THE LOS ANGELES TIMES STRUGGLES TO START A DRUG SCARE

America is booming. Productivity is at an all-time high, unemployment at a
dramatic low, the U.S. is seeing its greatest economic expansion ever, lead
by high tech companies - but the Los Angeles Times is worried. Some
Internet employees are - oh dear! - taking drugs.

And even though there is no actual evidence that high-tech workers take
more drugs than their low tech peers, and no evidence that workplace drug
testing solves drug problems, the Los Angeles Times in a two-part series
calls drugs "The Dirty Little Secret of the Dotcom World" (10/01/00 and
10/02/00) suggests that, more drug testing would help address this new
menace to society.

But is there really a problem specific to techies and is testing really the
solution?

Throughout the articles, you can feel the authors straining because the
data contradicts what they want it to show. For one, they want to prove
that high tech workers use drugs more than others, and yet, as they admit,
"it's too early for formalstudies that quantify the problem." Instead, they
point to "ominous signs of its growing proportions."

These signs are mostly increases in cocaine and amphetamine seizures in
areas where high tech companies are located - and the fact that the Coast
Guard seized more cocaine this year than ever before.

But seizures are a notoriously poor way to measure drug use. Researchers
estimate that authorities capture only about 1/10th of the drugs on the
market, but it's not unheard of for them to get lucky and capture more or
be unlucky at other times and seize less. The important question of whether
seizures represent a steady portion of a steady market, a growing portion
of a shrinking market or a smaller portion of a growing market remain
unanswered. Seizures are simply not a proper sample

The Times' other line of support for its contention that drug use is
growing amongst techies is the claim by treatment providers that they are
seeing more and more dot-commers among their patients. However, the
professionals the paper spoke to work at expensive private rehabilitation
centers. In the past, insurance coverage allowed most middle class addicts
to attend such places, but now, with insurance for inpatient care virtually
eliminated by HMO's, none but the very rich can afford them.

Since a greater proportion than ever of the moneyed elite are now high tech
workers, the over-representation that providers report could simply reflect
the fact that dot com millionaires are increasingly among only ones left
who can afford their care, and not that high tech industries have a growing
drug problem.

Another example of bias can be seen in the series' perspective on drug
testing. Though the reporters do spend time bewailing the fact that
computer companies test only lowly blue-collar workers and not the big time
executives or creatives (a practice hardly limited to high-tech businesses,
though probably more hushed up in the past), the implication is that the
solution is to test everyone, not to drop testing.

The data here gives the reporters another headache. A recent major study of
drug testing shows that high-tech companies that test their employees have
lower productivity than those that don't. And this supports earlier studies
in other industries that found employees who tested positive weren't less
productive or more likely to be absent than those who tested negative.

One may justifiably ask, "then what is the point of drug testing if most
drug users, as most alcohol users, aren't addicted and so don't let their
drug use harm their work?"

But not the Los Angeles Times. In the second part of the series, "Drug
Tests Are Multiple Choice at High Tech Firms," the newspaper points out
that these companies see themselves as "rule breakers who avoid all the
strictures synonymous with old-style corporate America. And there's nothing
more old school than drug testing."

The paper goes on to say that "their reasons [for avoiding testing] mix a
culture of acceptance of alternative lifestyles with an emphasis on
productivity" and then cites the study showing that drug testing is linked
with lower productivity. But since when is high productivity and acceptance
of alternative lifestyles a bad thing? Perhaps the dotcom companies are
onto something and their spectacular increase in productivity has something
to do with respecting employees' dignity and not interfering with their
personal lives?

(And of course, there is the entirely more subversive issue of whether
drugs actually help some workers do better)

Other studies cited by the paper also undermine their points. The number of
people aged 19-28 who report powder cocaine use tripled between 1994 and
1999, a period when the overwhelming majority of companies (81% in 1996)
drug tested workers. If drug testing had any effect on use rates at all -
if it wasn't seen when 80% of companies were testing - it's unlikely ever
to materialize.

Continuing its losing streak, the Times then claims that the young workers
who drive the Net were "mere toddlers" during the cocaine epidemic of the
late 70's and early 80's and so are unaware of the dangers of cocaine. But
according to the Industry Standard, the average Internet worker is 33, and
two thirds are over 30. A 33 year old would have been 19 in 1986 - the year
college basketball star Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose at the peak of
media hysteria over drugs. He or she would have received more drug
education and anti-drug messages than ever before in history.

There's more. Try this out as a factual statement: "Although there are no
statistics showing that drug and alcohol addiction afflicts technology
workers more than the general population, experts say tech workers are more
susceptible than those in say, Hollywood, or Wall Street because of their
work." Evidence for that bizarre generalization, please?

And here's yet another howler: "Today the drug of choice is cocaine and the
movement's hero is not the Grateful Dead or Timothy Leary but the Gordon
Gekko character in the movie Wall Street." Um, weren't these workers
supposed to be too young to recall Wall Street in the go-go cocaine 80's?
(And how do the reporters account for the "early adoption" of the Internet
by vast numbers of Deadheads?)

The Los Angeles Times is so busy trying to create a drug scare and so
engrained in the ideology of the war on drugs that it misses the real
story: the war on drugs hasn't prevented increases in drug use; increases
in drug use haven't yet caused America to go to hell in a handbasket; and
drug testing doesn't help those workers who are addicted to recover.

In fact, the death of a tech worker spotlighted in the first part of the
series is a testament to the harm caused by the drug war itself. Aaron
Bunnell of Upside.com died of an overdose of heroin, alcohol and Valium.
But what he really died of was ignorance if his death was indeed as the New
York City medical examiner's office concluded, unintentional.

Pharmacologists know that mixing downs is a good recipe for coma and death.
In fact, most heroin overdoses are heroin plus alcohol and/or other
depressants, not heroin alone. Honest drug education would teach people
these facts - not just that all drugs are bad and no civil liberty is too
sacred to sacrifice to the goal of keeping kids clean. The Los Angeles
Times does the public a disservice by running stories like these that
reinforce, rather than question, prevailing assumptions.

Maia Szalavitz is author, with Dr. Joseph Volpicelli of the University of
Pennsylvania, of "Recovery Options: The Complete Guide: How You and Your
Loved Ones Can Understand and Treat Alcohol and Other Drug Problems."
[Wiley, 2000]. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post,
Newsday, Newsweek, Salon, New York Magazine and other major publications.