TOUGH CALL: WAR ON DRUGS

RHONDA SCHAFFLER, CNNfn ANCHOR, MARKET CALL: In the movie "Traffic," Michael
Douglas, as the frustrated U.S. Drug Czar, says, "the battle is not a war on
drugs, but a war on ourselves and our children." While the movie was
fictional, the facts seem to back him up. In 1998, there were 1.7 million
cocaine users in the U.S., the highest percentage were between the ages of
18 to 25. More alarming, in 1999, 7.7 percent of tenth-graders and 4.7
percent of eighth-graders had tried cocaine at least once. But those stats
don't sway the financial argument made in the latest issue of The Economist
magazine to legalize drugs. The article says illegal drugs have a potential
retail sale of $150 billion a year. In comparison, the tobacco industry
generates $204 billion in sales. The magazine also cites the ill-effects
that the $35 billion-a-year War on Drugs is having on society.
Three-quarters of that money goes to punishment and prosecution of drug
offenders. So does The Economist have a point? should we regulate the drug
trade, or continue to relegate drug users to rehabs and prison cells?
Joining me now to make the "Tough Call," in D.C., the executive director of
the Drug Reform Coordination Network, David Borden, and in Atlanta, the
president of National Families in Action, Sue Rushe.

Thank you very much for joining me. Let's start first with David. Is the
argument from your group's perspective on legalizing drugs the same issues
raised in The Economist? were those the issues you have that it's a costly
fight that the U.S. is not winning?

DAVID BORDEN, DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: Yes, it is costly and let's
be clear, we're not simply talking about a cost of $35 billion of taxpayer
dollars, we're talking about some of the most devastating consequences being
wrought upon our society and upon many countries. There's according to -
according to new studies cited in this issue of The Economist, the global
drug market is $150 billion of retail sales. The U.N. places the estimate
much higher than that. So the idea that they can control the availability
of these drugs with such profits being made, so many people looking to buy
them, is an unsupportable fantasy. And vast amounts of violence and
corruption are the result of this costly prohibition. And our young people
are perhaps the most vulnerable victims. We have kids selling drugs to kids
in schools precisely because the drugs are illegal. And that - some of
these drugs are frightening to me and should be, but I'm much more
frightened by the idea of our youth using and selling and distributing drugs
in a criminal underground.

SCHAFFLER: OK, David, let's let Sue jump in because I'm sure her perspective
is quite different from yours.

SUE RUSHE, NATIONAL FAMILIES IN ACTION: It is indeed. One of the things
that is a myth out there is that we would make more money selling drugs than
keeping them illegal. Right now we have two legal drug industries, the
alcohol and tobacco industry, and they use a good number of their revenues
to advertise and market. And the prices are cheap because they mass
produce. And as a result, we have 105 million Americans who use alcohol on
a regular basis, 67 million who use tobacco on a regular basis and only 15
million who use all illicit drugs combined. The effort to have laws and to
enforce the laws and to get people treatment and to prevent use from
starting in the first place during the 1970s, from '79 until 1992, resulted
in cocaine use going from 8 million to 1 million, 1 1/2 million, resulted in
a two-thirds reduction of any use of any illicit drug by adolescents and
young adults, and resulted in a 500 percent decrease in daily marijuana use
by high school seniors. It is a myth that we can make more money by
legalizing drugs and selling them because what David Borden is not taking
into account is that we - what it costs us to do that, to treat, to take
care of all of the problems that come along with drug abuse and drug
addiction, far outweighs what we can make in taxes if we were to legalize
drugs. And that bears fruit.

SCHAFFLER: David, jump in on.

RUSHE: I'm sorry, that bears.

SCHAFFLER: Hold that thought for a minute. I want to get David's response
real quick.

BORDEN: Yes, if I may address this idea of from 1981 to 1992, the War on
Drugs reduced drug abuse in this country. We're suffering here from a
severe misinterpretation of the data and a severe over-reliance on numbers
that the government itself doesn't consider reliable. There was, I think,
there probably was some decrease in casual use of substances during that
time. William F. Buckley has pointed out there was a decrease in alcohol and
tobacco use during that time without imprisoning people. But regardless of
that, there was no reduction in the addiction rate. There was a dramatic,
dramatic escalation of a rate of drug-related AIDS and hepatitis and in the
violence rate, which we haven't recovered from that increase in violence.
And you look at the measures of the drug war's success, and our drug war is
principally a supply side war, trying to control the supply while the
principal measures of that are the price of drugs on the street to users,
because they're trying to raise the price to decrease demand, and the number
of young people, principally young people who report to having ready access
to these drugs.

SCHAFFLER: David Borden, I'm sorry, we have run out of time. I apologize to
Sue Rushe as well, because we are out of time. We actually have an update
on a big story this morning, so I want to thank you both and move onto that.