DRUGS AND THE POLITICS OF FEAR

James Q. Wilson and others are wrong about the speculative increase in
addiction that might accompany the regulated supply of drugs ("A New
Strategy for the War on Drugs," editorial page, April 13). In fact, the
evidence is that addiction, which has gradually increased during the past
30 years of prohibition, would gradually decrease, just as it was beginning
to do a century ago prior to Prohibiton, a period when there was
substantially more use but less than than half the addiction rate of today.

The root of Prof. Wilson's error is in failing to understand that the quest
for altered consciousness is a function of human will and not of the myriad
drugs available. Because he deals with numbers as opposed to real human
beings, he lapses into the popular but grossly inaccurate litany that more
use means more addiction, etc. In fact, most users never harm anyone
through their drug use and addiction is an unusual outcome. For example,
according to the 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, of all those
who had ever tried cocaine (including crack), only 3% were still using it
as often as once a week.

Casual users and addicts are two entirely different sets of people. Prof.
Wilson has never explained why the rate of addiction rose during the 1980s
while the rate of drug use plunged or why addiction continued to rise
during the 1990s while drug use was stagnant. To those who have observed
the rampant availability of illegal drugs to the young and who understand
that addiction is closely linked to such mental states as stress and
isolation, it is not surprising that today's harsh repression and
vilification has culminated in less use and more addiction.

Prof. Wilson's theories of gloom and doom collapse when one tries to
describe the group from which these new addicts to highly intoxicating
drugs must come. Surely not from the one-third of us who have already used
illegal drugs and produced the 2% of our population currently addicted to
illegal drugs (while 8% are addicted to legal drugs, primarily alcohol).
Would Prof. Wilson argue that only price or risk has stood between these
users and addiction, thus turning the very meaning of addiction on its
head? And surely not from the one-third who are teetotalers or near
teetotalers even in regard to alcohol.

The final one-third has two basic characteristics: its members have never
used an illegal drug and they now use alcohol in a temperate and
responsible manner. There is no evidence to suggest that these people would
change in character and a great deal to suggest they would not. To say that
this group would produce anyone who would become addicted to other drugs,
but not to alcohol, is very questionable and to suggest, as political
rhetoric often does, that they would produce 3 to 12 times as many addicts
is not only absurd, but indicates a mentality that believes that only a
paternalistic government employing its police power stands between the
average American and drug addiction.

Can Prof. Wilson explain why we should not apply all of his coercive
suggestions to alcohol users, who use a drug that dose-for-dose is more
closely linked to crime, violence, death, organ damage and fetal damage
than cocaine or heroin? The continued monumental waste and inhumanity of
the drug war is testimony to the power of the politics of fear.

Jerry Epstein
President
Drug Policy Forum of Texas
Houston