JAILING DRUG OFFENDERS IS NOT PERFECT ANSWER

WASHINGTON -- Haven't Darryl Strawberry and Robert Downey Jr. been
given enough "second" chances? Isn't it time to let justice do its
thing and put these two jokers away for long, long stretches?

Only the saints among us haven't been tempted to ask some version of
those questions. Only the fools among us think long-term incarceration
would do much for either of these celebrated junkies -- or for the
rest of us.

Our confusion on what to do about Strawberry and Downey -- both of
whom have been in trouble, repeatedly, for a variety of drug-connected
offenses -- is a pretty fair reflection of our confusion regarding
drug policy in general. At one end of the spectrum are those who say
that the law is the law, and that those who break it get the
punishment they deserve. At the other are those who, though they might
punish severely any theft or violence associated with acquiring drugs,
believe the chief victim of drug abuse is the drug abuser. What's the
point of punishing a guy who's already killing himself?

But most of us slop around in the middle. The first view ignores our
feeling that addicts are sick people for whom punishment is likely to
be useless, but the second overlooks the probability that
he's-only-doing-it-to-himself permissiveness will tempt more people
into abuse.

We want to punish in order to deter, but we understand that Strawberry
and Downey -- and who knows how many scores of thousands more? --
cannot be punished or shamed into sobriety. It's almost like bringing
charges against a guy who tries to throw himself in front of a train.

Is there a rational middle ground -- some reasonable place between
long-term incarceration of the ill and decriminalization? What should
we do with a Darryl Strawberry?

I put the question to Howard Simon, an official of the Partnership for
a Drug-Free America.

"Strawberry's is a tragic case," said Simon. "Here is a guy who has a
disease, plain and simple. No matter what you think about the law, we
need to find some way to have him get the help he so obviously needs.
If there is no treatment, we're not helping. That's the first thing we
need to understand: This is a very serious disease. The good news is,
it's treatable."

But treatment doesn't work for people who are not yet ready to kick their
addictions. It's our exasperation with people who, like Strawberry
and Downey, keep going through the cycle of abuse, discovery,
remorse, treatment and abuse again that makes us want to stop the
game and toss them in jail. Listen to Simon:

"Sometimes cancers recur. Sometimes cancer patients don't follow their
doctor's orders. But that doesn't mean we're supposed to throw people
on the scrap heap. It costs too much -- from their point of view,
obviously, but also from ours, including financially. A Rand Corp.
study says every dollar you spend on treatment saves you seven dollars
down the road, in crime and other costs, including the cost of
incarceration."

He'd not only make treatment widely available. For people like Downey
and Strawberry, he might coerce treatment.

"Treatment is great, fantastic, and I hope the nation gets behind
it.

"But prevention is even better. The people who say (as the Lindesmith
Foundation's Ethan Nadelmann said the other day) that you can't
achieve a drug-free society, so you shouldn't try, have got it wrong.
You can't achieve a cancer-free society, either, but don't tell
researchers they should stop looking for ways to stop cancers from
occurring in the first place."

That is the partnership's role in the drug wars. This organization of
media and communications professionals was founded in 1987 with the
simple premise that if you can use media to sell things, you can use
media to unsell things -- including drug use.

"There may not be much we can do about a Strawberry or a Downey," said
Simon, the partnership's associate director of public affairs. "For
those guys, drug use is really not a choice. What we try to do is help
kids in their teens to reject drugs while it is still a choice, and
for that they need both information and encouragement in making good
choices."

It is, of course, what we do in the case of tobacco. We promote social
sanctions against smoking, publish the health horror stories, develop
treatment protocols and pass laws against sales to minors. What we
don't do is put nicotine addicts in jail.