Given that substance abuse and addiction play such a prominent role in American society's biggest problems, from domestic violence to school dropout rates to AIDS, what do the experts say we should do?

A 1999 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association describes two general categories of drug users. The first is individuals, often adolescents, who use drugs for the pleasure they bring. The second group uses drugs to self-medicate depression or other mental problems. Either group can progress from use to abuse to addiction. In urging physicians to be on the alert for patients who need treatment, the article points out that treatment must address the reasons the person used drugs, alcohol etc. in the first place.

[continues 338 words]

AUSTIN -- The state's poison-control network is asking for $1 million for a statewide computer system and a full-time epidemiologist to analyze reports of illegal drug overdoses from Texas health care facilities.

Prompted by a spate of heroin-related deaths in North Texas in the late 1990s, legislation passed in 1999 requires hospitals and clinics to report overdoses to one of the six regional poison centers. But lawmakers didn't provide any money for record keeping.

With no reliable way to process the information -- track trends, offer real-time numbers and follow up with hospitals to verify numbers -- its usefulness is limited, public health officials said. "We're going to be reporting regardless, but it's the difference between driving a new car and driving a beat-up Camaro," said toxicologist Greene Shepherd, acting director of the North Texas Poison Center in Dallas.

[continues 443 words]

An American Epiphany: Perhaps The Only Way To Win The Drug War Is To Do More To Treat Its Victims

Feb. 12 issue - In the new U.S. thriller "Traffic," just opening on international screens, Michael Douglas plays Ohio judge Robert Wakefield, a Scotch-drinking conservative who is named the new U.S. drug czar. During an information-gathering trip to the Mexican border, he begins to see how complex and intractable the illegal-drug trade really is.

LOCAL HONEST COPS like Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) might be able to withstand the temptation of taking bribes, but they are powerless to stop corruption among those around-and above-them. Wakefield's misgivings about his appointment parallel the growing realization that his own teenage daughter is addicted to crack.

[continues 1688 words]

A Few Educators Are Inching Away From One-strike Policies

Feb. 12 issue - When Joe Marchese arrived at the Westtown School, a private Quaker day and boarding school in a suburb of Philadelphia, he found a one-strike policy in effect toward drug and alcohol offenses: a kid caught with illegal substances was expelled.

THE EFFECT, says Marchese, who runs the 385-student upper school, was to often drive the offenders underground. "Students would want to get help for themselves or their friends, but feared the possibility they'd be thrown out of school," he says. That was nine years ago. Soon afterward Westtown, with advice from the drug-prevention nonprofit FCD Educational Services, moved toward a "two track" system of discipline and treatment. There's a mandatory two-week suspension for anyone caught with drugs on campus, but instead of just going home to watch game shows and smoke pot, the student receives counseling and support. When he returns to school, a support plan is in place that includes random drug testing and counseling. "It's good to know that people have a second chance, says senior Nneka Nwosu, a student representative on the school's discipline council. "It's: 'I made a mistake, but I'm not a bad kid. I get to come back and prove that I'm still a good kid'."

[continues 400 words]

Regarding the Feb. 1 article "U.S. attorney's office tough on guns, drugs, little else," it amazes me that a federal law enforcement official could be criticized for cracking down on drug dealers but not prosecuting enough polluters, corrupt public officials or white-collar criminals.

Talked to residents of Eastern North Carolina lately? Drugs and guns continue to be enemies No. 1 and No. 2 in our communities -- a constant battle for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's not that pollution or white-collar crime are insignificant, but rather these issues threaten daily existence and survival.

[continues 111 words]

The Feb. 4 Metropolitan article on the proliferation of home methamphetamine laboratories ("New `meth' labs making hazardous home `cooks'; Drug's popularity rising in outlying counties") reminded me how "the more things change, the more they remain the same."

In my college days at Rice University, things were different. The amphetamine that now gets people thrown in prison was legal then and students used it to stay up and study for exams.

Users -- whether students or truck drivers -- could monitor how much they were taking and if a few got hooked, as with alcohol, they were treated with much less money than we now use to put them in prison. The rest of us didn't worry about being arrested or having our lives ruined.

[continues 166 words]

Of all the foreign-policy quagmires President George Bush has inherited, few are as muddy as the mess in Colombia. Alarmed by rising coca cultivation and by the strength of the leftist guerrillas in a country that produces most of the world's cocaine, the Clinton administration boldly stepped into Colombia's complex internal conflicts. It granted $1.3 billion in mainly military aid last year for "Plan Colombia", a wider bundle of security and development projects drawn up by President Andres Pastrana's government. Should Mr Bush continue with, scrap or amend this policy?

[continues 623 words]

MIAMI - Not long ago, Eduardo Pizano, the chief of staff of Colombian President Andres Pastrana, traveled to China to ask Beijing for its help in solving what he called his country's "horrible drama."

When Pizano revealed his trip Friday during lunch at a packed Miami conference on U.S. efforts to aid Colombia under a program known as Plan Colombia, U.S. diplomats and military officials nearly choked on the chilled salmon. As one State Department official muttered under his breath, "It's not as though they're talking with the Netherlands." Since the United States turned the Panama Canal over to Panama in December 1999, some members of Congress have raised concerns about Chinese intentions in Latin America. A Hong Kong company with close ties to Beijing, Hutchison Whampoa, already operates ports at either end of the canal.

[continues 677 words]

In A Growing Shift, Some Republicans Are Calling For Treatment Rather Than Incarceration

For decades, the so-called war on drugs was sacrosanct politically - a must-win that both Republicans and Democrats championed, some for fear of being tagged "soft on crime."

But a quiet revolution is brewing that could transform the nation's approach to dealing with illicit drug use. And some of the leading rebels, and newest converts, are state-level Republicans.

With drug offenders bulging the seams of the nation's prisons and draining state coffers, officials are talking more openly about the alternative of court-ordered drug treatment, as evidence grows that it is more effective than prison in reducing recidivism and returning people to productive lives.As a result, the roster of the reform movement is expanding rapidly from its traditionally small liberal base to include some big-name Republicans, including Govs. George Pataki of New York and Gary Johnson of New Mexico.

[continues 814 words]