The War on Drugs: Fight Or Lay Down the Sword?

RECENTLY, we had a chance to catch the movie "Traffic," which has been
nominated for five Academy Awards. This edgy, artistic film about America's
war on drugs grabs your attention with multiple characters and plot
lines-some of which people can relate to very easily.

Actor Michael Douglas, for example, plays Judge Robert Wakefield, who has
been nominated to be America's "Drug Czar." As he shuttles from his
suburban Ohio home to various flash points in the drug war, he remains
blissfully unaware of his daughter, Caroline's, spiral into drug use.

When he does find out, he and his wife are at odds over what to do. Judge
Wakefield is for a hard line. His wife Barbara counsels a more subtle approach.

But the depth of Caroline's addiction and the degrees to which she will go
to get drugs will shock them both.

The Wakefield family is like many families, and a symbol of the country's
ambivalence about drug policy. Indeed, while your two columnists both
assent to the Christian notion that drug use can be sinful, we disagree
over the proper policy response. Carolan believes the war on drugs is a
misuse of resources.

Keating believes drug decriminalization would suggest a moral endorsement.

Whatever your ideological starting point, the film provides food for
thought about two important issues. The first is the incredible demand for
drugs, which even our powerful government seems powerless to stop.
"Traffic" dramatizes the problems of trying to interdict by border patrol
or prosecution.

New shipments just keep coming, and criminals easily fill market holes
created by arrests.

Both Long Island counties devote considerable resources to drug-related
prosecution. And our district attorneys, Nassau's Denis Dillon and
Suffolk's James Catterson, argued to us that drug prosecutions protect
residents, in low-income districts particularly, from the criminal blight
of drug dealing.

They also argued that harsher penalties-under the Rockefeller Drug Laws-are
misunderstood, and that DAs do not send first-time users or the truly
addicted to jail. Rather, they have discretion to screen out people for
treatment-using the threat of draconian penalties as an inducement.
"Sometimes you have to do what people need rather than what they want,"
said Catterson.

Yet, Dillon said he would welcome some modification of the debate about a
problem he likened to Vietnam. "If you could get the criminal element out
of it, and treat the taking of drugs the way we treat the taking of
alcohol-if we could consider that anyway, and debate it, and consider all
the pros and cons-we might start groping our way to a solution." Until that
point, however, Dillon said he would be reluctant to start rolling back the
current laws.

The public surely knows that the current system doesn't keep drugs away
from kids, however. In an unscientific survey we conducted at Suffolk
Community College, a number of students confirmed what we saw in our
adolescence.

Marijuana is still common in high schools, but there is also use of
Ecstasy, "Special K," cocaine and, in rare instances, heroin. But
prescription drugs, painkillers and sleep aids are also abused. One
student, Melissa, observed that the "so-called good kids," or high
achievers, "were the ones that used the most because they needed a
stress-reliever." This point leads to the second important issue from
"Traffic": Those who crave drugs do so out of needs that can, to some
degree, be filled by caring families. The film's Caroline Wakefield is a
high achiever. In one scene, she runs off a ridiculous litany of her
high-school activities.

More awareness of how life's pressures affect diverse personalities is
critically important. As "Traffic's" grim portrait of the drug war
suggests, drugs can bring problems into the home. But that's where the best
solution lies as well.