II. Executive Summary
Supply and Demand Resources
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 requires ONDCP to report on spending for programs dedicated to supply reduction and demand reduction activities. Of the total $17.1 billion requested for FY 1999, $11.2 billion is for supply reduction programs (66 percent) and $5.9 billion is for demand reduction (34 percent). The ratio of spending for supply and demand reduction is the same as for FY 1998. Of the total increase of $1.1 billion in resources requested for FY 1999, $602 million is requested for supply reduction, and $491 million is requested for demand reduction.
Although examining the federal drug-control budget by supply and demand reduction components has been a conventional approach, the breakout of these data in this way produces a somewhat artificial accounting of resources spent on Federal drug control. This division overlooks the fact that many supply reduction activities are intrinsic functions of the federal government. Control of our national borders and international counterdrug programs, for example, are performed only by the federal government. By contrast, most demand reduction activities are responsibilities that are shared by various levels of government and the private sector. Furthermore, some programs listed under supply reduction include a variety of criminal justice activities that are not narrowly focused on drug control alone. This includes, for example, the $1.0 billion in the drug budget spent on prosecution or the $2.8 billion spent on Federal prisons. Therefore, including these resources in the supply/demand calculation overstates the importance of supply reduction in the overall Federal effort and understates the true proportion of the drug budget devoted to demand reduction activities.
