Psychology

From the experience of the last few years, it is clear that the use of balanced and comprehensive drug policy can lessen the rate at which drugs are used and sold. One of the methods that have been put in place is reducing the rate of demand and supply of drugs in form of programs like early intervention and evidence based prevention. This has been found to decrease the number of people who use illicit drugs for the first time (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2010). It has also enabled people to know the consequences of drug use socially and health-wise. Many programs have been put in place in order to fight drug initiation and drug use. These include Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, Random Student Drug Testing and Drug Free Communities Support Program. These programs have achieved great results and will continue being used to reduce the rate at which drugs are used in America. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is there to help the US achieve this through its strategy (Millar, 2000).

This paper will address Prevention programs and policies of the Federal National Drug Control Policy that stop initiation of drug use but the scope will be limited to Drug Free Communities Support Program.

Controlling Drug Use
Across the whole of America, the issue of drug use has become everybodys concern. Law enforcement officials, community leaders, coaches, teachers, and parents all over are looking for ways to address the issue and reduce drug use. It has been found out among the different measures that have been used to accomplish the same the most effective are the ones which decrease the factors which are capable of leading the youths into drug use. At the same time, people should work at strengthening the ones which are likely to give people healthy communities. One of the ways through which people are achieving this is through Drug Free Communities Support Program. This is one of the strategies that ONDCP is using to reduce drug initiation and drug use among the youths in America. The program operates on known goals. First, it aims at decreasing drug use among the young people and later on among adults. This is achieved through dealing with the factors which minimize or increase the risks associated with drug abuse. Secondly, it has the goal to establish and strengthen collaboration amongst non profit agencies, private, governmental, local, state federal and communities in support of combined effort to reduce and also prevent drug abuse amongst the young people. In its eleven years of existence, it has been of assistance to many communities as they try to change the youth as far as drug use is concerned. This program was formed to decrease the use of substance which is inclusive of tobacco and alcohol among young people. According to Goetz  Mitchell (2006), another reason for its establishment was to reinforce teamwork in different sectors and communities in the US. This program is as a result of partnerships between Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Health and Human Services (HHS) department and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), whose agreement intended to support the joint efforts of employers, law enforcement, non-profits, educators, parents, young people and all the other citizens at the local level.

Zanutto, Hornik,  Rosenbaum, (2001), have shown that the program has made many efforts to ensure that it succeeds in its mission. For example, it has been funding the grassroots communities by giving grants worth one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars per annum for five years. According to its statistics, since 1997, it has given about four hundred and fifty million dollars to support prevention of drug use in different communities of America. The money is basically to ensure that the grantees can now access the kind of training that they might require, at the time that they require it most. This kind of training would help them to obtain the significant information on organizational management, cultural competence and sustainability.

According to the findings released by ONDCP on the evaluation of the programs work, it has succeeded in decreasing the rate at which people start using drugs and general drug use. Compared to the non-funded communities, the communities which are receiving funds from DFC are reducing drug use among the youth faster. Those communities are also getting other benefits like reduced instance of using marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco. The program has so far succeeded in accomplishing the mission of ONDCP to reduce drug use and it will continue being evaluated so as to establish the factors that may have contributed to its achievements.

The major resources that the program would require are physical, technical, financial and human resources. The physical resources would include the buildings where people would be trained so that they can inform the youth about drugs. The means of transport would also be required during the campaigns for the same. The program is likely to use technology so that they can make their work easier. Items like laptops and projectors would be necessary. Krebs, Costelloe  Jenks (2003) argues thta it would also need the human resource. These are the people who would be responsible for all the work that would be done. From management to the one-on one part, people who have been trained would be needed. Financially, the funds to run all the activities like obtaining information, disseminating it, giving seminars, consultations, auditing, accounting, approving applications among other activities would require a lot of money. All these resources would help to make sure that the program achieves its goals to reduce substance abuse.

The program is likely to undergo major costs not only financially, but also as far as other resources are concerned. This program works by getting groups from the grassroots that would help them in their mission. First of all, it has to get the required funds from different sources, including donations. It also has to announce when the different groups can apply for the grants. When the groups apply, the selected committees have to go through them to check for the eligibility of the members and other requirements. Some of the groups do not qualify for one reason or another yet the program committees have already spent a lot of time going through all the applications. Goetz  Mitchell (2006) indicates that once they have selected the groups which qualify for the grants, they have to scrutinize them further to check whether they are financially fit to give the required awards. All these activities involve all the types of resources.

The program is planning on forming collaborations with the public and the private sectors to ensure that it continues to succeed in its mission to fight drug use. It believes that by forming partnerships, the united effort would be more effective in bringing about continued changes among the young people in different communities. These include the Lions Club International. This helps to promote prevention activities in communities and schools. They achieve that through offering brief interventions for drug use, disseminating information about the prescription of drugs, providing teachers with training on substance prevention, and hosting community forums on ways to prevent drug use. The collaborations help get the most out of relationships, resources and knowledge that local and regional groups have with the public.

It also works with the federal government in collaboration with Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) and SAMHSA to assist the communities to get better prevention strategies and activities. They also aim at providing better methodology which communities and states can use in the implementation of the service and system changes. This framework works to promote behavior change, a move that is community based. It comes up with plans which are multiple strategies and can effectively decrease drug use and the problems that are related to the same. They work collaboratively to ensure that they make possible developments to the system and therefore make sure that the efforts to prevent drug use are not in vain.

According to Krebs, Costelloe  Jenks (2003), this program is also working with schools to ensure that drug use is reduced. In all states, the students are always easy targets of drug use. When they are provided with enough information regarding drugs, only then can they make informed choices. It also works with professional counselors who help teens and other drug users to undergo through the treatment process and hence overcome their drug problem. ONDCP has continued working with national organizations and agencies which address the issue of drug abuse even in the institutions of higher learning.

This program could have several ethical issues, for example, misuse of the funds that have been allocated. This could make the group be disqualified from getting any more grants in future but harm would have been done because the people who were already benefiting from the program would not continue to have them.  Again, Timberlake, Lock,  Rasinski (2003) have argued that all the cost of establishing and training the group members would be in vain. The groups may also have faked their eligibility hence during evaluation, it might be realized that they are actually increasing the risk of abusing drugs. Some of the group members might have individual goals which might not necessarily contribute to the groups goal. This might make the group not to accomplish its mission.  

Several things can be done so as to improve the current strategy. For example, they should be more careful when checking the eligibility of groups. According to Millar (2000), they should ensure that all the group members qualify individually, then as a group. This way, they would save a lot of resources which go into groups so they fail to accomplish what they intended to. There is evidence of failed groups in the past. Instead of repeating past mistakes, they should check where and how such groups failed so that they can avoid doing the same.

They should also make their internal control stronger and also define responsibilities and roles to be played by each member. This would improve performance per individual and hence, the whole program would achieve more. In addition, they should be stricter when evaluating the different groups work. If a certain group does not perform well, they should find out the reasons contributing to this and get the way forward. This would ensure that they do not keep disqualifying groups and starting all over again. They should also develop and update the measures used to evaluate. In Millars (2000) argument, they have to be in line with the programs goals. The evaluation plan should be more focused to ensure that the performance of the program and the impact have been measured in the right way. Performance improvement should be implemented and they should also establish a report system for the grantee from where information regarding program performance can be collected. This would help to gauge the groups that are not performing well, hence deal with them.

Conclusion
Drug Free Community Support Program has been helping many young people to overcome the problem of drug use. Through its collaborations with the nonprofit, government and private partners, it has been able to reach more youths. They are working hard to ensure that people are informed regarding drugs and this leads people to make more informed choices. Since it started running, there is evidence of decreased rate of drug use. It is therefore playing its part in ensuring that it reduces the rate of initiation to drugs and drug use and also informing people about them. It is also playing part to ensure that ONDCP meets its goal to set America free of drug use.