Extramural research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse: Funding, interests, and public policy

Increased attention to drug abuse in the late 1980s led to large increases in funding for research at the National institute on Drug Abuse. There was some expectation that new knowledge and improved technology would help shif t the drug control focus away from law enforcement and toward treatment and prevention. The institute and her primary research constituency of medical schools and universities responded with an important new emphasis on appli ed research focused on pressing social and medical problems. However, when public attention to drug abuse decreased in the mid 1990s, research sponsor ship and activity reverted somewhat to ifs traditional concern with several areas of basic medical research relevant to but somewhat removed from the immediate needs of treatment and prevention programs. Advocates of demand s ide alternatives are left to wait for a medical breakthrough amidst a modes t but steady stream of incremental research contributions to practice.