BEATING DRUGS, THANKS TO BIRD

Over the last 50 years or so, our nation's greatest social problems have
been drugs, gun violence and street gang terrorism.

Drugs have become epidemic, there is an enormous underground for illegal
gun sales and urban street gangs have laid out victims by the thousands.

Conditions remain perilous, even though things seem safer now because the
police do such a good job - probably best in New York and less so across
the country.

Of these problems, drugs are the worst, not only because of the terrible
damage done to - and by - those caught in the grip of addiction, but
because so many aspects of the other two problems are drug-connected.

One sustained, high-quality and serious response to the drug scourge is the
Veritas Therapeutic Community Foundation Inc.

Veritas focuses not only on drug addiction itself but on what it does to
addicts, their families and the communities in which they live.

Tonight, the 15th annual Evening with Friends of Charlie Parker, a benefit
concert for Veritas, will take place with Peter Jennings as host at the
Manhattan Center. The Friends of Charlie Parker evening came about through
the efforts of the late Doris Parker (one of his ex-wives), grand master
drummer Max Roach and the vibraphonist Milt Jackson. The three decided that
they could celebrate Parker in two ways: first with music, second by
raising money for the kind of program that did not exist when the great
alto saxophonist and jazz innovator lived (1920-1955). Parker, who was
known universally as Bird, eventually succumbed to the duress put on his
body by almost 20 years of heroin addiction topped off by alcoholism.

Veritas has five specific principles that speak directly to the hard blues
delivered by drug addiction:

* The family is the basic building block of healthy individuals and stable
communities.

* Intervention breaks the cycle of dependency and prevents substance abuse
in families where addiction is multigenerational.

* Children of chemically dependent families are at risk of suffering
developmental and emotional wounds, but those children can develop normally
and become healthy adults with proper early intervention.

* Chemical dependency is a treatable disease, and chemically dependent
individuals should be given a chance to recover. The cornerstone of
treatment is self-help within a supportive environment where individuals
take responsibility for their recovery.

* Providing vocational services, housing and family and children's services
creates successful results.

This is the kind of comprehensive program that goes beyond finger wagging
and the simpleminded assumption that curing addiction comes down to nothing
more than ignoring the temptation of drugs. Veritas' approach - handling
the whole person and creating ongoing support - is the serious kind of
program that we need.

So tonight, some of the finest jazz musicians in New York will play their
hearts out not only for Charlie Parker, but also in recognition of the fact
that community is usually the answer to most of our problems.

They will do well by Parker's legacy and will raise again the special flag
of New York spirit.

Stanley Crouch is a columnist, novelist, essayist, critic and television
commentator. He has served since 1987 as an artistic consultant at Lincoln
Center and is a co-founder of the department known as Jazz at Lincoln
Center. In 1993, he received both the Jean Stein Award from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters and a MacArthur Foundation grant. He is now
working on a biography of Charlie Parker.