Pubdate: Sun, 10 Dec 2000
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2000, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Forum: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/welcome.htm
Author: Joseph H. Brown
Note: Joseph H. Brown is a Tribune editorial writer.

JUST TREATING THE WOUNDED WON'T WIN WAR

Last year when actor Robert Downey Jr. was sentenced to three years in 
prison for probation  violations, he told a judge that his drug addiction 
was "like I've got a shotgun in my mouth, with  my finger on the trigger, 
and I like the taste of the gun metal."

As bizarre as that sounds, it was one of the best explanations you'll hear 
of addiction - defined  by the National Institute on Drug Abuse as "chronic 
relapsing disease." It also explains why Downey,  who was released from 
jail in August to turn his life and career around, had a relapse 
Thanksgiving  weekend in California and was arrested on drug charges.

Downey's arrest came just weeks after voters in California overwhelmingly 
endorsed Proposition  36, the "treatment instead of incarceration" ballot 
initiative that aims to divert nonviolent drug-possession offenders from 
jail and prison into treatment programs. Ethan A. Nadelmann,  executive 
director of the Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, a drug policy 
reform organization, wrote in the Los Angeles Times why Prop 36 and similar 
measures are gaining momentum:

"Clearly, more and more citizens realize that the drug war has failed and 
are looking for new  approaches. The votes also suggest that there are 
limits to what people will accept in the name of  the war on drugs. ... 
Americans don't approve of people using heroin or cocaine, but neither 
do  they want them locked up without first offering them opportunities to 
get their lives together outside prison walls."

BUT HOW FAR should society go to save individuals from themselves and their 
destructive behavior  - even when they are more of a menace to themselves 
than society? Last year when a judge sentenced  Downey to prison, he said 
he was doing it "to save his life." But just three months out, he's back 
to  his old habits.

Additionally, Downey has had access to treatment and enjoyed strong support 
from friends and  employers in his profession. The same goes for baseball's 
Darryl Strawberry. They are proof that if incarceration is not the answer, 
treatment is no panacea, either.

"Relapses are a regular part of drug addiction," a counselor at one of 
Downey's treatment centers  told USA Today. A psychologist in the same 
article said that when researchers began documenting  drug addiction rates, 
"they were astounded to find 75 percent to 80 percent relapse after one year."

Still, Californians are willing to give treatment a try. Treatment costs 
about $ 4,000 a year per  person, while a year in prison for a drug user 
costs about $ 20,000, and it is estimated that as  many as 24,000 
nonviolent drug-possession offenders there could be diverted to drug 
treatment  instead of jail. It's worth a try.

CRITICS OF THE WAR on drugs, which include people as ideologically opposed 
as economist Milton  Friedman and consumer advocate Ralph Nader, have 
called it our domestic Vietnam - long, costly and unsuccessful, with the 
major difference being that in Vietnam, we eventually acknowledged 
the  futility of our efforts. They say that instead it has become a war on 
people.

Indeed, as Ethan Nadelmann notes, since 1980, the number of people in state 
prisons for drug  offenses has climbed more than tenfold, with most there 
for possession, not trafficking. Nearly 60  percent of all inmates in 
federal prison are there on drug charges.

But the stakes in this war are higher, involving lives ruined by addiction, 
babies being born  addicted, and the economic and spiritual destruction of 
entire communities because of the violence  associated with drug 
trafficking. So we may have to change strategy, but we shouldn't withdraw.

Fighting the war does not have to be a limited choice between treatment and 
law enforcement. The  two have to go together, because weakening drug 
enforcement mechanisms will lead to fewer  individuals both seeking and 
receiving drug treatment. And I don't know of a war that has ever been  won 
by simply treating the wounded.

Joseph H. Brown is a Tribune editorial writer.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D