Pubdate: Tue, 27 Jun 2006
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2006 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Jim Bildner and Madeline Drexler
Note: Jim Bildner, whose son died last year of a heroin overdose, is 
chairman of the Literary Ventures Fund. Madeline Drexler, a 
Boston-based science journalist, has a visiting appointment at the 
Harvard School of Public Health.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

#J#: US MA: OPED: THE WRONG WAY TO FIGHT THE WAR ON DRUGS

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago this month, President Richard Nixon launched 
the modern-day war on drugs, calling illicit substances "America's 
public enemy number one." Today -- after endless confiscations and 
arrests, stacks of scientific reports, and hundreds of billions of 
dollars in government funding -- Americans are left with one 
conclusion: The war on drugs has failed.

It has failed for many reasons. Our leaders refuse to accept the 
facts on the ground. Their strategies are shaped more by punitive 
ideology than by pragmatism and compassion. And too many Americans 
still believe that drug addiction is someone else's problem. As a 
result, our government's wrongheaded policies have gone unchecked -- 
with countless lives lost, families wrecked, and victims more cruelly 
marginalized than in other developed nations.

Fact: In the three decades since Nixon declared substance abuse a 
"national emergency," the United States has focused on curbing supply 
and demand for illegal drugs. Currently, nearly half a million people 
in this country are behind bars for drug crimes (mostly trafficking). 
Yet the domestic drug market remains free-flowing. Classic economic 
theory states that when supply goes down, the price of a commodity 
goes up and its purity declines. With hard street drugs, the inverse 
has occurred. They're dramatically cheaper and purer than they were 
25 years ago -- suggesting greater supply and easy access. Adjusted 
for inflation, cocaine prices have dropped by more than half since 
1980. A bag of heroin goes for little more than a gallon of gas or a 
six-pack of water.

Virtually every campaign to eradicate or interdict illicit drugs 
abroad has enhanced either the ingenuity or ruthlessness of growers 
and smugglers. Experts call this "squeezing the balloon." Wipe out 
coca crops in Bolivia or Peru, and cultivation starts up in Colombia. 
Raid US methamphetamine labs, and Mexican operations quickly fill the 
gap. A bottomless global supply feeds a steady home-grown demand.

Fact: Despite strong consensus among researchers that drug treatment 
should be the centerpiece of policy, our government shortchanges this 
cost-effective approach. The federal Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention estimates that 3 million Americans suffer serious drug 
problems, and 17,000 die annually from their addiction. Treatment has 
been proven to reduce drug use, improve patients' health and job 
prospects, and cut the risk of overdose, crime, and HIV infection.

In the United States, however, most sufferers receive no medical or 
psychological help at all. Barely a quarter of the Bush 
administration's substance abuse spending goes toward rehabilitation. 
By contrast, Nixon devoted more than half of his anti-drug budget to 
helping those at the mercy of their habit. Enforcement, he insisted, 
had to be paired with innovative approaches to saving patients. In 
today's political climate, such ideas would be considered progressive.

How can we begin a national dialogue on this charged and complicated 
issue? "The problem is not that the United States has failed to do 
the impossible," write the University of Maryland's Peter Reuter and 
the University of Chicago's Harold Pollack, two respected observers 
of the drug wars, "but that it has failed to do things that could 
readily be done."

True, we must target high-level dealers with swift and certain 
punishment. But tough enforcement alone won't work. Spending 
priorities must be turned upside down.

Doing what "could readily be done" means shifting investment toward 
treatment and harm reduction; easing regulations on opiate 
maintenance therapies like methadone; and imposing strict standards 
on private treatment facilities, which have flourished in a 
regulatory limbo. It also means figuring out which programs 
discourage drug use and which are cynical quick fixes, and supporting 
the research that will help us tell the difference. Prevention, not 
punishment, is the core of enlightened public health.

After 35 years, the war on drugs -- a failure by any measure -- 
should be phased out, so that the real fight can begin.

Jim Bildner, whose son died last year of a heroin overdose, is 
chairman of the Literary Ventures Fund. Madeline Drexler, a 
Boston-based science journalist, has a visiting appointment at the 
Harvard School of Public Health.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman