The Drug War: Where The Money Goes

To help coordinate the work of a dozen different agencies, the Justice Department operates the Organized Crime/Drug Enforcement Task Force program, which in '97 has a budget of $359 million. Participating are the DEA, FBI, INS, U.S. Marshals Service, Customs, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, IRS, Coast Guard, federal prosecutors and several other Justice Department offices. The 13 regional Task Force bureaus, soon to be consolidated into nine, often overlap with the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas task forces funded by the drug czar's office.

Department of Housing and Urban Development

FY '97: $320 million; FY '98: $290 million

Just under 2 percent of the giant Department of Housing and Urban Development budget of more than $19 billion was devoted to drug control this year. Most of that is doled out to public-housing authorities in the form of federal grants to assist them with drug-control planning, strategies, screening and law enforcement. Much of HUD's effort is aimed at ridding public housing of drug users and traffickers. HUD got serious about drug control in 1996 with the passage of the Housing Opportunity Program Extension Act, and President Clinton's announcement that March of the "One Strike and You're Out" program. The One Strike program was launched after pilot projects in Toledo, Ohio; Greensboro, N.C.; and Macon, Ga. In Toledo, 41 drug offenders were evicted in its first year, and one of every seven applicants for residence was rejected because of criminal histories or unfavorable landlord references.

Federal Prisoner Detention

FY '97: $246 million; FY '98: $281 million

Last year the number of jail days for prisoners arrested on drug charges and awaiting trial or sentencing amounted to $3.39 million, at a cost of $54.70 a day; in '98, that cost will rise to $61.38 per day.

U.S. Marshals Service

FY '97: $261 million; FY '98: 273 million

The U.S. Marshals Service's chief contributions to drug-enforcement efforts are its work in arresting federal prisoners and producing drug offenders in court. More than half of its $501 million '98 budget request is allocated to the War on Drugs, for a total of $273 million. In '96, marshals made 18,250 felony arrests, of which nearly half, 8,936, were drug related. As part of the Department of Justice, the marshals produced more than 264,000 prisoners held on drug charges for court appearances in 1996 and took custody of 24,079 property seizures in drug-related cases.

U.S. Attorneys

FY '97: $250 million; FY '98: $269 million

Scattered across 94 federal districts are the U.S. attorneys, Justice Department foot soldiers and front-line prosecutors in the War on Drugs. More than one-fourth of what federal prosecutors do involves drug offenses, meaning that Washington will spend a quarter of a billion dollars this year on anti-drug legal actions in federal courts. In 1996, U.S. attorneys filed 10,487 drug-related cases, and that total is expected to rise to 11,500 in 1997 and 13,000 in '98.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

FY '97: $176 million; FY '98: $232 million

For the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the target is the link between drugs, gangs, organized crime and guns. The percentage of ATF activities devoted to drugs is projected to increase from 35 percent to 39 percent next year, to $232 million, even as the ATF's overall budget leaps 20 percent. Next year, the ATF, part of the Treasury Department, will use $30.8 million in drug-control funds to construct a new forensic laboratory and research and development center, and, according to the drug czar's budget summary, to "continue its efforts against drug organizations by targeting firearms-related crimes committed by career criminals, and arson- and explosives-related incidents committed by those involved in drug distribution." In '97, ATF expects to make 3,780 arrests, with a conviction rate of 85 percent.

State Department

FY '97: $193 million; FY '98: $214 million

The State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs coordinates American drug policy with other nations, especially in South America. In '97, according to the latest State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, three countries absorbed nearly 80 percent of State Department military and law-enforcement assistance on drug issues: Bolivia ($45 million), Colombia ($30 million) and Peru ($23 million). Largely because of a $17 million expansion in military and law-enforcement aid to Peru next year, spending in '98 will rise to $214 million. "We set the policy for all foreign narcotics matters," says Susan Snyder, spokeswoman for the State Department's anti-drug work. "We're the only agency that can give money and equipment to other countries. Military aid goes through us."

This year, the State Department will spend $86 million on "law-enforcement assistance and institutional development" and another $9 million for the DEA, the Coast Guard and the U.S. Customs Service to train 6,739 foreign personnel. In Haiti, the State Department, in partnership with the Coast Guard, has helped that country create a coast guard virtually from scratch.

The State Department operates its own anti-drug air force of 64 planes, at an annual cost of $31 million, which engage in aerial spraying of herbicides, partly through a contract with Dyncorp, of Dallas. It also funds aircraft and helicopters that are operated and maintained by local pilots and mechanics in countries like Peru.

Each year the State Department evaluates the drug-control efforts of other nations, issuing a report to the White House, which must give those nations its stamp of approval. In '97 the White House refused to certify Afghanistan, Burma, Colombia, Iran and Nigeria. Three others ? Belize, Lebanon and Pakistan ? escaped decertification only because the White House deemed them essential to national security.

Centers for Disease Control

FY '97: $83 million; FY '98: $115 million

The recent growth of HIV/AIDS cases has been driven chiefly by intravenous drug users who share needles. This has drawn the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control into America's War on Drugs. Since 1996, the CDC's budget for drug control has nearly doubled, to the $115 million slated for 1998. The Center, a part of the HHS, provides funding to state and local health departments and education agencies, plus a wide range of private social-service groups, universities and hospitals for drug-related HIV "counseling, testing, referral and partner-notification services," according to the drug czar's office. About one-fourth of the CDC's anti-drug work last year was aimed at tobacco use among young people.

U.S. Secret Service

FY '97: $80 million; FY '98: $90 million

More than 15 percent of the Secret Service's $531 million budget is devoted to drug-control work, focusing on counterfeiting, electronic-funds-transfer fraud, computer-access fraud and related financial crimes. "Our original focus was the suppression of counterfeiting," says special agent Jim Mackin, a Secret Service spokesman. Only later, he says, did the agency, a part of the Treasury Department, develop its primary mission: to protect the president, the vice president and other officials, including presidential candidates and visiting foreign leaders. Recent drug cases include the arrest in Panama of three Colombian nationals in possession of $110,000 in counterfeit U.S. currency and 450 kilograms of cocaine; the seizure of $4 million in counterfeit U.S. bills in Colombia; and, in Oklahoma, the seizure of $30 million in counterfeit money that a drug trafficker had planned to use to buy narcotics in South America.

Internal Revenue Service

FY '97: $71 million; FY '98: $73 million

The IRS Criminal Investigation division spends about one-fourth of its time on crimes related to illegal drug money. Also a part of the Treasury Department, the IRS' high-profile cases have included the 1996 conviction of dozens of people on money-laundering and related charges in a Boston heroin-distribution ring; the 1995 conviction of a prominent St. Augustine, Fla., auto dealer who sold luxury cars to drug dealers for cash; and the conviction of a bank executive in Michigan who laundered $7 million between 1984 and 1992 on behalf of a Jamaican cocaine, heroin and money-laundering organization.

Department of Labor

FY '97: $60 million; FY '98: $66 million

The Department of Labor this year will spend nearly $60 million to help participants in Job Corps and Job Training Partnership Act programs overcome problems of substance abuse. About a half-million Americans will take part in Job Corps programs this year, served through a nationwide network of training centers, each of which is required to have a full-time substance-abuse counselor. Job Corps participants undergo drug testing and are required to sign a Zero Tolerance for Violence and Drugs pledge.

Federal Law Enforcement Training Center

FY '97: $39 million; FY '98: $61 million

At the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, in Glynco, Ga., demands by 70 government agencies for the teaching of investigation skills and uniformed-police instruction have nearly doubled the Center's budget in two years ? and 60 percent of the Enforcement Training Center's work is drug-related, according to spokesman Roger Busby. Last year, the Center, part of the Treasury Department, graduated 19,353 students, who came from virtually every federal agency, state and local law enforcement, and even some foreign countries. "We're in the position of having to lease off-site motel rooms," says Busby. "We haven't been able to get ahead of the housing crunch here."

Administration for Children and Families

FY '97: $70 million; FY '98: $54 million

A part of the HHS, this $36 billion-a-year agency will devote a scant $54 million to drug issues in '98-mostly through grants to runaway- and homeless-youth programs, as well as through the $26 million it sets aside for Head Start, the $4 billion early-childhood-development program.

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Health Resources and Services Administration

FY '97: $46 million; FY '98: $48 million

States, communities and a variety of nonprofit health-care and social-service agencies can tap into the multibillion-dollar Health Resources and Services Administration, which directs just over 1 percent of its funds to drug-related work. The HRSA, administrators for the Ryan White Funds for AIDS victims and a part of the HHS, reports that about one-third of people with AIDS are in the category of intravenous drug users. To manage the $770 million in annual Ryan White program money, the HRSA announced in August the creation of an HIV/AIDS Bureau; about 6 percent of its funds provide care for people with HIV/AIDS in substance-abuse treatment centers.

Indian Health Service

FY '97: $43 million; FY '98: $43 million

The $43 million devoted by the HHS' Indian Health Service to treatment and prevention programs for American Indian and Alaskan native users and abusers of alcohol and other drugs is not enough, says Dr. Johanna Clevenger, principal consultant for the Indian Health Service's Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Program. "We've only got about 60 to 75 percent of what we need," she says, pointing out that the IHS can't adequately fund group homes, halfway houses and after-school programs to supplement its primary-care facilities.

Corporation for National Service

FY '97: $31 million; FY '98: $40 million

The Corporation for National Service, created by President Clinton in 1993, is a public-private partnership that operates as a sort of domestic version of the Peace Corps. About 5 percent of the CNS' $807 million '98 budget request is for drug-related work. In New York, for instance, workers take care of children of crack-addicted mothers.

Food and Drug Administration

FY '97: $6 million; FY '98: $35 million

About 4 percent of the FDA's budget for '98 will be devoted to a program to stop youth from smoking, and falls under the national drug-control campaign. In addition, the FDA, an agency of the HHS, will spend about $1 million in '98 on programs related to illegal drugs, including ongoing efforts to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of legal drug-alternatives to alleviate narcotic dependency.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

FY '97: $29 million; FY '98: $31 million

If your local police pull you over and ask you to take a voluntary blood or urine test, it might be because in '97, the DOT's NHTSA devoted nearly 10 percent of its $300 million budget to programs aimed at reducing the number of drug-impaired motorists on the road.

Department of Justice, Criminal Division

FY '97: $25 million; FY '98: $28 million

Allocating nearly 30 percent of its $88 million annual budget to cases involving illegal drugs, the criminal division expects to open 150 investigations this year, bring 117 cases and handle thousands of interjurisdictional legal matters. This work is carried out by 218 full-time employees in five offices dealing with organized crime, drugs, international law, terrorism and money laundering.

U.S. Intelligence Community

FY '97: $27 million; FY '98: $27 million

The budget summary of the Office of National Drug Control Policy registers just $27 million for the work of a Justice Department-operated drug intelligence clearinghouse in Pennsylvania and shows a total of $159 million for "intelligence" on drugs. At least a dozen agencies collect drug data, from the FBI and the DEA to the U.S. Forest Service, and the DEA manages an interagency unit in Texas called the El Paso Intelligence Center. Much of the intelligence community's budget for anti-drug work is hidden within the Pentagon's enormous account. According to ONDCP, those funds show up in the War on Drugs under the Defense Department's proposed $458 million interdiction budget for '98.

Federal Aviation Administration

FY '97: $19 million; FY '98: $23 million