Welcome to the website
of the Governor's Council on Alcoholism and
Drug Abuse (GCADA).
The GCADA was established to review and coordinate New Jersey's
efforts in regard to the planning and provision of treatment, prevention,
research, evaluation, and education services for, and public awareness
of, alcoholism and drug abuse. Additionally, the Council was to establish
and maintain the Municipal Alliance Program, which is a network of
community based prevention programs. You may read more about the
activities of the Governor's Council in the Legislative
Mandate.
Our chairman is Joseph P. Miele, Esq., who was appointed in 1989 by Governor Tom Kean. Mr. Miele has been subsequently reappointed by Governor's Florio, Whittman and McGreevey. The current Executive Director,
Mary Lou Powner, has been in the position since January 1998 having
previously served as the Ocean County Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Director
for 11 years.
The Governor's Council has 25 members - 10 appointed by the Governor,
2 by the President of the Senate, 2 by the Speaker of the Assembly,
and the Commissioners of 11 New Jersey state departments and agencies.
The Municipal Alliance program operates in all 21 counties. They
were created to provide grass roots volunteers an opportunity to
make direct, effective change within their communities by producing
localized solutions to their individual problems with substance abuse.
Municipal Alliances do this by providing substance abuse prevention
and education programs with the funds they receive from the Council.
Those funds total
$9.55 Million
per year divided among the counties
and distributed to the more than 500 participating communities. The
funds are allocated to counties using a Funding
Formula which uses
general population, youth population, arrests, and fine collections
as determining factors.
The
funding for the Governor's Council, including the Municipal Alliance
Program, comes from the Drug Enforcement Demand Reduction fund.
These are fines levied on convicted drug users and sellers which
in turn wind up back in the community helping to solve the problems
they helped create. We think that's the way smart government ought
to be run!
For more about your county's municipal alliances, please refer to the
list of County Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Directors and Alliance Coordinators.
