Pubdate: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 Source: Modesto Bee, The (CA) Copyright: 2001 The Modesto Bee Contact: http://www.modbee.com/help/letters.html Website: http://www.modbee.com/ Author: Don Shaw Note: Shaw, a Turlock resident, has taught English at Downey and Beyer high schools. DRUG WAR NEEDS NEW STRATEGY Anyone looking back over the past 30 years of the war on drugs at the local level will find little to be proud of. Local narcs have established a dismal record rife with human rights violations, faulty investigations and just plain ineptitude; and they have little to show for their efforts in terms of reduced production, sales or use of illegal drugs. My immediate concern in writing this is the immeasurably tragic Alberto Sepulveda case, but that awful event can be seen as a kind of culmination of misguided police work, sadly consistent with the overall record of bungling and poor judgment. Our community is not unique, of course, as is made abundantly clear by Steven Soderbergh's powerful and insightful film "Traffic," which indicates that the same stupidities that characterize the war on drugs locally are in play everywhere else as well, up to and including the highest levels of government. Clearly we are not winning this war and we are not waging it intelligently, however reassuring it may be to learn that methamphetamine labs are being discovered and demolished with unprecedented efficiency. We may commend the police for these successful actions, but, as usual where law enforcement takes on the drug problem, such successes only deal with the supply end. Without reduced demand, new supplies are sure to appear. Momentarily effective police work doesn't assure long-range success. From the start, Modesto's war on drugs has given us more spectacle than enduring results. I witnessed one example of conspicuous police aggressiveness when a team of local narcs rounded up several alleged dealers at Beyer High a number of years ago. Armed officers suddenly appeared in the vicinity of my classroom, one of their prey having been located in a nearby room. With awesome efficiency they cuffed and hauled away the suspect as we looked on in amazement. The event was obviously scripted as a display of living theater. The message so dramatically conveyed was that drugs would not be tolerated in our town, and that the problem was being nipped in the bud. But now it seems fairly clear that for every bud nipped, another sprouts in its place. Statistics indicate that teen drug use is as widespread today as ever. Whenever there is slight progress, a new drug like ecstasy appears and we're back to square one. Police frustration, accumulating for several decades, tends to discourage common-sense solutions and encourage recklessness -- as we saw vividly demonstrated in the horrifying Sepulveda action. The real nature of the problem should have been clear 30 years ago. Something new was out of Pandora's box, and an unprecedented merging of youth, drug and rock cultures had resulted. A new sensibility was in the air, captivating a generation. What resulted was beyond the controlling resources of law enforcement, as usual. Parallels to the notable failure of Prohibition were often pointed out -- and casually dismissed. Police everywhere, angered by a counterculture they couldn't understand, saw an unwinnable war as their only option. Our present dilemmas are the result of that folly. Some say the solution is legalization. I'll leave it to my Libertarian colleagues to argue that point, but it is obvious that we need to shift our emphasis away from the futile cycle of crime and punishment in order to deal compassionately and nonjudgmentally with the true victims: those who have stumbled into the black hole of drug addiction. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D