Demand-Side Policies

Demand-side drug policies aim to reduce the demand for the product primarily through prevention programs and the treatment of existing addicts. Supply-side drug policies, in contrast, have the goal of making it more difficult to buy illegal drugs through incarcerating manufacturers and dealers, destroying crops, or disrupting other parts of the supply chain. While “supply-side” and “demand-side” may describe noncomplementary approaches in other fields such as economics; in drug policy, the terms are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. [Page 195]The relationship is more analogous to other areas of law enforcement, where policies and practices may deal either with the victim side through safety awareness or preventative police presence, or with the criminal side, through arrests, prosecutions, and the handling of parolees and ex-convicts. American drug policy has always included both supply-side and demand-side policies, though at any given time one or the other might receive more emphasis, funding, or public awareness. The long-term goal is served by both approaches: to reduce the profitability of the drug trade to the point that it discontinues.

Demand-side policies typically receive less funding than supply-side, and the gap has increased over time. In 2002, for instance, the federal budget for drug control allocated 54.4 percent of the available funds for supply-side policies, leaving 45.6 percent for demand-side policies. For the fiscal year 2011, the budget allocated 64 percent of the available funds for supply-side policies, leaving a mere 36 percent for demand-side policies. In addition, many supply-side costs such as the expenses for incarceration, investigation and prosecution of drug crimes are not reported in the budget of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Proponents of demand-side policies point out that the culture of the law enforcement community and the bureaucracies to which it answers naturally reward supply-side efforts more than demand-side. When arrests are produced, and drugs and assets are seized, a sense of accomplishment is connoted. Major arrests are often reported with much of the same language as military victories and form the basis for further funding requests. This is not to say that supply-side victories are unimportant; but no such language surrounds the annual report of an addiction treatment center, for example. While the efficacy of drug prevention programs can be derived from statistics on drug use trends, it is difficult to generate a spotlight moment or front-page headline from the prevention of a problem. Demand-side victories are not wholly thankless, but less glamorous, less exciting, less compelling, and less easy to boil down into presentation-friendly bullet points.

Critics of the United States's overemphasis of supply-side policy point to the fact that despite the massive resources allocated, the involvement of over a dozen federal agencies in seven departments, and decades of effort, the illegal drug trade has expanded. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the number of high school seniors who said it was “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain marijuana or cocaine increased by approximately one third. Drugs such as methamphetamine became more popular in rural areas, while club drugs have spread through the cities and suburbs. The popularity of individual drugs has been subject to waxing and waning and seem loosely connected to the law enforcement efforts associated with them.

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