NARCOTICS - WHAT ARE REAL LESSONS ON DRUGS FROM 'TRAFFIC'?

The critically acclaimed film Traffic is a poignant movie about drug use
and the war on drugs. By almost all accounts, it captures the hopelessness
and tragedy of drug addiction, as well as the perils inherent in combating
a moral and legal wrong, in a forthright and convincing manner.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Stephen Gaghan claimed that he
wrote the movie script to save the life of his friend Robert Bingham, a
heroin addict who died before the film was completed. In that interview,
Gaghan blamed me for Bingham's death: "The reason he's dead is that he
couldn't talk about his problem publicly, because of the stigma, and the
stigma comes straight from William Bennett."

In response, Herbert D. Kleber -- who served as my deputy director for
treatment and prevention when I was "drug czar" -- pointed out that stigma
related to drug addiction long predated my tenure in the drug position and
that Bingham's drug use was well-known before his death.

In a more recent article in the New York Times, Gaghan conceded that much
of Traffic stemmed from his own real-life addictions. The lesson he put
into Traffic, which he hopes viewers will take out, is that "drugs should
be considered a health care issue rather than a criminal issue."

I write not to settle a score with Gaghan but to use the tragedies that
befell him to illustrate some larger points about drug use and drug addiction.

One key lesson is that prevention is indeed the most important weapon we
have in the fight against drug use. We must encourage parents to educate
children about the dangers of drug use.

But prevention involves more than simply teaching that drug use is wrong.
It entails making drugs scarcer, more expensive and less pure. When drugs
are more readily available, more people try them and more people become
addicted.

Once users are addicted, we must do what we can to free addicts from the
grip of drugs. But effective treatment entails more than just filling slots
in centers. To promote truly effective treatment, we must first recognize
that treatment doesn't always work and that even the best treatment works
only some of the time.

Approximately half of all addicts fail to complete the treatment programs
that they enter. For those who do complete a good treatment program, there
is about a 75 percent chance they will still be drug-free in five years. In
other words, of those who enter a sound treatment program, we can expect
about 38 percent to be cured.

One clear fact about drug treatment is that success in treatment is a
function of time in treatment. And time in treatment is often a function of
coercion. People who are forced to enter treatment under legal sanctions
are more likely to complete treatment programs and thus more likely to get
well. If we treat drug use as a purely medical problem, and treatment as
something that can be only voluntarily taken up, fewer people will enter
treatment -- and those who enter treatment are less likely to get well.

Gaghan's own story mirrors those of many people I have encountered over the
past decade. It was always easy to score the drugs -- until his three
primary dealers were arrested in one weekend.

In the end, Gaghan sought the aid of a friend who had recently quit drugs,
entered treatment and began, as the Times put it, "What he hopes is a whole
new life."

In treating drug addiction, scientific and medical advances are
indispensable tools that hold great promise for more effective treatment.
But the criminal justice system plays a critical role as well.