The future of the troubled ONDCP

Jag Davies has an excellent post at the ACLU blog: Cascade of Reports Condemn Drug Czar‰s Office
Certainly, I’d like to see the drug czar’s office disappear into a sink-hole caused by the office’s own black-hole-like lack of integrity.
However, if the ONDCP is to continue, Davies is absolutely right that we must advocate for new metrics for measurement.

Rather than measuring success based on slight fluctuations in drug use, the primary measure of ONDCP‰s effectiveness should be the reduction of drug-related harm. If ONDCP is reauthorized, it should be charged with reducing problems associated with drug use itself (overdose, addiction, disease transmission) and problems associated with drug prohibition (over-incarceration, collateral sanctions, loss of civil liberties, racial disparities in enforcement, prosecution and sentencing).

That’s exactly right. Although, I would, just to make things as clear as possible, modify that statement slightly with a few word changes:

Rather than measuring success based on slight fluctuations in drug use, the primary measure of ONDCP‰s effectiveness should be the reduction of drug-related harm and drug-war-related harm. If ONDCP is reauthorized, it should be charged with reducing problems associated with drug use abuse itself (overdose, addiction, disease transmission) and problems associated with drug prohibition (over-incarceration, collateral sanctions, loss of civil liberties, turf violence, corruption, law enforcement trust, drug safety, environmental damage, breakup of families, racial disparities in enforcement, prosecution and sentencing).

Could still stand a bit of tweaking, but perhaps a coordinated effort to pass on such language to Congress, when the ONDCP is up for reauthorization, is in order?