By Laura DeKoven Waxman
June 28, 2010

The new National Drug Control Strategy must be balanced if former Attorney General Edwin Meese, former National Drug Control Policy Director William Bennett, and The U.S. Conference of Mayors all think it is good, as Drug Policy Director R. Gil Kerlikowske told mayors during a June 12 special joint session of the Criminal and Social Justice and Children, Health and Human Services Committees in Oklahoma City. He said that to move toward a better balance between supply and demand reduction, the new strategy calls for a 14 percent increase in prevention, a four percent increase in treatment, and a slight increase in criminal justice.

Kerlikowske discussed the international aspects of the drug problem. He said that while the appetite for cocaine has declined in the U.S., it has increased in some other countries. Spain now has the highest per capita rate of drug use, but the U.S. still has the most lucrative market because of its size, he explained. Drug traffickers are paying their workers in product, not money, thus exacerbating the problem, he said, calling for focusing on both money and guns, and for achieving greater border security along both the southern and northern borders.

He termed drug abuse an intractable, very complex problem. He explained that more people die from drugs than from gunshot wounds, and in 16 states more die from drugs than from car crashes. He discussed the problem of drugged driving, reporting that 16 percent of the drivers stopped on a Friday or Saturday night test positive for illicit drugs. He explained further that prescription drugs now drive the drug problem.

Although there has been a significant decline in recent years in drug use among young people, that decline has hit a plateau and young people's attitudes toward drugs are softening, Kerlikowske explained. He briefed the mayors on the retooled youth anti-drug media campaign which the Office of National Drug Control Policy is launching this month. Above the Influence focuses on the substances most often abused by teens, including drugs, marijuana, and alcohol — and includes messages targeted both nationally and to specific communities. He said that the Above the Influence brand remains one of the most widely recognized youth brands in the country and continues to move anti-drug beliefs in a favorable direction.  He played several of the ads for the mayors — cautioning them that they were directed at young people, not them. Information on the campaign is available at http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/mediacampaign/index.html.