NEW ARTILLERY FOR DRUG WAR

(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES -- America is losing the "War on Drugs." More and more
people are filling jail cells across the country. In a U.S. Justice
Department Bureau of Justice Statistics report released for 1997, 57
percent of prisoners admitted to using drugs in the last 30 days. One out
of every six prisoners said they committed their crimes to get money for
drugs. The numbers are not going down either. In 1999, the amount of
federal prisoners who said they were under the influence of drugs 30 days
prior to the offense was 50 percent.

But just because they are arrested doesn't mean prisoners stop using drugs.
Narcotics are widely available, even in maximum-security prisons. In the
late 1970s and early 1980s, the American drug policy became simple: fight
drugs with force and increase jail sentences for drug use. The problem
behind this was almost too simple: The majority of people who ended up in
jail were not the majority of drug users. Cocaine use rose staggeringly in
the 1980s, as "coke" it grew among the wealthy, namely whites. Yet, as the
number of crack users grew also, it did so among minorities, mainly blacks
in the inner cities that could buy crack because it was so cheap.

So how did this situation become such a problem? When the government
decided to prosecute the use of drugs with stiffer and heavier penalties,
the number of crack-users prosecuted grew far more than any cocaine-related
prosecutions, even though there were actually more cocaine-users. The
people who were using cocaine had money for good drugs, and good attorneys.
The crack users found themselves addicted, and had no way to afford help.
So they went to jail, which is one reason that the current jail system is
filled with approximately 75 percent minorities.

In 1971, President Nixon, who coined the term "War on Drugs," created the
Office of National Drug Counsel, and appointed the first drug czar, Dr.
Jerome Jaffe, with the administration focusing almost 50 percent of the
funding on treatment, not punishment. Since then, the emphasis on treating
drug addiction has continually slowed and has come to a near halt. Only 11
percent of the 1999 $17.7 billion National Drug Control Budget was spent on
treatment for addicts. Education is not working either.

The increase in teenagers experimenting with drugs is going up steadily and
new drugs like ecstasy are becoming more widely used every year, despite
the drug education programs in schools. In 1986, Los Angeles Police Chief
Daryl Gates created the D.A.R.E. program in schools, which had police
officers visiting classrooms once a week to teach them about the wrongs of
drug usage. 60 percent of schools in the United States currently use this
program. The National Drug Counsel reports that 16 percent of people
between the ages of 18-25 are regular marijuana users. It also reports that
marijuana use has declined by users in the 12-17 age bracket from 9 percent
in 1997 to 7 percent in 1999.

Yet these numbers are irrelevant if the 16 percent mentioned earlier
increased from 13 percent in 1997. So while the use of marijuana has
decreased by two percent in the under 18-year-old category, in two years,
it increased four percent in that same time period in the 18-25 age
bracket. There is still an overall increase, and a steady one. It's time to
start looking at what the real problem is. Instead of trying to stop drugs
by fighting fire with fire and continuing to get burned, we must look at
the drug problem in America, what is really causing it, and how we can
actually fight it.

The solutions are simple.

1) Mandatory Drug Tests in Prisons. If a prisoner tests positive, then make
him or her attend addiction counseling. The prisoners should be given a
choice: drug rehabilitation in a prison drug facility, or a longer sentence
with the general prison population. Alabama has begun a prison program in
which inmates found with narcotics in their systems may choose either drug
rehabilitation or a longer prison sentence. With more than 90 percent
choosing rehab, there has been a dramatic cut in the number of repeat
offenders.

Of the first 5,000 people to go through this, twice as many criminals who
have rehab stay off drugs, than those who do not. The 1998 survey of the
Bureau of Justice Statistics said that overall, 71 percent of local jail
jurisdictions reported that they had a policy to test inmates and staff for
drug use in 1998. In June 1999, a fourth of the jails tested samples from
inmates. one hundred percent of jails need the policy and they all need to
use it.

2) Make treatment the focus of funding. After Nixon's administration began
its program, numbers of drug users dropped dramatically. As the money for
funding treatment was put into enforcement, the number of drug users became
higher than at the start of the Nixon administration.

3) Close up the borders, and put the Army there to minimize corruption and
give the DEA and border patrol guards extra help. The answer to the drug
problem is not legalization. With 16 percent of the jail population
committing crimes to get drug money, legalizing drugs is simply a way to
encourage criminal acts for drugs that are widely and freely available.
Besides, if drugs are legalized, there is less incentive for them to quit.

People who are on drugs do not act in rational manners, they will cause
more harm on society if they are legally allowed wander around on them.
There must be one goal in the War on Drugs, and that is to stop people
from taking them.