Feds pump billions into anti-drug efforts

By Gretchen Schuldt

The federal government's drug battle goes on.

From pushing new technology that differentiates legal hemp from increasingly legal marijuana to funding opioid treatment, the government is spending billions in an effort to control the use and supply of illegal drugs in the country. If the War on Drugs has been lost, the federal government hasn't surrendered.

There is a piece of good news. The bill prohibits the Justice Department from using its resources to prevent Wisconsin and other states "from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana."

In a move just a step or six behind the times, the new appropriation bill directs the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to make available to state and local law enforcement kits that can distinguish between hemp and marijuana so marijuana busts are easier for police agencies.

Marijuana is legal in 35 states. 

Hemp, in general, is cannabis without the high. In Wisconsin, legal hemp must contain less than 0.3% of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Marijuana and hemp smell the same and look similar, leading to confusion and errors in arrests and prosecutions.

The appropriations measure, better known as the "Coronavirus Relief Bill," tells the DEA to work to "ensure state and local law enforcement have access to this field test technology so they can more efficiently conduct their drug interdiction efforts at the local level," according to a congressional summary.

The bill also directs the agency to make periodic reports to congressional committees on DEA's success in sharing the technology.

An earlier post on justice-related programs funded through the bill is here.

The bill also includes:
​

• $3.8 billion to fund substance abuse treatment through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, including $1.5 billion for State Opioid Response Grants and $50 million for Indian tribes.
  
  
• $1.5 billion for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
  
  
• $914.4 million for Department of Defense drug interdiction programs and counter-drug activities.

 

• $550.5 million for the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Forces. Of that, $385.2 million is for investigations and $165.3 million is for prosecutors. The report says the government should hire more prosecutors "to help stop the flow of illicit drugs and reduce violent crime associated with the drug trade."
  
  
• $394 million for an anti-opioid initiative, with funding for drug courts, mental health courts, residential substance abuse treatment, veterans treatment courts, and prescription drug monitoring.
  
  
• $290 million for drug control activities consistent with the approved strategy for each of the designated High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas
  
  
• $185 million for Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) Programs, with direction that funding be directed at toward "prevention and education efforts, effective responses to those affected by substance abuse, and services for treatment and recovery from addiction."
  
  
• $128.2 million for various programs, including Drug-Free Communities Program, anti-doping programs, and drug court training and technical assistance.
  
  
• $110 million for the Rural Communities Opioids Response Program, intended to reduce barriers to substance abuse treatment in rural areas.
  
  
• $60.3 million in Internal Revenue Service funding for the Interagency Crime and Drug Enforcement program.
  
  
• $50 million for a new laboratory in the New England area to help meet the need for drug testing, which is especially acute when law enforcement offices are not close to a DEA lab. "This issue is a critical risk for areas of the country that have been hardest hit by increases in synthetic drugs, including fentanyl, as well as rural offices or those divisions that do not have their own laboratories, as agents must drive long distances to reach the nearest laboratory for testing. "
  
  
• $43.2 million for the Civil Air Patrol Corporation's operation and maintenance, readiness, counter-drug activities, and drug demand reduction activities involving youth programs;
  
  
• Unspecified support for DEA's efforts to reverse the decline in special agent staffing "to combat the ongoing methamphetamine and opioid crises, particularly in geographic areas most broadly harmed by methamphetamine and opioid trafficking."
  
  
• $17 million to improve the ability of forensic scientists to deal with the challenges, such as identifying new synthetic drugs, that the opioid and synthetic drug crises have brought.


• $16.5 million in Youth Mentoring Grants targeted at "helping youth impacted by substance abuse, including opioids and methamphetamine."
  
  
• $10 million to clean up hazardous materials at methamphetamine and fentanyl labs. 

---