High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
drug-prohibition enforcement program
The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program is a drug-prohibition enforcement program run by the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy. It was established in 1990 after the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 was passed. The HIDTA program was made permanent through Title III of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006.
The mission of the program is "to enhance and coordinate America's drug-control efforts among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in order to eliminate or reduce drug trafficking and its harmful consequences in critical regions of the United States."
Program purpose
The HIDTA program aims to reduce drug production and trafficking through:
bolstering intelligence sharing among federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement;
disseminating reliable intelligence to law enforcement agencies to help them design effective enforcement operations and strategies;
promoting coordinated law enforcement strategies that rely upon available resources to reduce illegal drug supplies not only in a given area, but also throughout the country; and
promoting coordination and information sharing among federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement
The HIDTA program does not focus on a specific drug threat, such as heroin trafficking; rather, funds are used to support each region's most pressing drug-related initiatives. These range from multiagency enforcement initiatives involving investigation, interdiction, and prosecution to drug use prevention and treatment initiatives.
HIDTA designations
The Director of ONDCP has the authority to designate areas within the United States that are centers of illegal drug production, manufacturing, importation, or distribution as HIDTAs. The director must first consult with the Attorney General, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Homeland Security, heads of the relevant National Drug Control Program Agencies, and the governor of the applicable state. Four main criteria are considered when designating an area as a HIDTA:The extent to which
the area is a significant center of illegal drug production, manufacturing, importation, or distribution;
State, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies have committed resources to respond to the drug trafficking problem in the area, thereby indicating a determination to respond aggressively to the problem;
drug-related activities in the area are having a significant harmful impact in the area, and in other areas of the country; and
a significant increase in allocation of Federal resources is necessary to respond adequately to drug related activities in the area.
The HIDTA program uses counties as the geographic unit of inclusion in the program. To begin the designation process, a coalition of law enforcement agencies may petition the Director of ONDCP for their county to be included in an HIDTA. As of September 2021, there were 33 designated HIDTAs in the U.S. and its territories, and ONDCP indicates that of the 100 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas, 99 were in areas designated as HIDTAs.
“High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area” enters the record as drug-prohibition enforcement program. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what High, Intensity and Drug can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16984040. VIAF identifies the subject as 128128246. The Library of Congress control number is no92024647. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990, 1988, 2006 and 2021.
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