Pubdate: Sun, 06 Aug 2000 Source: Salt Lake Tribune (UT) Copyright: 2000 The Salt Lake Tribune Contact: 143 S Main, Salt Lake City UT 84111 Fax: (801)257-8950 Website: http://www.sltrib.com/ Forum: http://www.sltrib.com/tribtalk/ Author: Ronald Fraser Note: Ronald Fraser, Ph.D., writes on public policy issues for the DKT Liberty Project, a Washington-based nonprofit, civil liberties research organization. E-mail him at Utah Is The Real 'Ground Zero' In America's War On Illegal Drugs When the U.S. Senate passed a $1.3 billion military drug-fighting package for Colombia recently, Sen. Paul Coverdell of Georgia said, "This is a landmark vote, striking the drug war at ground zero -- Colombia." Coverdell, who died suddenly last month, was wrong. "Ground zero" is not in Colombia, but right here in our own back yard. In Utah alone, more than 9,000 people were enrolled in non-alcohol drug treatment programs in October 1997. But for every person getting help to regain control of their lives, many others go untreated. What Utahns need is more and better-equipped drug treatment programs. Instead, what they get from Washington is a failed policy that emphasizes tough law enforcement and drug interdiction in faraway places like Colombia. To make better use of federal tax funds we need to replace our current national drug policy built in Washington with one based on common sense. When faced with important questions like "How can we solve the drug problem in my hometown?" ordinary people use common sense to find answers. Washington policy-makers, on the other hand, rely on the politics of expertise and twisted bureaucratic reasoning when faced with the same question. The tug-of-war between experts and ordinary people is not new, nor is it restricted to Washington. Take local schools, for example. Experts - -- trained teachers and administrators -- are hired to operate our schools on a day-to-day basis. We know better than to trust the politics of expertise. Local school districts elect boards of common citizens to keep an eye on the experts and ensure that our kids receive the kind of education we want them to receive, not necessarily the kind the experts say they should have. Here is how a drug-control policy built on the politics of common sense will differ from the current policy built on the politics of expertise: - -- The politics of expertise, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, promotes the bogus idea that drug supply lines from abroad can be cut. The politics of common sense says our drug problem will be resolved only by cutting demand for drugs here at home. - -- According to the politics of expertise, imprisonment even for minor drug offenses makes sense and brings a sense of order to society. Common sense tells us harsh prison terms are not constructive and actually drive many first-time offenders deeper into criminal behavior. - -- The politics of expertise says Washington is where the nation's drug-control problem will be solved. Common sense tells us America's drug problem will be solved the old-fashioned way, one person at a time, in the hundreds of Utah towns where drug users live. The gap separating policy experts in Washington and the common-sense view along Main Street boils down to this: Do we spend our time, energy and public taxes playing robo-cop outside our nation's borders, or do we provide the information and treatment support citizens need to help themselves? Once the demand for drugs on Main Street is cut off, the flow across our international borders will automatically cease. Two-thirds of this year's federal $18 billion drug-control budget goes for border control, law enforcement and South American interdiction actions. That leaves only $6 billion for expensive advertising campaigns and inadequately funded drug treatment programs here at home. No wonder U.S. treatment programs accommodate only about half of the hard-core drug users. The gap separating what individual American citizens need from what they are getting can be closed only if policy-makers in Washington honestly admit the so-called war can be won only by building treatment centers here at home to help people reclaim their private lives, not by arming military units in South America. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake