A Four Pillars Approach to Methamphetamine - Drug Policy Alliance

Executive Summary
It has been more than 40 years since the first illegal
methamphetamine laboratory was discovered in the
United States. The national strategy for dealing with abuse
of this powerful stimulant is the same now as it was then:
incarcerate as many methamphetamine law violators as
possible and hope for the best. This punitive strategy has
devastated families and public health while failing to make
the country safer. There are clear steps, however, that can
be taken to reduce methamphetamine abuse and protect
public safety, and places like California, New Mexico,
Utah, and Vancouver, Canada are leading the way.
This report lays out the fundamentals of an effective
national strategy for reducing the problems associated
with both methamphetamine misuse and misguided
U.S. methamphetamine policies. It presents policymakers
with a diverse range of evidence-based policy proposals
that seek to save lives, reduce wasteful government
spending, and empower communities. The “four pillars”
of an effective national methamphetamine strategy are
prevention, treatment, policing and harm reduction.
Prevention
Encouraging people to make healthy choices and providing
alternatives to drug use is crucial to reducing substance abuse
problems. Scare tactics and zero tolerance policies, however,
often impede prevention efforts. Policymakers can prevent
youth methamphetamine abuse by increasing funding for
after-school programs and supporting the development of
a better drug education paradigm that fosters trust and
emphasizes factual information over failed scare tactics.
Adult methamphetamine abuse can be reduced by increasing
employment and educational opportunities, strengthening
families, and promoting economic growth. Cutting funding
to ineffective programs, such as Drug Abuse Resistance
Education (D.A.R.E.), the National Youth Anti-Drug Media
Campaign, and random student drug testing, would produce
tremendous savings.
Treatment
The quickest, cheapest and most effective way to undermine
drug markets and reduce drug abuse is to make quality
substance abuse treatment more widely available through
public spending, tax credits and other measures. Policymakers
should expand access to treatment and mental health services,
divert methamphetamine offenders to treatment instead of
jail, and promote family unity. More funding should be provided
for longer, more intensive methamphetamine treatment,
especially in rural areas, with a focus on reducing the significant
barriers to treatment that exist for women and gay men.
There should also be a greater investment in pharmacotherapy
research, including replacement therapy. Policymakers should
take every step possible to advance the development of a
substitution treatment for methamphetamine abuse, akin to
methadone and buprenorphine for opioid addiction.
Policing
Strategic policing is critical to protecting public safety. Law
enforcement agencies should concentrate on what only they
can do, disrupting and dismantling crime syndicates, apprehending
violent criminals and keeping neighborhoods safe.
This requires prioritization in the war on drugs, which means
focusing on violent offenders instead of nonviolent drug law
violators and on the most problematic drugs instead of the
least problematic drugs. Congress should set clear statutory
goals for the disruption of major methamphetamine operations,
and federal agencies should be required to report on
their progress toward these goals, including resources wasted
on arresting and prosecuting low-level nonviolent offenders.
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