Title 21Food and DrugsRelease 119-73

§1102 Congressional declaration of national policy

Title 21 › Chapter CHAPTER 16— - DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION, TREATMENT, AND REHABILITATION › Subchapter SUBCHAPTER I— - GENERAL PROVISIONS › § 1102

Last updated Apr 6, 2026|Official source

Summary

Directs the federal government to use its resources to cut drug abuse, lower its social and personal costs, and make a long-term, coordinated national plan to fight it. To reach that goal, it calls for four main actions: joint federal, state, and local planning and aid for urgent needs of special groups; support for community prevention programs; workplace prevention and treatment in government and with employers; and more research on causes, treatment, and health and economic effects.

Full Legal Text

Title 21, §1102

Food and Drugs — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

The Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States and the purpose of this chapter to focus the comprehensive resources of the Federal Government and bring them to bear on drug abuse with the objective of significantly reducing the incidence, as well as the social and personal costs, of drug abuse in the United States, and to develop and assure the implementation of a comprehensive, coordinated long-term Federal strategy to combat drug abuse. To reach these goals, the Congress further declares that it is the policy of the United States and the purpose of this chapter to meet the problems of drug abuse through—
(1)comprehensive Federal, State, and local planning for, and effective use of, Federal assistance to States and to community-based programs to meet the urgent needs of special populations, in coordination with all other governmental and nongovernmental sources of assistance;
(2)the development and support of community-based prevention programs;
(3)the development and encouragement of effective occupational prevention and treatment programs within the Government and in cooperation with the private sector; and
(4)increased Federal commitment to research into the behavioral and biomedical etiology of, the treatment of, and the mental and physical health and social and economic consequences of, drug abuse.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

This chapter, referred to in text, was in the original “this Act”, meaning Pub. L. 92–255, Mar. 21, 1972, 86 Stat. 65, known as the Drug Abuse Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Act, which comprises this chapter. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see

Short Title

note set out under section 1101 of this title and Tables.

Amendments

1980—Pub. L. 96–181 inserted additional declarations of policy prescribing methods and programs by which the goals are to be reached. 1976—Pub. L. 94–237 substituted “objective of significantly reducing the incidence, as well as the social and personal costs, of drug abuse in the United States, and to develop and assure the implementation of” for “immediate objective of significantly reducing the incidence of drug abuse in the United States within the shortest possible period of time, and to develop”.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

21 U.S.C. § 1102

Title 21Food and Drugs

Last Updated

Apr 6, 2026

Release point: 119-73