Office of National Drug Control Policy: Reauthorization in the 115th Congress

TAKEAWAYS:

• ONDCP has not submitted a reauthorization proposal to Congress this year. 
• With opioid related deaths increasing in 2016, ONDCP has not submitted the National Drug Control Strategy to Congress, even though it’s supposed to be released February 1st each year. 
• Much more needs to be done in order to combat America’s opioid crisis.
• ONDCP’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program facilitates coordination between federal, state and local anti-drug entities to focus resources on common threats. The program has produced dramatic results in ebbing the flow of narcotics into communities.

• The hearing will examine options for reauthorizing the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and its effort to coordinate drug control policy and spending across the federal government.
• To examine how ONDCP is uniquely equipped to coordinate efforts to eliminate and mitigate the significant harm communities across America have suffered at the hands of drug abuse, specifically prescription pain relievers (opioids) and heroin.

• Congress created ONDCP in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.
• ONDCP is responsible for overseeing the Administration’s drug control efforts and advising the Administration on national and international drug control policies and strategies.
• The agency is also responsible for ensuring the effective coordination of drug programs across the federal government, as well as with various other governmental, non-profit, and private entities.
• Opioid-related overdoses have increased to an estimated 59,000 – 65,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2016. 
• In December 2015, the Committee held a hearing examine various proposals for ONDCP reauthorization, which lapsed in 2010.