Rigid Policies Are Counterproductive

DON'T PUNISH DRUG ABUSERS, TREAT THEM

IF ATTORNEY General John Ashcroft wants to put as many drug-law
violators as possible behind bars and provide treatment to as few as
possible, he will simply fall in love with the High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area program run by President George W. Bush's
yet-to-be-named drug czar.

In 1997 Ashcroft summed up his drug policy this way: "A government which
takes the resources that we would devote toward the interdiction of
drugs and converts them to treatment resources ... and also implements a
clean-needle program is a government that accommodates us at our lowest
and least instead of calls us to our highest and best."

The new administration may be looking for a way to spread Washington's
rigid, punitive drug-enforcement policies to state and local police
agencies. If so, the HIDTA program is an ideal vehicle. The program's
advertised goal is to increase the ability of state and local police
departments to catch drug traffickers.

Each HIDTA is run by a committee made up of eight federal and eight
state or local members. These committees plan operations and spend at
least $200 million a year on extra police officers, surveillance
equipment and travel expenses. Last year, the Appalachia HIDTA budget
for Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee and Virginia was $6 million.

The HIDTA program looks a lot like what folks in Washington call
political engineering. To build support for the drug war among 535
members of Congress, this program makes sure people living in every
corner of the country think they have a big drug problem. These voters
will, of course, call for action. Local elected representatives can then
come to the rescue, pointing to the HIDTA program as proof of their
responsiveness.

That Washington bankrolls the whole program makes it all the more
attractive to state and local officials. Today, 41 states have active
HIDTA programs.

But watch out, governors and mayors. The HIDTA program could do a lot of
unexpected harm:

Misguided Enforcement.

At first glance, the HIDTA program appears successful. For example, the
share of inmates in state prisons held on trafficking charges, as
opposed to possession, increased to 70 percent in 1997, up from 56
percent in 1986.

But this statistic masks a warning sign. The total number of state
inmates held for drug offenses skyrocketed from 41,000 in 1986 to
220,000 in 1997. While trafficking convictions increased, the number of
inmates serving time for drug possession between 1986 and 1997 went up
fourfold, from 14,000 to 59,000 - putting behind bars thousands of
people who really need treatment instead.

As state and local police agencies, with funding and technical coaching
from Washington under the HIDTA program, get better at catching violent
drug traffickers, these new skills may be turned against drug users,
too, putting more and more nonviolent people behind bars.

Policy Blinders.

Successful trafficking raids can lull state and local officials into
believing drug problems are solved with get-tough policies alone.
HIDTA's federal-state-local trafficking mentality can divert attention
from the human side of drug addiction and the need to reduce the demand
for drugs in neighborhoods with local treatment and prevention programs.

Starving New Initiatives.

By putting more money into drug-interdiction programs like HIDTA - a
definite risk with Ashcroft the nation's top law-enforcement officer -
drug-treatment money will become increasingly hard to find. Just when
governors in once-hardnosed states like New York are looking for
alternatives to punitive drug policies that have filled their prisons
without reducing their state's demand for drugs, money for new
initiatives is likely to dry up.

A lot of state governments are waking up to the value of more humane and
compassionate drug policies. At least six states have enacted laws that
legalize medicinal-marijuana use. New Mexico's governor has actually
called for decriminalization of drugs.

In short, more and more states realize how futile the interdiction and
imprisonment strategy has been and, instead, favor more resources for
treatment and education.

Rather than waste Appalachia's $6 million on a bureaucratic committee
supporting an outdated cops-and-robbers strategy, these funds would be
far better spent building drug-treatment facilities to help citizens
rebuild their lives and reduce the demand for drugs in the region.
Cutting the demand for drugs here at home is the more promising
drug-control strategy: Cut demand, and drug trafficking will fade away.

Time will tell whether the Bush administration will increase spending
for the HIDTA program and spread a hard-line, interdiction drug policy
among the states. But based on what we know so far, there is ample
reason for governors, mayors and ordinary citizens to worry.