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The420Guy
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In an unusually harsh critique of an agency with a strong global
reputation, the White House has questioned the ability of the Drug
Enforcement Administration to stem the flow of narcotics and is threatening
to give the agency its smallest budget increase in 15 years.
The agency "is unable to demonstrate progress in reducing the availability
of illegal drugs in the United States," the Office of Management and Budget
wrote in an assessment released this week as part of the budget plan. The
agency lacks clear long-term strategies and goals, its managers are not
held accountable for problems, and its financial controls do not comply
with federal standards, the review found.
The findings raise uncertainties for the agency at a time when Washington
expects it to enlarge its antidrug role. That is because the F.B.I. is
moving 400 agents off drug cases to terrorism, and the drug agency is being
asked to pick up the slack.
Officials at the agency and its parent, the Justice Department, said the
agency was working to address many of the concerns in the report. They said
the report was more a reflection of the agency's failure to communicate its
successes than its ability to fight drug trafficking.
"It's not that we're doing things wrong or we've been ineffective," a
spokesman, Will Glaspy, said. "It's more that we just need to do a better
job of defining our accomplishments."
Officials at the agency pointed to a growing number of seizures for some
types of drugs along with the reduced purity of street drugs as evidence of
their success in squeezing suppliers out of business.
Critics say that drug purity has incre! ased and that drugs have become
easier to buy than ever before. President Bush acknowledged in his report
on drug strategy for 2002 that use among young people was at "unacceptably
high levels" and that "in recent years we have lost ground" in reducing
illegal use.
The report on the agency was one of 234 that the Office of Management and
Budget completed for 20 percent of the programs and agencies as it tries
for the first time to assign standards and criteria to budget review.
Officials stressed that the criticisms were not uncommon. Like the agency,
half the programs reviewed received overall ratings of "results not
demonstrated."
Still, the severity of the report on the drug agency caught law enforcement
officials off guard because of the agency's prominence, size and generally
solid reputation in fighting trafficking. Unlike sister agencies like the
F.B.I. and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the drug agency has
largely avoided major scandals and calls ! for reform from members of
Congress. It has enjoyed generally! strong support on Capitol Hill, and its
former director, Asa Hutchinson, who left last week to join the Homeland
Security Department, was popular among conservatives in Congress.
With that support, the agency has seen its budget more than double since
1995, according to the Justice Department. But in the White House budget
released on Monday, the financing is to remain essentially flat at $1.56
billion.
Its growth of less than 1 percent is dwarfed by increases in financing at
other law enforcement agencies of 10 percent or more. Mr. Glaspy said it
represented the smallest increase for the agency since 1988.
The performance assessments for the drug agency and other bureaus "were one
factor, but clearly not the only factor in funding decisions," said Trent
Duffy, a spokesman for the White House on the budget.
The overarching concern in financing law enforcement, officials said, is
the need to make counterterrorism the top priority. The Bush administration
has sought t! o link drug use to the threat of terrorism, and other Justice
Department drug enforcement programs received proposed increases of up to
10 percent in the budget. But the drug agency will be asked to scale back
spending in areas like community enforcement even as it seeks to add agents
on the street, officials said.
"When you're fighting a war against terrorism, there is not an infinite
amount of money to go around," an official at the Justice Department said.
"We are putting significant funds into the war against drugs. But we have
to be realistic as to what we can afford."
Critics said the critique of the agency was long overdue and could start a
debate about how the war on drugs is working.
"The emperor has no clothes," said Eric F. Sterling, the president of the
Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Silver Spring, Md., and a specialist
on drug enforcement. The White House report "should really shake up our
national revelry with drug enforcement and generate a major ! re-evaluation
of our antidrug efforts."
Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group in
New York that promotes alternative policies, said he was "pleasantly
surprised" by the findings.
"Typically," Mr. Nadelmann said, "the D.E.A. has gotten a pretty free ride.
Nobody was really held to account for the issue of reducing overall drug
use. But this suggests some measure of seriousness about actually putting
in a set of real criteria."
Published: February 05, 2003
Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Eric Lichtblau
Copyright: 2003 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Webpage: Breaking News, World News & Multimedia
reputation, the White House has questioned the ability of the Drug
Enforcement Administration to stem the flow of narcotics and is threatening
to give the agency its smallest budget increase in 15 years.
The agency "is unable to demonstrate progress in reducing the availability
of illegal drugs in the United States," the Office of Management and Budget
wrote in an assessment released this week as part of the budget plan. The
agency lacks clear long-term strategies and goals, its managers are not
held accountable for problems, and its financial controls do not comply
with federal standards, the review found.
The findings raise uncertainties for the agency at a time when Washington
expects it to enlarge its antidrug role. That is because the F.B.I. is
moving 400 agents off drug cases to terrorism, and the drug agency is being
asked to pick up the slack.
Officials at the agency and its parent, the Justice Department, said the
agency was working to address many of the concerns in the report. They said
the report was more a reflection of the agency's failure to communicate its
successes than its ability to fight drug trafficking.
"It's not that we're doing things wrong or we've been ineffective," a
spokesman, Will Glaspy, said. "It's more that we just need to do a better
job of defining our accomplishments."
Officials at the agency pointed to a growing number of seizures for some
types of drugs along with the reduced purity of street drugs as evidence of
their success in squeezing suppliers out of business.
Critics say that drug purity has incre! ased and that drugs have become
easier to buy than ever before. President Bush acknowledged in his report
on drug strategy for 2002 that use among young people was at "unacceptably
high levels" and that "in recent years we have lost ground" in reducing
illegal use.
The report on the agency was one of 234 that the Office of Management and
Budget completed for 20 percent of the programs and agencies as it tries
for the first time to assign standards and criteria to budget review.
Officials stressed that the criticisms were not uncommon. Like the agency,
half the programs reviewed received overall ratings of "results not
demonstrated."
Still, the severity of the report on the drug agency caught law enforcement
officials off guard because of the agency's prominence, size and generally
solid reputation in fighting trafficking. Unlike sister agencies like the
F.B.I. and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the drug agency has
largely avoided major scandals and calls ! for reform from members of
Congress. It has enjoyed generally! strong support on Capitol Hill, and its
former director, Asa Hutchinson, who left last week to join the Homeland
Security Department, was popular among conservatives in Congress.
With that support, the agency has seen its budget more than double since
1995, according to the Justice Department. But in the White House budget
released on Monday, the financing is to remain essentially flat at $1.56
billion.
Its growth of less than 1 percent is dwarfed by increases in financing at
other law enforcement agencies of 10 percent or more. Mr. Glaspy said it
represented the smallest increase for the agency since 1988.
The performance assessments for the drug agency and other bureaus "were one
factor, but clearly not the only factor in funding decisions," said Trent
Duffy, a spokesman for the White House on the budget.
The overarching concern in financing law enforcement, officials said, is
the need to make counterterrorism the top priority. The Bush administration
has sought t! o link drug use to the threat of terrorism, and other Justice
Department drug enforcement programs received proposed increases of up to
10 percent in the budget. But the drug agency will be asked to scale back
spending in areas like community enforcement even as it seeks to add agents
on the street, officials said.
"When you're fighting a war against terrorism, there is not an infinite
amount of money to go around," an official at the Justice Department said.
"We are putting significant funds into the war against drugs. But we have
to be realistic as to what we can afford."
Critics said the critique of the agency was long overdue and could start a
debate about how the war on drugs is working.
"The emperor has no clothes," said Eric F. Sterling, the president of the
Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Silver Spring, Md., and a specialist
on drug enforcement. The White House report "should really shake up our
national revelry with drug enforcement and generate a major ! re-evaluation
of our antidrug efforts."
Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group in
New York that promotes alternative policies, said he was "pleasantly
surprised" by the findings.
"Typically," Mr. Nadelmann said, "the D.E.A. has gotten a pretty free ride.
Nobody was really held to account for the issue of reducing overall drug
use. But this suggests some measure of seriousness about actually putting
in a set of real criteria."
Published: February 05, 2003
Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Eric Lichtblau
Copyright: 2003 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Webpage: Breaking News, World News & Multimedia
