Petitions must include an assessment of the threat of illegal drugs in the area for which HIDTA designation is requested and must specifically respond to each of the four criteria mentioned above.
Funding is provided to the HIDTA program of New York and New Jersey, which then provides it to law enforcement agencies to assist in the procurement of resources like computers and other items.
Each HIDTA assesses the drug trafficking threat in its defined area for the upcoming year, develops a strategy to address that threat, designs initiatives to implement the strategy, proposes funding needed to carry out the initiatives, and prepares an annual report describing its performance the previous year.