HOW TO HELP ADDICTS AND OURSELVES

Ordinary Arizona voters may yet teach something to federal and state
anti-drug mavens: The best and most cost-effective weapon in the drug
war is to get users to stop through treatment and rehabilitation.

That proposition is not nearly so obvious as it may sound. In the
latest $18 billion five-point federal drug-control strategy, three of
the objectives--and more than two-thirds of the money--are devoted to
law enforcement, and only 22 percent to treatment.

In 1996, Arizonans approved an initiative that not only legalized some
medical uses of marijuana but also prohibited incarceration of first-
and second-time drug offenders. Instead, they are sentenced to
mandatory treatment and rehabilitation, except for a few cases
involving individuals with more serious criminal backgrounds.

Voters also mandated that $3 million from liquor taxes be set aside to
fund a variety of drug-treatment programs, from outpatient programs to
intensive hospitalization, tailored to the individual's needs.

A year later, a study by the Arizona Supreme Court found that the
state had actually saved $2.5 million by sentencing offenders to
treatment rather than jail. More than three quarters of the 2,622 drug
users forced into treatment in fact have remained on the drug-free
wagon for a year or more.

The federal government and other states could take a lesson from
Arizona's experiment and begin shifting their anti-drug emphasis from
interdiction, criminalization and other supply-side strategies to
treatment and rehabilitation.

Treatment costs money but, as the Arizona experiment shows, not nearly
as much money as incarcerating users who, unless rehabilitated, will
only resume their addiction to drugs and crime after release from
prison. In the end, treatment saves money.

That message is spreading, albeit slowly. Last May the Cook County
State's Attorney's office quietly instituted an innovative system that
gives drug offenders who violate probation a choice between treatment
or jail. So far 570 people have gone through the program, and 251 have
opted for treatment. Of those, only 36 have relapsed.

Arizona's approach goes beyond that by making treatment the only
option, even for first-timers.

Indeed, forcing drug users to deal with their problem is most often
the toughest and most effective solution--both for the addict and for
society.