DRUG ABUSERS NEED TREATMENT, NOT PRISON

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 $7
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," he said.

"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.