TRAFFIC LAUDED FOR ITS REALISTIC IF BLEAK VIEW OF DRUG PROBLEMS

Far More Resources Go To Stem The Supply Than To Treat Addicts

SAN ANTONIO - If there is a scene in Traffic that captures the film's deep
current of despair about drug addiction in the United States, it's the
moment when Caroline (Erika Christensen) lies on a bed in a seedy hotel
room, trading sex for drugs and the mindless bliss toxic substances briefly
bestow.

She's the 16-year-old daughter of Judge Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas),
the film's national drug czar, a man who swigs scotch and cluelessly wages
war on drug trafficking while his daughter free-bases crack cocaine and
self-destructs. Caroline is the corrupt, fallen cherub from the affluent
suburbs.

"That's real," Patrick Clancey, executive director of the treatment-focused
Patrician Movement in San Antonio, said about director Steven Soderbergh's
depiction. "It's not just the stereotypical poor person from the other side
of the tracks doing this. People from privileged families get addicted. Our
worst drug problems are the [white] kids, bored, with a lot of cash and time."

But even as Traffic garners acclaim for its gritty, unblinking view of the
druggies next door and the Niagara of illegal drugs pouring over the border
from Mexico -- and even though the film ends on a positive note -- those
who work on addiction treatment and medical issues say the story will
generate more unease than optimism about this problem.

President Richard Nixon launched the campaign against drugs in the 1970s to
help heroin-addicted Vietnam veterans, yet the drug war itself has become a
Vietnam-like morass. The "Just Say No" prevention program of the '80s
doubtless helped some elementary school students stay clean. But, said
Clancey, "It didn't really work. It has been ridiculed."

Signs are mixed and troubling. In his final report, Barry McCaffrey, the
director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said drugs cost the
nation US$110-billion and 52,000 lives each year. In 1999, almost 15
million Americans older than 12 admitted using illicit drugs.

McCaffrey finds hope in the fact that drug use is down among young people
12 to 17. The Monitoring the Future Study, MTF, sponsored by the National
Institute on Drug Abuse, heralds the drop in heroin use among children in
Grade 8. But where's the good news in 1% of them still abusing a dangerous
drug linked to a myriad of social ills and crime?

In the really bad news, MTF reports use of Ecstasy, or MDMA, a popular club
drug, shot up by 82% from 1999 to 2000 among those in Grade 8.

"The scariest thing going on right now with kids is Ecstasy," said Dr. John
P. Keppler, director of medical programs for the Texas Commission on
Alcohol and Drug Abuse. "Ecstasy actually is neurotoxic. It's a
hallucinogen and amphetamine combined. It hurts the part of the brain
called the hippocampus. In some cases, it's not reversible. You can lose
memory."

So, yes, Traffic raises despair, "because it's horrible," Keppler said.
"[Addiction] literally hijacks your brain. The major symptom is people
appear to be willing to give up everything in their lives just to have
drugs. Drugs go into that portion of the brain where very primitive
behaviour occurs -- hunger, thirst, the sex drive."

In the end, said Betty L. Schroeder, a psychologist who treats alcohol and
drug abusers, the drug problem requires multiple fronts -- policing on the
border, prevention programs in schools, more treatment centres and research.

But Soderbergh makes the point that vastly more resources go into
supply-side policing to stop a small percentage of the drug flow than
demand-side medical and psychosocial therapies. In the film, Douglas's
character asks his staff on one mission to the drug-interdiction front:
Where are the treatment people on this plane? Noticeably absent, it turns out.

Funding and availability of treatment and the stigma surrounding it are the
sticking points. "Treatment works," Schroeder said. "But only a small
percentage -- one in 10 people -- enter treatment. No one wants to say,
'Hey, I'm a heroin addict.' "

"This is an illness of the central nervous system," Keppler said, adding
that it can be treated with about as much success as seen with diabetes or
asthma.

In the future, science will be able to block the addictive effects of
cocaine or heroin through immunizations, medications and nicotine-type
patches. Still, the family and social stresses and personal pain that lead
to drug abuse will remain.

Clancey noted that people who enter treatment can benefit from support from
their family and friends.

"The gift of self, of support, is the best gift we can give," he said.
"But, always, the people who recover are the ones who leave treatment still
afraid of the drug's enormous power."