DOCTOR LIFE

Like all of us, Bryon Adinoff heard the details of Mark Tuinei's death with
a mixture of disappointment and sorrow and bewilderment.

But more than most of us, Dr. Adinoff also felt tremendous frustration.

For starters, there was no reason for the former Dallas Cowboy to die.
"Almost all of these heroin deaths are completely unnecessary," the medical
professor said.

"Typically, there are several hours of warning signs. And we have medicines
to snap somebody out of an overdose in seconds."

Dr. Adinoff is frustrated that, after all the heroin deaths in our area,
that simple message still isn't understood: Go to a hospital. Doctors won't
call the cops.

He's also frustrated that another important message isn't understood. We
always talk about "overdoses" as if there are safe doses. The real culprit
isn't amounts but mixtures, Dr. Adinoff said.

"It's almost always a combination of drugs that causes problems," he said.
And alcohol is an especially risky drug to mix.

And then there is the larger frustration that Dr. Adinoff feels. He looks at
Mr. Tuinei's death, he looks at the addicts and alcoholics under his care,
he looks at the devastation of drugs in our society, and he feels very
frustrated by our feeble attempts to change things.

"Our whole approach is ill-advised and inappropriate and dangerous," he said.

Seeking answers

We've had an ongoing discussion of drug policy here over the last few
months. My own despair at Mr. Tuinei's death led me to visit Dr. Adinoff for
more discussion Tuesday afternoon.

He's a 46-year-old psychiatrist who has specialized in drug research. If you
want titles, he is the Distinguished Professor in Drug and Alcohol Abuse
Research at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He hopes to
establish a full-fledged addictive research center at the medical school.

Dr. Adinoff said his frustration grows daily over the damage done by our
muddled and moralistic approach to drugs.

Here's an example. We were talking about how drugs vary in danger. I asked
him to name a particularly dangerous drug and his answer was quick.

"Cigarettes," he said.

"Cigarettes kill 400,000 people a year in this country. Marijuana, on the
other hand, isn't known to have killed anyone in 2,000 years of use."

Dr. Adinoff is quick to say he doesn't advocate marijuana use. But he said
our society must wake up and face the fact that people always have and
always will use drugs.

"Like so many areas of life, how do you make the best of it? That's the
challenge," he said.

He believes society would be better served by moving away from a
crime-and-punishment, prohibition approach to drugs. It doesn't work.

Instead, he would shift to a system that legalizes but regulates drug sales.
"Drugs are too dangerous to be sold on the black market," he said.

Then he would have a two-pronged approach. First, education. Honest
education about which drugs are most dangerous. "If we treat marijuana and
heroin the same, why are we surprised when kids do, too?"

Treat, don't punish

Then, the second prong, treatment. For those "too damn stupid" to stay away
from addictive drugs, he would urge treatment rather than punishment.

Oh, sure, if someone steals to buy drugs, he'd punish that. But just as we
draw a distinction between drinking and driving while intoxicated, he thinks
we should draw a line between drug use and drug-related crimes.

More than anything else, Dr. Adinoff would like to see us begin to openly
discuss and debate new approaches to drugs. He would like to see less focus
on moral judgments and more on medical ones.

"I don't know what the answers are," he confessed. If our politicians could
admit the same, we might start finding some.