STATES SPEND LITTLE ON DRUG PREVENTION

The issue: Hawaii and other states devote much of their budgets on dealing
with substance abuse but little of it on prevention and treatment. Our
view: The states' war on drugs should be more balanced in order to stop the
cycle of drug abuse.

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STATES make large expenditures on dealing with substance abuse, but very
little of the money goes toward prevention and treatment. Mostly it is used
to "shovel up the wreckage," according to a national study.

Hawaii spends more per capita than the national average on substance abuse
but less of that amount on prevention and treatment. State governments need
to reassess these expenditures.

"Substance abuse and addiction is the elephant in the living room of state
government, creating havoc with service systems, causing illness, injury
and death and consuming increasing amounts of state resources," says Joseph
A. Califano Jr., president of the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Using 1998 figures, the center reported that Hawaii spent $438 million --
from a state budget of $5.1 billion -- on substance abuse, but a piddling
$8,699 on prevention and treatment. Hawaii spent $368 per capita on
substance abuse, substantially more than the national average of $299.

The share of Hawaii's budget dealing with the problem amounted to only 8
percent compared with a national average of 13 percent. That may be partly
due to Hawaii's relatively large budget, which includes the burden of
operating public schools. Elsewhere, counties normally shoulder that
responsibility.

Viewed in another way, 35 cents of Hawaii's substance-abuse dollar goes to
law enforcement, 33 percent to health, mental health and programs for the
developmentally disabled, 11 percent to child and family assistance, and a
mere 3 cents to substance-abuse treatment and prevention. The national
average is 4 cents per substance-abuse dollar for treatment and prevention.

Califano urges that more be spent particularly on treatment aimed at
preventing prisoners from committing drug-related crimes after their
release. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said the
report shows the need for a "balanced strategy" to deal with drug abuse by
implementing "treatment programs that follow a criminal from arrest to
post-release follow-up."

Edward H. Jurith, acting director of the White House office, said, "We
cannot simply arrest our way out of the problem. Treatment programs that
follow a criminal from arrest to post-release follow-up must be implemented
to end the cycle of drug abuse and crime."

In his State of the State address, Governor Cayetano proposed requiring
drug-abuse treatment of nonviolent, first-time criminal offenders as an
alternative to prison, an important shift in dealing with the problem of
drug-related crimes. Hawaii and other states should continue to re-examine
their methods of fighting the drug war to focus more on prevention and
treatment than on coping with the consequences of drug abuse.