The Mayor’s Drug Task Force Website

In 2006, Mayor Mufi Hannemann established the City and County of Honolulu’s Mayor’s Task Force on Drug Use with the specific mission of “making the City and County of Honolulu the most knowledgeable collection of employees, governmental or private, in the state of Hawaii in identifying and managing drug use disorders.”

            The task force says it “will seek to develop a culture which, beginning with leadership and extending into the furthest reaches of the workplace, both responds rationally to drug use problems and immunizes its people against drug use disorders.”

The Mayor’s theme continues to be “Drug use management begins here, in the only place over which I have direct influence, the City and County of Honolulu.”

            Since 2006, the task force has administered the Mayor’s Anti-Drug Community Fund.  The fund utilized money appropriated by the state Legislature for community anti-drug initiatives –grassroots community efforts to sustain, foster and initiate anti-drug activities.  The task force has supported a number of worthy projects island-wide.

            In January 2009, the task force accepted the role as the Honolulu County Advisory Council (HCAC), which has oversight of the City and County of Honolulu’s Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF-SIG) activities.  The SPF-SIG project is a nation wide initiative administered by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMSHA) to various States with the goal of: 1) Preventing the onset and reducing the progression of substance abuse, including childhood and underage drinking; 2) Reducing substance abuse related problems; and 3) Building prevention capacity and infrastructure at the State, tribal, territorial, and community levels.  The City and County of Honolulu has recently been awarded SPF-SIG funding from the State Department of Health-A.D.A.D. for a county-wide assessment, planning, and capacity building activities.  The goal of this funding is for the City and County of Honolulu to work in partnership with community stakeholders to develop and implement a county plan that addresses underage alcohol consumption by youth 12-17 years old.