EXPERIMENTING WITH DRUGS

WHEN DR. ANDREA Barthwell of the White House drug czar's office addressed
the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco last month, she threw
out an intriguing statistic: 16 million Americans use illegal drugs, 6
million of them need treatment.

There are more than 291 million people in this country. The numbers, which
come from a national survey, made me wonder whether the drug war is worth
the cost. There's the dollar cost, and then there's the social cost of
placing 16 million Americans outside the law.

I don't have an answer, but I can offer some more food for thought.

Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Washington,
D.C., pegged the annual tab of America's drug war at $50 billion. Sterling
based his estimate on a 1996 Chicago Tribune opinion piece in which former
drug czar Barry McCaffrey wrote that the federal government spent $14
billion annually on the drug war, while state and local governments spent
$33 billion.

Of course, if drugs were legal, there would be more than 16 million users
and more than 6 million problem users. How many more?

Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which favors legalizing
marijuana, estimated that drug usage could double. The federal government's
National Household Survey on Drug Abuse bolsters his argument, as it shows
that 12.9 million Americans are heavy drinkers. That's slightly more than
double the number of Americans with drug problems.

Tom Riley, of the drug czar's office, says that estimate is too low. Don't
look at the number of heavy drinkers in the survey, he said, look at the
number of regular drinkers -- 109 million -- then guesstimate how many drug
users there would be. Or, he said, "Let's say it's half that, 50 million."

Riley asked, in an America with 50 million drug users, "Would our education
achievement be better? Would economic productivity be better?" Serious
people wouldn't answer yes.

On the other hand, Nadelmann points out, legalization ends some dollar
costs associated with criminalizing drugs. There would be less crime as
users wouldn't have to steal to buy drugs. (Drugs would be cheaper.) Users
would be more likely to hold jobs that pay taxes. They'd use clean needles.

Riley countered with the greater social costs of drug use -- the health
costs, reduced productivity, the likelihood that teenagers will do less
well in school, increased child neglect.

I should note that Barthwell's talk was attended by professionals who don't
take the benign view of drug use clearly held by pro-legalization forces.
They have to heal the human wreckage of addicts who have hit bottom. One
doctor announced himself to be "militantly anti-drug" as he spoke of the
need for a "de-glamorization of drug use."

But then there was the woman who worried about the system being "overly
punitive."

There is a cost to criminalizing any activity -- whether it's owning the
wrong gun or smoking the wrong plant. It tells people that they are outside
society, that they do not belong, that they will not get ahead.

I don't know the answer. I know the equations. More laws equal more
criminals. Fewer laws equal more addicts.

By Barthwell's own arithmetic, on any given day there are 10 million
Americans who aren't addicts, but are criminals.

Many of those 10 million use marijuana, which -- I know Riley disagrees,
but -- is comparable to alcohol.

Federal one-size-fits-all drug laws equal no chance to find out what good
or bad things would happen if the laws were changed, tweaked or at least
rethought.