DRUGS 'BIG PROBLEM'; REMEDIES DIFFER

(Sunday, October 14, 2001) -- Monroe County's young adults have their own
ideas on how to fight the drug war: legalize marijuana and toughen law
enforcement.

A recent Democrat and Chronicle poll revealed a sizable gap between the
opinions of 18- to 24-year-olds and older county residents.

It also showed that people's viewpoints on illegal drugs vary dramatically
based on race and where they live.

According to the poll, which has a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points
and was conducted by the Utica-based Zogby International Inc.:

Nearly 75 percent of residents 18 to 24 say they know someone who has used
illegal drugs in the last six months. Countywide, 37 percent said they knew
someone who had used drugs during that time span.

58 percent of county residents 18 to 24 think marijuana should be
legalized. That's almost twice the countywide support of 31 percent.

54 percent of county residents think law enforcement is doing enough to
battle illegal drugs. Of 18- to 24-year-olds polled, only 29 percent agreed
and 51 percent said too little is being done.

71 percent of white poll respondents identified illegal drugs as a "big
problem" in Monroe County. For African-American respondents, it was almost
unanimous, with 98 percent saying they are a "big problem." Also 100
percent of Hispanic residents said drugs are a "big problem," though the
response is difficult to measure because only 12 of the poll's 600
respondents were Hispanic.

40 percent of city residents said police are not doing enough to fight
illegal drugs, compared with 27 percent of suburban residents.

Easy To Get

Poll respondent Cory Conti, 21, of Gates, said, "It's easier for an
underage kid to get drugs than it is to get cigarettes."

"If you drive down a street in the city there's folks out there smoking
weed and drinking (beer) out of brown paper bags," he said.

Yet, he said, police face an uphill fight when they try to shut down a drug
house because of the level of proof they need for a raid.

"Their hands are tied," said Conti, who works in the dry-cleaning business.
"They've got to get all of this evidence and stuff."

When age is taken into account, the poll reveals major differences in
thoughts -- and experiences.

For example, three out of four young adults 18 to 24 know someone who has
used illegal drugs in the last six months. Countywide, only 37 percent
answered 'yes' to that question.

"It's very sad that it's become a fact of life that young people know who
deals and who uses," said pollster John Zogby. "Even those who are not
defined as the outcasts know where they can get drugs if they need them."

Experts in substance abuse say that it's typically younger generations that
are most familiar with people who use drugs, so the poll's finding is not
unusual.

How The Young See It

Poll respondent Lindsay Brown, 22, of Greece, said she's not surprised that
people her age think law enforcement has yet to adequately address illegal
drugs.

Young adults see the impact first-hand, she said.

"There's a lot of drugs in schools," said Brown, who has tutored in area
high schools. "That's the most disturbing thing. As a tutor they would just
pull out their drugs in front of me."

Brown said at one suburban high school where she tutored, school officials
would occasionally have the police come in with dogs to sniff lockers for
drugs.

"They announced it a week or two weeks before so everybody would take it
home," she said. "That was ridiculous."

Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said the poll's showing that young
adults know people who have used drugs is in line with what he sees in his job.

"It goes along with the numbers we see at the jail," he said. "That's a
group we're looking at -- the 18- to 24-year-olds... . That's why we're
really going after drug treatment in the jail facility, to cut the recidivism."

William Fulton, executive director of the Delphi Drug & Alcohol Council,
said young people may want more law enforcement because they likely see
violence as an offspring of drug abuse and drug-dealing. "The drug problem
for the most part that hits us every day is (the news) that 'young guy gets
shot to death and we think its drug- related,' " he said.

Older residents, especially those of a generation that experimented with
drugs, may still view illegal substances as little more than a recreational
pastime, Fulton said.

"They didn't go through metal detectors to get to school," he said. "They
never had dogs coming into the school because the superintendent called to
have a sweep done of the lockers."

Grim Statistics

Some low-income city neighborhoods, where concentrations of poverty are
heavy and where many African-American and Hispanic people live, have been
the site for the most vigorous and public law enforcement efforts against
drugs.

Those neighborhoods, where street-corner drug transactions are common,
clamor for heavier policing, but the effect is often a disproportionate
percentage of young African-American men locked up for drug crimes.

In the past six years, nearly 70 percent of those arrested on drug
misdemeanor or felony offenses in Monroe County were black; African
Americans make up about 14 percent of the county's population.

Meanwhile, as many white people as black people seek treatment for
addiction in Monroe County, according to statistics from the state Office
of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.

Poll respondent Mary Nunn, 55, said she is not surprised that African
Americans like herself see drugs as a bigger problem than white people do,
she said.

Many white people are unwilling to see the effects of addiction and drugs,
even if in their own household or with their own children, she said.

"They're overlooking it because they say, 'Little Jimmy won't do this,' and
little Jimmy is out there selling more than anybody," said Nunn, of Rochester.

Also, she said, the drug-dealing is a lot more visible in city
neighborhoods, whereas in the suburbs the transactions often occur out of
public view.

"I think law enforcement is an ineffective way to battle the drug problem,"
said poll respondent Richard Ryan, 48, a city resident and University of
Rochester psychology professor.

"We've focused almost exclusively on law enforcement and not enough on
prevention and treatment.

"We're losing the war on drugs, so now it's time to make peace with our own
people," he said.

To Legalize Or Not

According to Zogby, the poll's opposition to legalized marijuana is similar
to other polls.

The Pew Research Center for the People & The Press this year reported that
about 46 percent of poll respondents support removing criminal charges for
possession of small amounts of marijuana.

New York lawmakers took that step years ago, decriminalizing small
possessions of marijuana so the penalty is comparable to a traffic ticket.

However, the Pew poll showed a shift in support for medicinal marijuana.

With that poll, nearly 75 percent backed allowing doctors to prescribe
marijuana for ailments.

Poll respondent Susan Ververs, 49, of Brighton, said she backs medicinal
use of marijuana, but cannot favor legalized marijuana beyond that.

"I just think it does something to your brain," she said.

(SIDEBAR)

D.A.R.E. Gets Mixed Reviews

The anti-drug program D.A.R.E. isn't an effective way to fight illegal
drugs, nearly half of young adults in Monroe County say.

According to a Democrat and Chronicle poll, 48 percent of county residents
18 to 24 think the school-based program is ineffective -- a viewpoint at
odds with older residents.

More than two out of three county adults think D.A.R.E. is either "very
effective" or "somewhat effective." Only 21 percent say it is not effective.

In recent years, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, founded in
1983 in Los Angeles, has come under fire because research has raised
questions about whether its anti-drug message is making a difference. The
program has been taught by law enforcement personnel to fifth-graders.

Even the national D.A.R.E. organizers have decided to revamp the program.
Poll respondent Susan Ververs of Brighton said she thinks D.A.R.E. does
help kids learn about the perils of substance abuse. But it needs to be
expanded beyond fifth grade, she said.

"It's a great idea if it's carried past fifth grade," said Ververs, 49, and
the mother of eight children and stepchildren.

Poll respondent Pamela Damon, 48, said the research she has read makes a
strong case that D.A.R.E. isn't working. While it's good to have contacts
between students and police, she said, she thinks there may be stronger
ways to convince students to stay away from drugs and alcohol.

"I think bringing in former drug addicts and alcoholics would help," she said.

Debates over D.A.R.E.'s effectiveness -- as well as larger questions about
how society combats drugs -- have flared up occasionally this year in the
race for Monroe County sheriff.

Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn, a Republican, is a strong supporter of D.A.R.E.
But, he said, he's not surprised at the poll finding.

Young adults likely realize that the messages of D.A.R.E. need to be
reinforced throughout the school years, not just in the fifth grade,
O'Flynn said. That's why, he said, he backs continued expansion of D.A.R.E.
into upper grades.

Democratic and Conservative sheriff's candidate Vincent Faggiano said young
adults see drug abuse first-hand. He said he supports D.A.R.E. but thinks
the county should wait until the national program has completed its
restructuring before Monroe County expands.

"The whole issue about drug enforcement has become a sound bite in
political ads here," said Faggiano, who was critical this year when O'Flynn
and Rochester Police Chief Robert Duffy announced for the first time the
accomplishments of a joint anti-drug unit formed 15 months earlier.

Thomas Vasile, the Independence Party candidate for sheriff, also backs
D.A.R.E. He, too, thinks the dangers of drug use need to be a lesson teens
hear as well as fifth-graders.

Green Party candidate James Caldwell is the lone sheriff's candidate who
has questioned whether D.A.R.E. works. He said health professionals, not
police, should be the instructors.