MEDIA, LEGISLATORS, RESEARCH SPUR RETHINKING OF DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON -- Hollywood, medical research and a group of new lawmakers seem
to be combining to make official Washington rethink the nation's war on drugs.

For years, government has fought the war on illegal drugs with a steely
focus on the supply: destroying crops, intercepting shipments, jailing
smugglers, arresting dealers. And for years, Congress wasn't swayed by
critics such as Sen. Paul Wellstone and Rep. Jim Ramstad, who argued that
equal effort be focused on demand -- including drug and alcohol treatment.

"Our priorities have been misplaced as a nation, when we're spending only
16 percent of our funding on treatment," argues Ramstad, R-Minn., himself a
recovering alcoholic. "That's not working."

But in the past few months, treatment advocates are seeing the pendulum
swing their way. New studies on addiction have revealed the social and
economic costs. The Academy Award-nominated movie Traffic, along with
popular TV shows like The West Wing, are reaching a broad public and
fueling new debate over how best to address the nation's drug problem.

Among the new faces in Washington, President Bush comes to power with his
own history of alcohol abuse, as does Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., a
recovering alcoholic. And the outgoing Clinton administration has fueled
the treatment debate, too, in ways both intentional and not.

Said Wellstone, "There's more public focus; there's more visibility;
there's more education; there's a little less stereotyping than there used
to be, so that makes it a better climate."

This past week the president's budget included an extra $100 million for
substance abuse treatment, a 3.5 percent increase touted as a first step to
bridging the "treatment gap." Said Mark Weber, spokesman for the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, "This administration has
singled out treatment as an area where they've called for increased
investments."

But Wellstone and Ramstad have bigger plans. The Minnesotans are leading
efforts in Congress to prohibit health insurers from treating addiction
differently than other diseases. They face an uphill fight with many
opponents: business groups, who fear it would raise health-care costs;
citizens wary of government mandating health coverage; traditionalists, who
want to retain social ostracism of drunkenness and drug abuse.

At a hearing last year, insurers noted that treatment is costly, repeated
stays are commonplace, and even the best programs fail as often as they
succeed.

But advocates point to a raft of studies with one conclusion: providing
treatment is less costly to states, families and society than withholding it.

"My toughest sell is the Republican House leadership, no question about
it," Ramstad admits. "I realize Rome wasn't built in a day, but this is a
real passion with me, because I see the ravages of addiction every single day."

Now Ramstad is working to enlist a powerful ally: the new president.
Ramstad has met with Bush to discuss his own alcohol problems, and found
that the former Texas governor grasps the ravages of addiction.

"He did not commit to supporting any legislation, I must make that clear,"
Ramstad said. But, he added, "His own personal experiences with alcohol
abuse have made him sensitive to the problem. There's nothing like personal
experience with addiction to become a believer in treatment and recovery."

In Congress, the first battle involving treatment may arise over U.S.
funding for the drug war in Colombia. Last year, Wellstone and Ramstad were
soundly defeated when they tried to take drug-eradication money for
Colombia and redirect it to better treatment in this country.

"Part of the way people viewed the vote on Plan Colombia was you had to
show you were tough on drugs," Wellstone said. He also thinks some senators
were attracted to "high-tech solutions; they're less complicated, so we'll
do interdiction on the high seas, and we'll do aerial spraying, and it just
seems easier to people."

Except they're not enough. That's what Colombian President Andres Pastrana
said this past week, when he visited Washington. He said that helicopters
and aerial spraying in his country must also be accompanied by curbing
demand in this country.

Wellstone plans soon to make a second trip to Colombia. He hopes to shed
light on human rights abuses in the South American nation, but also, to
question the U.S. focus on the drug supply, instead of also looking at demand.

He'll have a surprising ally: the movie Traffic, a multilayered look at the
fallout of the drug war. The New York Times said in an editorial this past
week, "It is rare for a Hollywood movie to stimulate meaningful debate
about social policy, but that has been the case with Traffic. With its
disturbing images of middle-class teen-age addiction, outgunned American
counternarcotics agents and corrupt Mexican drug officials, the movie has
touched a nerve at a time of flux in the nation's decades-long campaign
against illicit drugs."

Former President Clinton, in his final month in office, signed an executive
order that gave federal workers parity for addiction-related treatment.
Inadvertently, he also drew a real-world parallel to the movie Traffic,
with his controversial pardon of convicted drug trafficker Carlos Vignali,
who was freed thanks to the efforts of prominent religious and civic
leaders, including the brother of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton's drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, is now advocating treatment as
the best way to address the drug problem, and is promoting the Wellstone
and Ramstad bill. Ramstad would have liked the help last year.

"We got lip service from President Clinton," Ramstad said. "Every time it
was time to move the bill, we couldn't get a letter of support from the
administration. So we've just decided to wait for the new administration."

Together, the landscape is a welcome change for treatment advocates. Said
Jane Nakken, an executive vice president at the Hazelden Foundation, "The
awareness is a wonderful step, and we're seeing that all over the place."
She also cites new research detailing the cost of addiction, and
state-level initiatives like Proposition 36 in California that promote
treatment over jail for drug offenses.