NOT MORAL FAILURES

There is a persistent assumption that drives the war on drugs' focus on
punishment rather than treatment. It spoiled your otherwise thoughtful
editorial ["Drug czar choice more of the same," May 14] when you breezily
referred to drug use as a "moral failing . . . on a personal level."

Once again, let's discuss what the medical and treatment establishment has
been telling us for decades. Drug abuse is an illness. I have worked in
substance abuse treatment for 25 years. I believe my experience and
education qualify me to report what has become almost proverbial in this
arena: These are not bad people who need to get good; they are sick people
who need to get well. I thank God that the people we treat for alcohol and
other drug abuse are not, at their cores, "moral failures." The recovery
process would be infinitely more difficult.

Isn't it an irony that we have a president (one who vigorously upholds
draconian approaches to drug abuse) who is himself a recovering alcoholic?

The greatest irony, however, is what we do to the poor African-American kid
who gets arrested for possession of marijuana or a few rocks of crack
cocaine. That young man will be subject to prosecution and stigmatized for
the rest of his life, even if he never touches a drug again. Recall that
President Bush recently committed to renewed enforcement of a law that
prevents people who've been convicted of even minor drug charges from
obtaining federal financial aid for education.

Perhaps it's time to recognize the moral failure in America's reluctance to
admit the shameful hypocrisy and injustice of its war on drugs.

Brian Roth, Evanston