By the late morning of 9/11, many of America's counterdrug resources were quickly
redirected to prevent a second wave of terrorist attacks. The role of advanced
technology was crucial at our nation's borders as the primary focus shifted from
stopping drug smugglers to blocking any attempt by terrorists to bring weapons of
mass destruction into our country. Over the past decade, CTAC had helped federal
law enforcement agencies develop high tech detectors, including VACIS, the
Customs Service's Vehicle and Cargo Inspection Systems, and the handheld
Mini-Buster secret compartment detector.
White House Drug Control Policy Director John Walters noted that both of those
anti-smuggling technologies can lead investigators to guns, explosives or a canister
of biological agents hidden behind a car panel or inside a truck tire as easily as they
can direct inspectors to hidden narcotics.
The deployment of those technologies at border
crossings made it tougher for anyone attempting
to bring any contraband into our country. As proof,
the government's intensified efforts resulted in a
dramatic increase in seizures of drugs along the
southwest border.
High tech drug crime fighting tools we've provided
to state and local police since 1998 under our
Technology Transfer Program were quickly adapted
for counterterrorism shortly after the 9/11
attacks. Our Wireless Interoperability System had
its first counterterrorism mission in Denver within
days of the World Trade Center and Pentagon
attacks. System performance met our high expectations,
smoothly connecting the radios of
responding federal, local law enforcement units,
and fire department crews in response to a credible
bomb threat at Denver's Federal Center. These
emergency real-time communications would not
have been possible prior to the installation of our
system because federal, state and local law
enforcement agencies typically use different,
incompatible radios that can neither send nor
receive across agency lines. CTAC provided wireless
interoperability to Denver and its suburbs to
facilitate interagency drug surveillance operations in the metro area. The system is accomplishing that mission routinely today, while it stands ready
to respond to any future homeland security needs.
Even before 9/11, these were already challenging
times for those of us who are applying science to
the fight against drug abuse and drug crime.
Congress created CTAC to coordinate the diverse
federal law enforcement research and development
program in 21 agencies and to undertake
independent R&D.; We invested carefully, putting
relatively small amounts of money into the hands
of innovative scientists whose work held the promise
of breakthroughs in our quest for more effective
law enforcement, prevention, and treatment.
I came to this post from the Defense Department's
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
where I managed research into Counterdrug,
Counterterror, and Special Operations. Since then,
a number of previously classified systems developed
at DARPA have been adapted for state and
local police by CTAC sponsored scientists.
Helping Local Police
Since 1998, our Technology Transfer Program
has been putting advanced systems and devices into the hands of state and local law enforcement
agencies in all 50 states. They are some of the
same technologies used by the DEA and the FBI.
Thus far, more than 3800 of America's roughly
18,500 police and sheriffs' departments have
received one or more of the CTAC-selected and
tested technologies including night vision, contraband
detectors, digital wiretap, wireless interoperability,
and video stabilization systems, plus a collection
of covert devices and systems.
It's great to watch smart cops undergo our mandatory
training, grab a piece of high tech gear like
the Mini-Buster hidden compartment detector and
quickly begin doing damage to drug traffickers.
It is even more gratifying to know that the same
officer using the same gear could find a bomb and
ruin a terrorist's plan.
"The Mini-Buster helps us find lots of drugs coming
in from Mexico and cash heading back. We are
also on the lookout for possible terrorist devices
concealed inside innocent looking vehicles."
reports Chief Carlos Garcia in Brownsville, Texas.
The photos at the top of this page show his officers
taking down a drug courier's pickup after a
Mini-Buster read unexplained differences in density
under the same panel.
Tomorrow's Technologies
CTAC-sponsored researchers are at work right
now on next generation systems including experimental
non-intrusive cargo inspection technology
which, if it works, will not only reveal the presence
of contraband in a shipping container, but will also
identify the contents�dope, explosives, or the
harmless cargo described in the manifest�without going through the expense and delay
of having to open containers and examine
contents by hand.
Another powerful new piece of advanced police
technology we are field testing would make a
wide range of investigative information available
to narcotics officers in their vehicles and on their
laptops as they arrive at crime scenes or surveillance
locations.
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| Browsville PD Chief Gracia working with US Border Patrol agents |
CTAC's Federal Partners
Much of our law enforcement R&D; work is done in
collaboration with other agencies. The DEA is our
partner in the development of the Wireless
Interoperability System in Colorado and the FBI
had the tactical lead in the creation of our Video
Stabilization System which electronically converts
otherwise useless, unstable surveillance video
into clear, court presentable evidence.
Helping Medical Researchers
Another important part of CTAC's mission is to provide
advanced neuroimaging systems to America's
brain researchers focused on drugs of abuse
issues. Today, CTAC-funded medical research is
underway to help scientists who work with the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to discover
all they can about the brain and its role in the
processes of addiction. Our goals in building a
national network of a dozen state-of-the-art brain
imaging centers is the same as our investment in
police technology: help save lives and protect the
nation's quality of life.
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| Dr. Childress with her new CTAC-provided PET camera at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia |
These Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(fMRI), Positron Emission Tomography(PET), and
Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography
(SPECT) cameras we are providing are being used
to unlock mysteries of the brain that have long
stood in the way of the development of medications
and therapies for preventing and treating
drug abuse. We're intensely focused on finding a cocaine vaccine or at least a
way to reduce the impact of
cocaine addiction with a medication
that does for cocaine
addicts what methadone does
for heroin addicts: blocks the
high and gives them the opportunity
to live decent lives.
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CTAC's advanced technology
initiatives are supporting
the courageous work of law
enforcement officers, the
genius of medical scientists,
and the creativity and
dedication of drug abuse
prevention educators
and treatment experts.
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At the University of Pennsylvania's Addiction
Treatment Research Center in Philadelphia, a team
led by Dr. Anna Rose Childress is using a CTACsponsored
PET brain camera to find out how to
turn down the intense craving some people have
for drugs. In her initial imaging studies, Dr.
Childress found that videos of cocaine triggered
craving and activity in the brain's circuits, which
usually respond to the promise of normal rewards
like food and sex. With support from a grant from
the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Childress
is currently testing whether Baclofen, a common
anti-spasm drug, can dramatically blunt both the
craving and the brain activation to cocaine cues.
Encouragingly, a paraplegic cocaine user who
takes Baclofen for his paraplegia-induced muscle
spasms, found the medication also dramatically
reduced his cocaine craving. PET scans with this
patient showed elimination of his brain's response
to the cocaine video when he was taking Baclofen.
The CTAC sponsored camera, which is designed to
meet the requirements of this specialized
research, is expected to tell the Childress team
if the neurotransmitter dopamine is released
during cue-induced craving in humans�critical
information for developing effective anti-craving
medications.
Not only do their institutions promise to conduct
drugs of abuse research (which always had low
prestige because of the stigma of drug abuse),
but they also pledge to train the next generation
of researchers.
New Knowledge, New Warning
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| Dr. Volkow with brain images of long-term meth users, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, NY |
One of the first CTAC-provided brain cameras went
to a team of medical scientists led by Dr. Nora
Volkow at Brookhaven National Laboratory in
Upton, New York. They have used the machine to
examine the brains of former methamphetamine
addicts. The recovering drug abusers had been off
meth for as long as 11 months and may have
believed that their bodies and brains had escaped
lasting injury, but what Dr. Volkow and her team
discovered is chilling. Reported in the American
Journal of Psychiatry, their study, funded by NIDA,
says the brains of long term meth users appear
permanently changed, leaving the recovering
addicts with impaired memory and reduced physical
coordination. Dr. Volkow told us her team was
surprised to see from the PET camera images, that
the subjects' brains showed the same kind of
swelling normally associated with physical trauma,
like the effect of radiation used to treat a tumor.
Since 1996, CTAC has
been hosting State
and Local Advanced
Technology Workshops
for police across America.
At first we listened to
city, county, and state
law enforcement officers
and learned about their
technology needs. Then,
we reported our findings
to Congress. Congress
then directed CTAC to
arm local law enforcement
with advanced technology
to fight drug crime. We
crafted the turnkey
program of high tech
assistance, training,
and followup called the
Technology Transfer
Program. Our Workshops
continue today but are
largely recast as a way
to help state and local
agencies apply for the
systems and devices.
The program continues to
evaluate new, fully tested
technologies, adding some
available technologies each
year. Below is a scene from
a Workshop in St. Louis.
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Helping Treatment Providers
One of the most interesting information technologies
we've supported is DENS, the Drug
Evaluation Network System, a computer connection
to treatment center admissions and drug
court intake data from around the country.
DENS is designed to give policy makers early
warning of drug abuse trends and also offers treatment
center operators intake methods that sharpen
their ability to serve their patients�helping
them to quickly surface and respond to patients'
issues that contributed to their decision to abuse
drugs. This means more positive impact in the
time allotted for treatment.
Helping Educators
Next year our state-of-the-art, interactive traveling
education exhibits will present some of the hard
science on drug abuse and drug crime to junior and
senior high school students. These mobile exhibits
are designed to help students see the negative
effects of drugs of abuse and help them make conscious
choices not to get involved with drugs.
Answering the Skeptics
During my nearly 11 years at ONDCP's CTAC,
friends outside government have often asked me,
if the persistence of the drug crisis didn't make me
doubt the focus of our efforts. When I would reply
by describing some of our technologies and our
R&D; programs and goals, they would say something
to the effect of, "Well, let's see if it ever
works in the real world."
I understood their skepticism but knew that with
the right leadership and support, we could make
advanced technology an even more effective partner
in this struggle. I am pleased to report that the
federal government's investment in counterdrug
research and development is paying off across the
horizon of science: we've deployed systems that
locate drugs or bombs hidden in trucks, cars,
trains and shipping containers; we have night
vision cameras and other devices that reduce the
risks for cops working drug cases; and we provide
doctors with technology, enabling them to delve
deeper than ever into the workings of the
human brain to develop
counterdrug medications.
Their collective
efforts hold the promise
of a better future.
