ADJUSTING DRUG POLICY

It is rare for a Hollywood movie to stimulate meaningful debate about
social policy, but that has been the case with "Traffic," Steven
Soderbergh's gritty depiction of the drug wars that has been nominated
for an Academy Award as best picture.

With its disturbing images of middle-class teenage addiction,
outgunned American counter-narcotics agents and corrupt Mexican drug
officials, the movie has touched a nerve at a time of flux in the
nation's decades-long campaign against illicit drugs. With new
leadership both in Washington and in Mexico, this is a good time to
think anew about the most effective ways to deal with a social problem
that has fueled widespread violence and corruption and destroyed
countless lives. The White House has yet to declare its intentions on
drug policy, and has not nominated a replacement for Barry McCaffrey
as the director of national drug control policy.

But President Bush and members of his cabinet have made comments
lately that suggest they may be willing to shift the emphasis of
American policy from eradicating the supply of drugs to reducing the
demand for them. Mr. Bush, on his recent visit to Mexico, acknowledged
that American consumption was "the main reason why drugs are shipped
through Mexico to the United States." "Traffic's" depiction of bribes
and torture in Mexico, including the collusion of Mexico's top drug
official with one of that country's most notorious drug syndicates, is
based on well-documented events of the late 1990's. Mexico's
president, Vicente Fox, has pledged to eradicate corruption. But the
limits of such a campaign were underscored in January when one of
Mexico's most infamous drug barons, Joaquin Guzman, escaped from
prison, apparently after bribing guards. a, Mr. Bush has an
opportunity to review the $1.3 billion aid package known as Plan
Colombia, which he inherited from the Clinton administration. The plan
is skewed toward using military force to shut down the drug trade in
Colombia, an approach that could entangle American troops in that
nation's protracted civil war while doing little to stem the flow of
narcotics north. There is a place in American policy for efforts to
interdict drug shipments overseas, and to prevent the cultivation of
crops that are used to make drugs.

Law enforcement programs in the United States must also play a role.
But these programs cannot succeed without a more robust effort to
curtail the demand for drugs at home. The bulk of the federal
government's $19.2 billion annual drug-fighting budget is still spent
on interdiction and enforcement. Yet the number of hard-core users of
cocaine has remained steady over the last decade at around 3.5 million.

The number of hard-core heroin users, meanwhile, has risen from
600,000 in the early 1990's to 980,000 today. Studies have
consistently shown that treatment programs for addicts are far more
cost-effective than enforcement and interdiction in reducing drug use.
During the campaign last year Mr. Bush pledged to provide an
additional $1 billion over five years for treatment to help close the
gap between the 5 million Americans addicted to illegal drugs and the
2.1 million who currently receive treatment.

That by itself would be a laudable achievement. Mr. Bush has
acknowledged his own problems with alcohol earlier in life. Shortly
before taking office, he told CNN that drug treatment programs needed
to be strengthened. "Addiction to alcohol or addiction to drugs is an
illness," he said. "And we haven't done a very good job, thus far, of
curing people of that illness." As a Republican with a conservative
base, Mr. Bush may be better placed than Bill Clinton was to bring a
reluctant Congress around to that view. He should use the powers of
his office to do so.