PESSIMISM SHOULDN'T THWART WAR ON DRUGS

Traffic, a sobering epic on the vexing complexities of the drug war,
triumphed at the Oscars this past weekend, winning awards for best
director, supporting actor, adapted screenplay and film editing.
Traffic director Steven Soderbergh says he made this movie because he
wanted to find out what was going on in drug law enforcement.

Fast forward from movie fantasy to the reality of the new Bush
administration. The White House appears to have shelved this issue.
President Bush has yet to appoint a permanent replacement for former
drug czar Barry McCaffrey, who left in early January.

"There's nothing happening. They're out of the game," McCaffrey told
The Associated Press.

The drug czar produces "the policies, priorities and objectives for
the nation's drug control program." Based on my reporting from the
front lines for Montel Williams' talk show, battling the drug problem
should be at the forefront of national policy.

As part of my drug education, I underwent "meth raid" training at the
Drug Enforcement Administration training center at Quantico, Va. I
then accompanied Tulsa officers on a local methamphetamine lab raid.
The couple busted that particular winter afternoon appeared to have
been cooking large quantities of the cheap and highly addicting drug
in their storm room and dumping the toxic byproducts under their
children's swing set.

I also interviewed women in the Tulsa county jail for drug-related
crimes. One told me she had watched a meth-intoxicated friend blow
her face off with a shotgun. Incredibly, seeing her friend's brains
splattered across a motel room wasn't enough to induce her to stop
using. As a local counselor explained, addiction is so pernicious it
often takes incarceration for an addict to confront the havoc in her
life. The addicts I interviewed credited the strong arm of the law
and intense therapy for their tenuous sobriety.

A poll released this month by the Pew Research Center for the People
and the Press finds that three-quarters of the public believes we are
losing the war against drugs. Widespread pessimism should not,
however, be mistaken for defeat. Americans are deeply troubled by the
mainstreaming of drug use, and the majority support strong
interdiction and tough sentencing for dealers. Compassionate
conservatism demands a serious and coherent approach to tackling the
problem of drug use and addiction in America. We cannot leave our
most vulnerable citizens behind.