalie Pacula, co-director of Rand Corp.'s Drug Policy Research Center. "That doesn't mean you destroy the enforcement budget," said Pacula, who is set to testify today. "It's just saying that for increases in the budget, you'll get your biggest bang for the buck by putting it into treatment resources." Riley defended the administration's approach. He said some of the biggest opponents of changes to supply-side efforts, such as local law enforcement grants, have been members of Congress protecting their turf. "There was no choice to sit at the dial of drug policy and say, hmm, let's move from demand to supply," Riley said. "That's not what's happened at all. In fact, I would say there has been a very powerful appreciation and understanding of the power of prevention, treatment and recovery in this administration." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake