"The Office of National Drug Control Policy's FY 2004
Budget Request"
April 9, 2003
- Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center: $40 million.
In FY 2004, ONDCP is requesting $40 million to support the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC). ONDCP requested $40 million in FY 2003. The FY 2003 enacted level is $47.688 million. The aggregate request includes funding for two distinct components: Research and Development ($18 million) and the Technology Transfer program ($22 million).
Research and Development
Technology plays a crucial role in making progress toward our National Drug Control Strategy goals of achieving a 10 percent reduction in current use of illegal drugs in two years and a 25 percent reduction in current use of illegal drugs in five years. Through the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC) sponsorship of advanced neuroimaging and genetics instrumentation, substance abuse researchers are revealing the processes in the brain that result in addiction, and what can be done to reverse or mitigate these processes.
In FY 2004, CTAC demand reduction initiatives will complement those of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) by improving the investigative tools and instruments available for substance abuse, dependence, and addiction research. ONDCP/CTAC's Demand Reduction Technology Symposium held in July 2002 helped substance abuse researchers document the capabilities and limitations imposed by current technology. Subsequently, CTAC, in coordination with NIDA, is establishing a team of working groups to define a development program to advance the tools needed for improving substance abuse research. Each working group will focus on a particular aspect of technology identified as limiting research progress. An oversight committee composed of group leaders and other government officials will direct the working groups. Initial focus will be on infrastructure development plans, access strategies to novel ligands, and data-sharing approaches.
During FY 2004, new neuroimaging facilities dedicated to addiction research will be opened at the University of North Dakota, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program in Baltimore, Maryland. This knowledge will provide for the development of better treatments to heal America's drug users, and will provide a better understanding of why addiction takes place so that we can stop use before it starts.
CTAC sponsored research to examine the impact of drug abuse on the developing brain in children and adolescents, including an adolescent sleep disturbance study. An exhibit also was designed in conjunction with the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix, Arizona to increase the awareness of adolescents on the dangers of drug abuse. The exhibit has been more successful than ever imagined and now is being expanded and replicated at additional science centers and locations where adolescents frequent.
Across America, the inability of most police, firefighters, and other public safety agencies in the same town, city, county or region to speak with each other on their radios is now the focus of national attention. This is not a new problem, but one of growing significance and consequence. A communications interoperability system developed in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration's Denver field office and the Denver metro regional drug task forces successfully demonstrated a capability to communicate effectively during joint operations with each agency using its own dissimilar and incompatible radio.
With the click of a mouse, this high tech digital switchboard allows the smooth interconnection of all participating radio systems - local, county, state and federal. While this system is not a substitute for 700 MHz or 800 MHz statewide modernizations that add geographic coverage, it does add function to existing coverage areas that is otherwise unavailable. That functionality - easy and smooth communications across all agency lines and radio platforms - is crucial to planned multi-agency operations and emergency response.
Our wireless communications interoperability system installed in the Denver area last year, custom-engineered by the U.S. Navy's top command and control laboratory, is in daily use and allows Denver metro city, county, state, FBI, DEA, Customs and National Guard radios to talk to one another as though they were all on the same system. Since then, the Denver area wireless communications interoperability system has been installed throughout the entire state of Colorado. The systems engineering approach to wireless communications interoperability in Colorado makes our design approach a cost effective, natural choice for a national rollout across the country. The state of Arizona and the Office of Domestic Preparedness are looking to the CTAC model and to its engineering team to assist in deploying additional communications interoperability systems through the Technology Transfer Program.
Technology Transfer Program
The Technology Transfer Program (TTP), relies on technical and operational performance testbed evaluations and outreach to industry to acquire additional items for law enforcement. The TTP process took several years of evolution to realize its full potential. Over the past five years, this program has brought advanced drug crime-fighting technology and associated training to over 20 percent of the state and local police departments and sheriffs' offices. The Technology Transfer Program makes available state-of-the-art, affordable, easily integrated and maintainable tools to enhance the capabilities of state and local law enforcement agencies for counterdrug missions. It provides information technology and analytical tools, communications interoperability, tracking and surveillance, and drug detection devices. Hands-on training and maintenance support are provided to all recipients.
It is not a grants program; rather, the drug crime fighting technologies available from the program are limited to a catalog of items proven to be operationally effective by federal, state and local law enforcement. The TTP maintains extensive records of state and local applications and jurisdiction statistics on every aspect of the program including the status of deliveries, departments receiving equipment, and training records.
