HARD LESSONS FROM TRAFFIC?

The drug czar-elect in the movie Traffic has decided to look at the
grit of drug trade and drug addiction first hand, to which end he
forages about Tijuana and has a near overdose. Groggy from what he has
seen, he accosts his staff on his posh private plane going back to
Washington. Michael Douglas does one of his jut-jawed scenes, with
which the movie is replete, and says he wants all ideas ventilated.
Everything. The director, who is headed for Oscarland, wisely decided
to cut away before any new ideas were in fact proffered, because the
drift of the movie-like the drift of public policy in the matter of
drugs-is: Continue, at breathless speed, to accomplish . . . nothing.

At a recent press conference, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was asked
if the president had seen the movie.

Answer: Yes.

Have there been any policy changes on the matter of drugs? Mr. Bush
has said that in his view (personally tested), treatment is more
effective than punishment. To this end, when talking about the subject
with the president of Mexico, the idea was evidently tossed around to
concentrate less on interdicting supply than on "reducing demand." How
do you do that?

Well, of course, the conventional way is to punish those who make up
the demand. If Johnny is thinking of buying some coke, the idea of a
couple of years in jail is supposed to deter him, and certainly does
deter some prospective users. The movie seen by the president
glancingly acknowledges the point, but its dramatic focus isn't on
Socratic monologues that weigh the lure of a snort over against the
horror of a prison term. The focus, quite understandably, is on young
people who would do anything for another fix and, in the movie, do.

Another deterrent is to expose the addict or near-addict to a
depiction of what it is like to suffer the thralldom of drugs. Five
recovering users in California were interviewed in Phoenix House, the
fine drug-recovery center, after being shown the movie. They discussed
their own itineraries en route to addiction, and one 17-year-old said
that if she had seen this movie, she probably would have found the
strength to knock off from drugs.

And then, of course, what is universally acknowledged as necessary is
the loyalty and devotion of parents. But, for the record, this didn't
help the Traffic people one bit. Michael Douglas's 16-year-old
daughter repaid parental concern not at all, adding wrinkles every few
minutes to her father's concerned brow.

The movie ends with a Little League baseball scene that suggests that
there is a ray or two of sun out there waiting for those who hope hard
enough. The baseball scene comes right after an Alcoholics
Anonymous-type sequence, in which the daughter stands up before her
fellow addicts, giving details of her ordeal and the steps she thinks
useful in combating the temptation.

But the dramatic theme of the movie isn't about recovery; rather it is
on hopelessness at every level, the hopelessness of the addict and of
laws and mores that collapse under the pressure of money. "How can
Mexico's drug lords begin to match the resources of the United
States?" one naif asks. He is abruptly stopped by the war-weary
official who says the drug lords are ten times as powerful as their
adversaries. What they have working for them is Americans willing to
pay $50 billion for their products.

Recent figures advise us that hard-core cocaine users ten years ago
numbered 3.5 million. The figure today: 3.5 million. The key question
then becomes: How many of those who ten years ago used coke are still
doing so? Some continue to use the drug, some are cured, and some are
dead. What is the interrelationship between public policy and the
incidence of cure? What would that 3.5 million figure be if laws
against coke were relaxed? What would it be if the $20 billion now
spent on deterrence were instead spent on therapy? Ten years ago
heroin users numbered 600,000. Now it is 980,000. What was the drug
czar doing that let that happen? Did we run out of money? Manifestly
the heroin makers have not run out of money.

One does not sense, in the new administration, any dramatic insights
on how to redirect policies that would seem to have failed. President
Bush is not, by background or disposition, a natural leader for a
dramatic change in policy. Yes, by all means reduce the demand. And
yes, it would help prospective drug takers to see the movie, Traffic.
On the other hand, it would be prudent not to view it repeatedly. That
would make the viewer reach out for any drug in sight.