REGAINING THE MOMENTUM IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- Three days after Christmas an Associated Press story
out of Philadelphia reported: "Four masked intruders burst into a
dilapidated crack house and opened fire on 10 persons, killing seven. . . .
One woman inside the house was heard screaming 'Help me! Oh my God help
me!' . . . two of the victims were reported drug dealers . . . the house
was 200 feet from an elementary school."

The district attorney told reporters, "For those of us who think drug use
is glamorous, it's a horrible mistake." A few days later, the Stephen
Soderbergh movie "Traffic" opened to rave reviews and gave audiences a
fictional glimpse of the horror and savagery of the drug life. Particularly
gruesome was the depiction of the empty adolescent girl who filled the void
in her soul with drugs and prostitution; but there was no one in the story
- -- on either side of the law -- whose life was not brutalized and made
tragic by drugs.

The ever more powerful drug legalizers like to say that both the
Philadelphia massacre and the movie illustrate the futility of the war on
drugs.

As always, they are horribly wrong and oblivious to the human devastation
surrounding drugs. In the words of professor James Q. Wilson of UCLA, "Drug
use is wrong because it is immoral, and it is immoral because it enslaves
the mind and destroys the soul."

Former drug czar William Bennett, put it this way: "People addicted to
drugs neglect their duties . . . they will neglect God, family, children,
friends and jobs -- everything in life that is important, noble and
worthwhile -- for the sake of drugs."

Drugs, Bennett notes, "undermine the necessary virtues of a free society --
autonomy, self-reliance and individual responsibility . . . for a citizenry
to be perpetually in a drug-induced haze doesn't bode well for the future
of self-government."

And the Drug Enforcement Administration reminds us that crime, domestic
violence, child abuse and fetal damage all come in the package with drugs.

Now it is time for President George W. Bush to pick his drug czar; a man or
woman whose job has been made more difficult by the last eight years.

After the Clinton years, every indicator is bad. Consider a few:

Drugs are more potent, cheaper and more available.

Youth drug use is up, youth are less negative toward drugs and the age of
first use is shockingly down to 13 years or under.

Emergency room visits for drug overdoses are up and methamphetamine use is
exploding.

The ruinous idea of drug legalization is back as eight states have
legalized marijuana and other drugs under the hoax of medical need.

And, finally, narco-terrorism has fanned the flames of civil war in
Colombia, devastating that nation's legitimate economy and threatening to
suck the United States into what some critics predict could become another
Vietnam.

Yet despite the false claims of drug legalizers, the situation is not
hopeless. What most people have forgotten is the success this country had
in reducing drug use during the 1980s -- primarily under the
administrations of Ronald Reagan and the new president's own father.

Between 1977 and 1992, overall casual drug use by Americans dropped by 78
percent. For high school seniors the decline between 1985 and 1992 was 81
percent -- and this was achieved at a time when many other social
pathologies were growing.

The progress was based on an integrated -- and committed -- strategy that
included interdiction, treatment, education, prevention and law
enforcement. There followed overwhelming cultural change in which illegal
drug use went from being stylish and liberating to passe and dangerous.
Children learned to "Just Say No."

Outgoing drug czar Barry McCaffrey did what he could. He fostered a
national advertising campaign to dissuade the new generation of teens, 54
percent of whom now say they have tried illegal drugs. He stood up for
scientific truth and held fast that raw, smoked marijuana is not medicine.
He lobbied for and won aid to the anti-drug forces in Colombia. But there
was never a commitment to reduce supply and demand during the Clinton-Gore
years comparable to that of the Reagan and Bush years.

When Bill Clinton took office, there were about 12 million drug users in
the United States. Had the drug war continued in the 1980s mode, that
figure might be 6 million today. Instead, it is 14-plus million, and the
new users are the young.

It is time to recall 19th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant's
observation that "the actual proves the possible."

What was done in the 1980s can be done again. If the new President Bush
will fight illegal drugs with the same commitment and force that his father
did, he will have the overwhelming support and appreciation of people in
America and across the world.

George W. Bush sent a good signal when he chose the tough drug fighter John
Ashcroft as his attorney general. Now he must bring on a like-minded drug
czar and get back to winning the war.

McKinnon is an independent journalist in Washington. Her e-mail address is
manon2@earthlink.net. This commentary was written for Knight Ridder/Tribune
News Service.