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Director Gil Kerlikowske
Office of National Drug Control Policy
750 Seventeenth Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20503
Dear Mr. Kerlikowske:
We want to extend our congratulations on your confirmation as the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. We look forward to working closely with you as you evaluate ways to improve and strengthen our nation’s drug policy.
During your Senate confirmation hearing, you stated that it is time for a renewed focus on the prevention and treatment of drug addiction. We could not agree more, and wanted to highlight the important work of the Drug Free Communities Program (DFC) housed at ONDCP. We both have worked actively with community anti-drug coalitions in our Districts and have seen firsthand how effective this type of broad-based, grassroots effort can be in organizing a community to address anti-drug issues.
First funded by Congress in 1997, DFC now supports 795 community anti-drug coalitions throughout the country. The program’s national cross-site evaluation has proven that communities with anti-drug coalitions have a significantly lower youth drug and alcohol use rate than communities without anti-drug coalitions. Undoubtedly, DFC, in conjunction with other federal anti-drug programs, has contributed to the twenty-five percent decline in youth drug use over the past seven years.
Any effective national anti-drug strategy must target prevention, and the DFC program recognizes that tools to prevent drug use come from every sector of the community, including schools, law enforcement, businesses, religious institutions, after-school programs, and the home. The success of DFC is attributable to two factors: it empowers local citizens to become directly involved in solving their own community’s drug issues; and it utilizes a data-driven approach to planning and implementing drug prevention programs that are specific to each community’s needs.
Over the past decade, the capacity of the program has grown steadily and significantly. In FY1998, the first year of federal funding, the $10 million appropriation provided new grants to 93 local coalitions; by FY2008, the $90 million appropriation awarded 199 new grants and provided continued funding for another 596 grantees. To facilitate the development and oversight of coalitions throughout the country, Congress began funding the National Community Anti-Drug Coalition Institute in 2002. The Institute helps to develop substance abuse prevention policy, while also providing coalitions with training, technical assistance, and guidance. DFC Mentoring Grants were created in FY2007 to partner successful coalitions with developing coalitions, thereby promoting the shared knowledge of best practices and effective development strategies across the grassroots level. Again, we have seen firsthand the effective training of the Institute and the mentoring that is now going on between coalitions.
While such growth and successes are undeniably encouraging, there is much more that can be done. Despite DFC’s significant bipartisan backing, funding cannot keep pace with demand. Historically, financial constraints have prevented DFC from issuing grants to sixty-six percent of its applicants. Consequentially, only one-third of local anti-drug coalitions that have sought funding have been approved. To help meet this demand, we are seeking a $100 million appropriation for FY2010, a $10 million increase over FY2009.
We look forward to working with you on the broad range of anti-drug issues and hope you will call on us if we may be of assistance to you. We especially look forward to joint efforts to build on the success of the DFC program.
With every good wish,
Sincerely,
Sander Levin
Member of Congress
Mark Souder
Member of Congress
(####)
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