DON'T PUNISH DRUG ABUSERS, TREAT THEM

Rigid Policies Are Counterproductive

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.