WE NEED A SMARTER APPROACH TO DRUG ADDICTION

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.