Israel Anti-Drug Authority

IADA's main statutory duty was formulating national supply- and demand-reduction policies on drug and alcohol abuse.[2] Its coordination remit spanned prevention and treatment, law enforcement, training, international relations, research, and community development, with programs directed at all populations and particular emphasis on youth and young adults.[2]

Local coordinators carried out community activities in 125 municipalities across Israel.[2] By 2012, Israel had 150 community substance-abuse treatment programs, and treatment facilities were required to obtain state licensing and committee approval and to undergo regular audits by government-appointed inspectors.[6]

IADA was identified as the primary agency responsible for designing and implementing domestic programs to reduce drug demand.[7] The authority coordinated cross-ministerial development, management, and implementation of Israeli government anti-drug activity, including awareness-raising, targeted demand-reduction programs, and support for treatment facilities.[6]

IADA was established as a statutory corporation under the National Authority for Fighting Drugs and Misuse of Alcohol Law, 5748-1988 (Sefer HaHukim No. 1252, p. 90).[1] It was described as a quasi-governmental agency operating under the Prime Minister's aegis, consistent with its initial placement within the Prime Minister's Office.[1]

Its statutory functions included coordinating government ministries, local authorities, and other bodies; planning and promoting prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and enforcement services; expanding education and public information; advising on treatment and rehabilitation; conducting research; providing information services; and encouraging volunteering.[8] Its governing council comprised 43 members, while its administrative arm was limited by statute to no more than 12 employees, including the director.[8]

An English-language annual report was published in Jerusalem from issue No. 1 in 1989 onward, reflecting that the authority began publishing accounts of its activities in the year following its statutory creation.[3]

From its founding, IADA operated under the Prime Minister's Office. Responsibility was transferred to the Minister of Public Security in 2009 by Government Decision No. 44, dated 26 April 2009, which transferred to that minister the powers previously assigned to the prime minister under the authority's founding law.[8] The Anti-Drug & Alcohol Authority was also listed among the bodies connected with the Ministry of Public Security.[9]

By 2016, IADA was presented as part of that ministry's portfolio and as Israel's central body for mobilizing government organizations and public authorities to develop evidence-based national policy and coordinate action against drug and alcohol abuse.[2] Israeli President Isaac Herzog served as chairman of the authority from 2000 to 2003, before the transfer of oversight.[10]

A U.S. Department of State report covering 2011 described IADA as having been placed under the Ministry of Public Security's administrative control while remaining under the Prime Minister's Office's technical control — a distinction that complicates the account of a clean 2009 transfer.[6]

IADA's prevention programs were deliberately tailored to cultural, gender, and age differences, addressing groups including youth, high-risk populations, new immigrants, parents, workplace employees, and soldiers.[2] Prevention efforts aimed at Arab communities, young people, students, backpackers, and new immigrants were among the earliest documented.[11] Workshops and lectures were offered in the languages of immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia, adapted to specific cultural needs.[11]

For military personnel, IADA worked to reduce drug demand among soldiers by equipping officers to identify and address drug use within their units.[11] A public-awareness campaign encouraged parents to pay attention to their children's whereabouts and activities.[11] Treatment programs administered by the authority served women, youth, new immigrants, homeless people, and people with co-morbidities.[7]

Within the broader national harm-reduction approach, clinics offered counseling, sanitary services, food, and needle exchange, while therapeutic communities focused on rehabilitation, including vocational rehabilitation.[7] On the policy question of drug legalization, the authority opposed legalization of all drugs and did not draw a distinction between "light" and "heavy" drugs, while simultaneously accepting alternatives to criminal prosecution in certain circumstances, including treatment or rehabilitation for first-time suspects and clean-needle distribution to reduce the spread of AIDS and other communicable diseases.[1]

In 2008, IADA developed and implemented training courses for medical personnel, new teachers, and education students to promote professional capacity in alcohol and drug work.[7] Its objectives for 2009 included broader, multidisciplinary alcohol-prevention programs, attention to designer-drug sales and alcohol sales to minors, and expansion of international cooperation.[7]

Conducting epidemiological and evaluative research on narcotic drugs was among IADA's statutory functions.[11] The authority previously conducted comprehensive drug-use surveys every four years, with the most recent completed in 2009.[6] Under a new Chief Scientist, it planned to increase the frequency of comprehensive surveys to every two years, supplemented by interim surveys every six months to track the effects of intervention programs and law-enforcement actions.[6]

The authority also planned a drug-monitoring center modeled on the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, intended to collect and maintain data from relevant Israeli agencies and organizations.[6] Its chief scientist Rachel Bar-Hamburger was publicly active in shaping the authority's communications approach: in 2007, she argued against scare campaigns targeting Israeli travelers who used drugs abroad, contending that such campaigns risked creating moral panic and causing messages to be misunderstood, favoring instead informational leaflets and guidance distributed through the Foreign Ministry.[12]

A 2003 report attributed to the authority figures showing that approximately 70,000 young people aged 12–18 used drugs — representing 11 percent of that age group — and that 300,000 people in Israel had come into contact with drugs of various kinds at that time.[13] Those are historical figures reported by the authority and not current estimates. The authority also reported that it assisted roughly 600 Israeli travelers annually in returning from India and the Far East when their drug use had resulted in serious medical crises requiring treatment and hospitalization in Israel.[13] A hotline operated year-round for teenagers, their families, and people using drugs, offering information and referral services.[13]

IADA played an active role in updating Israeli legislation to address synthetic or "kiosk" drugs, leading an inter-ministerial committee that recommended new substances for inclusion in the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.[2] An amendment in 2010 brought four substance families under the ordinance — amphetamine, methamphetamine, cathinone, and methcathinone — and a further expansion in 2011 added the 2-aminoindan family.[14] The authority also participated in a regulatory mechanism allowing certain substances to be declared "prohibited for distribution" where there was reason to believe they posed an immediate public danger.[14]

A 2004 survey the authority conducted found that approximately half of Israeli students traveling in countries in Asia used drugs during their trip.[12] The authority had been aware for more than a decade before that finding of psychotic crises associated with drug use among travelers, and developed informational responses in coordination with the Foreign Ministry.[12]

The National Anti-Drug and Alcohol Authority operated as a statutory corporation from 1988 until it was closed in 2017.[5] The Knesset passed the Law on the Authority for Prevention of Violence, Alcohol and Drug Abuse in July 2017.[15] In February 2018, three programs — the City Without Violence program, the Municipal Policing program, and the Metzila Department — merged to form the Israel Authority for Prevention of Violence, Alcohol and Drug Abuse, which the 2019 Ministry of Public Security overview presents as the successor operational body.[15]

The 2017 legislation described the intended change as a means of improving work on drug and alcohol use and violence, and of enabling more effective national policy and more efficient use of resources.[5] The successor body's remit was broader than IADA's, encompassing prevention of violence, crime, and antisocial behavior alongside drugs and alcohol.[15] A 2025 Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research report stated that in 2020 the successor authority moved to the Ministry for Strengthening and Advancement of Community and was renamed the National Authority for Community Safety. According to the report, responsibility returned to the Ministry of Public Security after the intervening ministry was dissolved.[16]

The authority conducted research on drug use in Israeli prisons and implemented programs based on its findings. One project, developed jointly by authority director Haim Messing and the president of the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, offered qualifying drug-dependent offenders treatment and rehabilitation as an alternative to imprisonment. The authority also established treatment and rehabilitation facilities inside prisons.[4]

Messing described a model in which the authority and the Israel Prison Service trained peer guides — former prisoners — who returned to work with incarcerated people and support the beginning of their rehabilitation.[4] This was followed by the development of a broader network of rehabilitation centers in prisons. Messing stated that a therapeutic community at Tzalmon Prison had hundreds of participants, describing it as the largest prison therapeutic community in the world; that characterization is attributed to Messing.[4]

The authority received an award from the International Corrections and Prisons Association at its annual conference in Edinburgh for its research on drugs in Israeli prisons and for the projects implemented on the basis of that research.[4] Messing described the recognition as reflecting principally the authority's applied research work.[4]

Several aspects of IADA's history are described inconsistently across available sources. The Library of Congress identifies the National Authority for Fighting Drugs and Misuse of Alcohol Law, 5748-1988 as the authority's founding legislation, while a U.S. Department of State report attributes IADA's creation to the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance — the sources do not resolve this discrepancy.[1][6] Similarly, the transfer of ministerial responsibility is dated to 2009 by the Library of Congress and the Knesset Research and Information Center, while the State Department's 2012 report describes a 2011 shift of administrative control to the Ministry of Public Security with technical control remaining at the Prime Minister's Office.[1][8][6]

The sources also use differing English names for the authority — "Anti-Drug Authority," "Anti-Drug & Alcohol Authority," and "Israel Anti-Drug and Alcohol Authority" — without clearly establishing whether these reflect formal name changes or inconsistent translation.[9] Accounts of the post-2017 institutional succession are similarly variable, with different sources giving differing dates and ministerial assignments for the successor body.[15][16]

The authority's anti-cannabis public messaging was contested. A retrospective account described an early-2000s campaign whose central video depicted a young woman experiencing panic attacks and carried the message "Drugs are a bad trip," advancing the claim that cannabis could cause paranoia and other mental-health problems. Members of the Green Leaf party produced a counter-video challenging those claims.[17] The dispute reflects broader disagreements in Israeli public discourse about drug-policy framing rather than a finding against the authority's positions.