PUNISHING ADDICTS IS A LOSING STRATEGY IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

What has the "war on drugs" done for Darryl Strawberry and Robert Downey
Jr.? Are they better off or worse off? Are they the targets or the victims?
Should they be thankful or regretful?

The war on drugs is really a war on people _ on anyone who uses or grows or
makes or sells a forbidden drug. It essentially consists of two elements:
the criminalization of all things having to do with marijuana, cocaine,
heroin, Ecstasy and other prohibited drugs, and the presumption that
abstinence _ coerced if necessary _ is the only permissible relationship
with these drugs.

It's that combination that ultimately makes this war unwinnable.

The previous drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, wanted to do away with the
rhetoric of the war on drugs while retaining its two core elements. Now the
new attorney general, John Ashcroft, wants to intensify the drug war
efforts. The implications are ominous.

The success of drug policies is usually measured by annual surveys that
tell us how many Americans, particularly teenagers, confessed that they had
used drugs in the last week, or month, or year. Drug warriors often point
to the 1980s as a time when the drug war worked because the number of
illicit drug users reportedly fell more than 50 percent.

But consider that in 1980 no one had ever heard of the cheap, smokable form
of cocaine called crack or of drug-related HIV infection. By the 1990s,
both had reached epidemic proportions in American cities. Is this success?

Or consider that in 1980, the federal budget for drug control was about $ 1
billion, and state and local budgets perhaps two or three times that. Now
the federal drug control budget has ballooned to roughly $20 billion,
two-thirds of it for law enforcement agencies, and state and local spend
even more.

On any day in 1980, approximately 50,000 people were behind bars for
violating drug laws. Now the number is approaching 500,000. Is this success?

What's needed is a new way of evaluating drug policies by looking at how
they reduce crime and suffering. Arresting and punishing citizens who smoke
marijuana _ the vast majority of illicit drug users _ should be one of our
lowest priorities.

We should focus instead on reducing overdose deaths, curbing new HIV
infections through needle-exchange programs, cutting the numbers of
nonviolent drug offenders behind bars and wasting less taxpayer money on
ineffective criminal policies.

Darryl Strawberry and Robert Downey Jr. qualify as both targets and victims
of the war on drugs _ targeted for consuming a forbidden drug, victimized
by policies that must "treat" not just addiction but criminality.

Millions more are victimized when their loved ones are put behind bars on
drug charges or when they lose family members to drug-related AIDS,
overdoses or prohibition-related violence.

We should base our drug policies on scientific evidence and public health
precepts. That's the most sensible and compassionate way to reduce drug abuse.