Pubdate: Thu, 2 May 2002 Source: Blade, The (OH) Copyright: 2002 The Blade Contact: http://www.toledoblade.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/48 Author: Don Keller Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) ISSUE 3 IS MERELY A BIG SMOKESCREEN Trying to summarize my objections to Issue 3, I would mention that it would take a very vivid imagination to turn the actual success rate of our drug treatment programs into anything remotely related to success. And these programs are very expensive. They are merely a Band-Aid on a huge hard drug problem. They serve very few. They can make the health-care conglomerates richer, and drain public resources. It seems to me, in short, that the advertising for Issue 3 is a smokescreen. Our whole country is on a budget now, because of the tax cuts and the war. Maybe that old saying about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, maybe we should think about that. I believe that a dollar spent on drug enforcement (prevention) is more efficacious than 10 times that amount spent on treatment. We cannot ignore that with all camps getting into the picture - anti-tobacco, anti-alcohol, etc. - funds are diverted, interest is divided, and why are we attacking the legal drugs anyhow, while the "death" dealers of crack and other hard drugs trade openly? This issue failed before, partly because many believe that the best use of public funds must be the concentration of those funds on prevention, on (illegal) hard-drug enforcement programs. Consider this: The patient walks out of COMPASS on Collingwood Avenue, his treatment program completed, and immediately he has the hard drugs right there in his face again. DON KELLER Foxbourne Road - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom