NCJ Number
146744
Date Published
1993
Length
100 pages
Annotation
The operations of the Office of National Drug Control Policy were reviewed to determine whether Congress should reauthorize it and ways to enhance its performance if it is reauthorized.
Abstract
The Office was created by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and charged with annually developing and coordinating the implementation of a national drug control strategy for 5 years until November 1993. The review focused on overall progress in drug control, measures of progress, the Office's involvement in the collection of data used to direct policy and measure progress, and the drug budget certification process. The analysis revealed that although drug abuse has declined among casual users, no progress has occurred in the efforts to reduce hard-core drug use. In addition, the data sources the Office uses do not effectively measure hard-core drug abuse. A crucial challenge if the Office is reauthorized is to improve measures used to assess progress. In addition, the Office and Federal drug control agencies need to work more cooperatively to develop, assess, and coordinate national drug control policy. Additional recommendations, figures, tables, footnotes, appended background information and results, and list of other General Accounting Office reports on Federal drug control efforts