FORMER DRUG CZARS DECLARE "VICTORY" IN WAR ON DRUGS PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #332 - Sunday, 2 July 2006 It's OVER! Success! We Win! So was the composite declaration of a recent gathering of former United States drug czars on June 17, which marked the 35th anniversary of the war's beginning in 1971 with the appointment of Dr. Jerome H. Jaffe, a psychiatrist, as the first White House drug czar. Also in attendance was Columbus Dispatch columnist John Burnham and he enthusiastically parroted the self-aggrandizing former public officials and their accompanying staff lackeys. Citing tired references to supposed reductions in illegal drug use by a sub-class of teenagers and within a narrow group of relatively unpopular drugs, the czars ignored the huge collateral damage done to American society and communities by the failed policy of drug Prohibition. And in perhaps the most startling claim from the gathering, Burnham echoed the czars' belief that America's first experiment with Prohibition (1920-1934) was ended only following a huge propaganda campaign. Left unspoken was the implied message that American communities would be better off today had alcohol Prohibition remained in effect with all production and commercial distribution of alcohol in the control of criminal gangs and cartels. An interesting side note to this event two weeks ago is that the Executive Director of one of the world's leading drug policy reform organizations - Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org - was refused permission to attend, even for the purpose of listening and not speaking. Perhaps it would have been difficult to celebrate "victory" with a non-drug warrior in attendance. Please consider writing a succinct Letter to the Editor and sending it to The Columbus Dispatch. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do - it's what YOU do CONTACT Information: The Columbus Dispatch (US OH) US OH: OPED: Former Drug Czars Believe Their War Has Been Won URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n869/a05.html Newshawk: http://www.illinoisnorml.org/ Pubdate: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH) Copyright: 2006 The Columbus Dispatch Author: John C . Burnham Note: John Burnham is research professor of history at Ohio State University, where he specializes in the history of medicine and American social history. FORMER DRUG CZARS BELIEVE THEIR WAR HAS BEEN WON The United States has won the war against illegal drugs. That was the conclusion of a unique gathering on June 17, which marked the 35th anniversary of the war's beginning in 1971 with the appointment of Dr. Jerome H. Jaffe, a psychiatrist, as the first White House drug czar. Jaffe was joined at the anniversary gathering by six other former czars, Dr. Robert L. Du Pont, Dr. Peter G. Bourne, Lee I. Dogoloff, Dr. Donald Ian Mac-Donald, Lee Brown and retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey. Also attending were 20 former staff members and a handful of experts, including me, a specialist historian. The meeting, sponsored and hosted by the University of Maryland, was held for the purpose of making a historical record. The seven former czars and former staff members held remarkably unanimous views, though they come from a variety of backgrounds and included Democrats and Republicans who worked for five very different presidents. And what they had to say was often surprising. The main conclusion that we won the war on drugs was the biggest surprise, because advocates of illegal drugs have in recent years filled the media with rhetoric about "the failed war on drugs." The czars' straightforward conclusion may come as a shock, but, as they outlined what the war was about, what they had to say made a lot of sense. Thirty-five years ago, the big worry was the veterans who were returning from Vietnam who had been using illegal drugs. And the drug causing overwhelming concern was heroin. A hard-headed public-health approach showed an alarming number of deaths directly related to heroin, not to mention crimes committed by addicts. As the veterans showed that their use did not continue after their return to the United States, and as methadone-maintenance programs came into place, along with enforcement and education, heroin use declined, and even more dramatic was the decline in heroin-related deaths. This was the great victory of the war on drugs. A recent small uptick in illegal drug use is remarkably insignificant compared with the original problem. Only in the 1980s, when the price of cocaine, in the form of crack, went down did that drug become a significant public-health problem. But what about marijuana? At that time, the serious effects of pot smoking were largely unknown. But in the late 1970s, the parents movement developed parents who had seen what happened when their kids got addicted to marijuana and their young brains got fried. This was a huge group of very angry people, and they were political dynamite. The main tension in the office of drug czar was between enforcement and treatment. Congress would fund enforcement but did not like treatment, although one czar told of taking a couple of reluctant members of Congress to view a treatment center and see how much money treatment was saving the public as addicts, often under court coercion, were enabled to work productively. For historians like me, the collective experience of the former czars provides two lessons. The first is unwelcome to extremists of the right and left and their shady commercial allies: Prohibitory laws can work. Historians have established that the 1920s experiment in alcohol prohibition was successful and was repealed in 1933 only because of a massive, well-financed propaganda campaign. The leadership of the drug czars in reducing supply and demand of illegal drugs is reflected not only in the public-health statistics. They can also cite public opinion polls. Thirty-five years ago, illegal drugs were usually first or second and no lower than fourth as public concerns. Now the drugs issue trails many other problems. Everyone at the conference knew that the problem is going to continue for American society, but at a much lower level than 35 years before. That is what laws do: They attempt to control problems, not bring perfection. Laws against murder provide hope to control the problem, not abolish murder. The second lesson is more subtle. The title czar was ironic, because the appointees had no direct, executive power. Instead, they coordinated the many federal and local agencies dealing with aspects of the drug problem and drug-law enforcement. The czars used persuasion. They got a drug detection and treatment system into the armed services, where the programs served as models for private businesses and other units. When new substances of abuse came along, often the czar was able to get officials and private businesses, especially pharmaceutical companies, to get one substance or another restricted before it became a major problem. So what if the amusingly designated czars had no real power? They proved that in American government, there can be impressive leadership beyond formal power. Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/ Or contact MAP Media Activism Facilitator Steve Heath for personal tips on how to write LTEs that get printed. And of course, you are welcome to join Steve and other LTE writing friends of MAP this Tuesday evening at 9pm EDT for a roundtable discussion of how to write LTEs that get print and specifically how to best respond to this Focus Alert. See: http://mapinc.org/resource/paltalk.htm for all details on how you can participate in this important meeting of leading minds in reform. Discussion is conducted with live Voice (microphone and speakers all that is needed) and also via text messaging. The Paltalk software is free and easy to download and install. The password for this gathering will be PW: welcome-pal (all lower case) PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list () if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list () will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Prepared by: Stephen Heath, MAP Media Activism Facilitator =.

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