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Policy Priorities
| Drug Free Communities (DFC) Program | The Drug-Free Communities (DFC) program has been a central, bi-partisan component of our nation's demand reduction strategy since its passage in 1998. The consistent and steady growth of the program in terms of both appropriations (from $10 million in FY 1998 to $90 million in FY 2009) and the number of grantees (from 92 original grantees to 1520 grantees) is a testament to the program's popularity. The premise of the DFC program is simple – that communities around the country must be organized and equipped to deal with their individual substance abuse problems in a comprehensive and coordinated manner. |
| Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization | Congress is currently working to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), formerly known as No Child Left Behind. Given that the State Grants portion of the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities program has been eliminated, CADCA’s Public Policy Department has been working to ensure that substance use/abuse prevention and intervention is required to be explicitly addressed and that every state and as many school districts as possible in every state are funded through the reauthorization. It has developed a number of papers to educate Congress about the critical importance of including substance use/abuse prevention and intervention in the ESEA Reauthorization. |
| Healthcare Reform | Since the passage of the historic health care reform legislation, named the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, CADCA has worked diligently to ensure that substance use prevention is properly included as the law is implemented. It has submitted comments to the Department of Health and Human Services to make the case that: 1) within the Prevention and Public Health (PPH) Fund, there must be an explicit focus on preventing and delaying the age of first use of alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, and the misuse and abuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs; 2) the Drug Free Communities program should be used as a platform upon which to build new ATOD prevention initiatives in the PPH fund; 3) there must be an emphasis on environmental strategies in any new ATOD prevention efforts funded in the PPH fund; and 4) there need to be mechanisms in place to ensure that the necessary data is being collected to track outcomes over time. |
| Support 21 Toolkit | Community anti-drug coalitions throughout the country are all too familiar with the detrimental consequences associated with underage drinking, not only for those youth directly involved, but also for communities at-large. Despite these negative ramifications, the Amethyst Initiative, founded by John McCardell, President Emeritus of Middlebury College and Founder of Choose Responsibility, seeks to revisit the debate on the legal drinking age, and encourages law makers to lower it. To date, more than 100 college presidents have signed on to the Initiative. |
| Marijuana | Here are a number of science-based documents that deal with the issue of marijuana legalization. They are divided into four sections including: Background, Case Against Legalization, Engaging the Media, and Recent Issues. |