D rug trafficking is a significant public health and safety threat facing the United States. The federal government has taken a variety of actions aimed at countering drug trafficking. These activities have ranged from giving law enforcement more tools for combatting traffickers to establishing programs and initiatives to reduce the supply of and demand for illegal drugs. Within the larger framework of the federal government's efforts to counter drug trafficking is the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program. Congress initially created the HIDTA program through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 ( P.L. 100-690 ). Administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the HIDTA program provides assistance to law enforcement agencies—at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels—operating in areas of the United States that have been deemed as critical drug trafficking regions. These range from multiagency enforcement initiatives involving investigation, interdiction, and prosecution, to drug use prevention and treatment initiatives. It also examines issues that policymakers may consider as they debate the future of the HIDTA program: whether the county is still the appropriate unit of inclusion for the HIDTA, whether the criteria for inclusion remain adequate, whether the program is effective in accomplishing its goals, whether its tangential effects can be measured, whether the current bounds on the use of HIDTA funds are still appropriate, and which federal entity may be best suited to administer the program. The HIDTA program is designed with the county as its geographic unit of inclusion. There are 29 designated HIDTAs in the United States and its territories, as outlined in Table 1 . However, each of the HIDTA regions is governed by its own Executive Board. ONDCP notes that a "central feature of the HIDTA program is the discretion granted to these Executive Boards to design and implement initiatives that confront the specific drug trafficking threats in their respective regions." From the total HIDTA program appropriation, each HIDTA receives a base amount of funding to support initiatives in its region. Support. A prevailing issue will be how much funding to provide for the program. The current method of county-by-county inclusion has thus far encompassed counties in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These restrictions on the use of funding for prevention and treatment initiatives were enacted when the HIDTA program was formally authorized in the Office of National Drug Control Reauthorization Act of 2006 ( P.L. 109-469 ).
Drug trafficking is a significant public health and safety threat facing the United States. The federal government has taken a variety of actions aimed at countering this threat. These have ranged from giving law enforcement more tools for combatting traffickers to establishing programs and initiatives to reduce the supply of and demand for illegal drugs. Within the larger framework of the federal government's efforts to counter drug trafficking is the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program. The program supports multiagency activities ranging from enforcement initiatives involving investigation, interdiction, and prosecution, to drug use prevention and treatment initiatives.
Congress initially created the HIDTA program through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-690) and permanently authorized it in the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-469). The HIDTA program provides assistance to law enforcement agencies—at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels—operating in areas of the United States that have been deemed as critical drug trafficking regions. The program is designed with the county as its geographic unit of inclusion. There are 29 designated HIDTAs in the United States, cutting across all 50 states, the District Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The HIDTA program is administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). However, each of the HIDTA regions is governed by its own Executive Board, which has the flexibility to design and implement initiatives that confront the specific drug trafficking threats in its region. For FY2018, Congress appropriated $280.0 million for the HIDTA program, a 10.2% increase over the FY2017 appropriation of $254.0 million. Each HIDTA receives a base amount of funding (ranging from approximately $3.1 million to $14.6 million in FY2017) to support initiatives in its region, and the remainder is allocated to support specific initiatives throughout the country.
There are several issues that policymakers may consider when they debate the future of the HIDTA program. A prevailing issue will be how much funding to provide for the program. Congress may also choose to exercise oversight and evaluate related issues such as whether the county is still the appropriate unit of inclusion for the HIDTA, whether the criteria for inclusion remain adequate, whether the program is effective in accomplishing its goals, whether its tangential effects can be measured, whether the current bounds on the use of HIDTA funds are still appropriate, and which federal entity may be best suited to administer the program.