PUSH DRUG TREATMENT TO THE FRONT LINE

With 5 million addicts unable to get treatment, America must reshuffle its
priorities in the fight against illegal drugs.

GOOD POLITICS can make bad public policy, and nowhere has this been more
evident than in the nation's "war on drugs."

For decades, legitimate fears about the dangers illicit drugs pose -
particularly to young people bursting with curiosity and lagging in judgment
- - have driven increasingly harsh measures against a pernicious threat.

Sure, even tough-on-crime pols temper their anti-drug offensives, these
days, with proposals for some treatment. But a mix of funds for treatment
and provisions for ever-tougher mandatory-sentencing laws seems to be de
rigueur, lest the public mistake policy enlightenment for a mushy-headed
softening of one's resolve to fight this ugly trade.

Harsh mandatory sentences already are in place, for better or worse. The
nation spends huge amounts on investigation, interdiction and incarceration.
It's shoveling money into Colombia in hopes of cutting the head off the
snake. Yet continued demand for illegal drugs ensures a steady supply.

Fifty-seven percent of the chronically addicted Americans who needed
treatment in 1998 - the most recent year for which statistics are available
- - did not get it for lack of effective drug-treatment programs.

In his fifth and final year as President Clinton's drug czar, Barry
McCaffrey has recommended that the nation close the treatment gap - and
about time.

As his report indicates, all is not gloom, doom and demagoguery in the
anti-drug campaign. Drug use among teens has dropped in the past two years,
he noted - though it remains as high as it was when he first took office.

He cites education and community-based programs as successes. Surely, the
Roanoke Valley's drug courts, which force offenders to get treatment or go
to jail, rank among these. Make such successes the thrust, rather than the
afterthought, of the nation's anti-drug strategy.

McCaffrey is right in noting that the "drug war" metaphor is misleading.
Drug abuse is a battle that will have to be fought over and over again. It
cannot be confined under lock and key.