TO WIN THE WAR ON DRUGS

Decades after America declared "war on drugs," there are encouraging
signs that we may be getting smart about how it can be won.

For years, the focus was on blocking shipments of heroin and cocaine
into the country. The effort continues, but so does the drug traffic.

When frustration with that approach bubbled over, the next move was to
crack down on the users. "Lock 'em up and throw away the key" became
the new mantra. States went on a prison-building spree and discovered
how expensive that would be. And too many of the prisoners, when
released, went right back to stealing to sustain their habit.

During all this time, a small chorus kept saying, "When you catch
them, get them treatment and keep testing them to be sure they stay
clean." Now more states are trying it -- and finding that it works.

The most dramatic shift in policy occurred in Arizona -- and it came
as the result of a voter initiative, not something the elected
officials decided. In fact, many of the provisions of that 1996
initiative -- financed by a handful of millionaires -- remain bitterly
controversial. It decriminalized marijuana and a wide variety of hard
drugs, a step retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the federal "drug czar,"
vehemently opposed -- and still does.

But another part of Prop. 200 required that people convicted of drug
possession for the first or second time be placed on probation and in
treatment, rather than going to jail. A report on the first year of
the program, issued late last month by the Arizona Supreme Court,
offered real encouragement.

Of the 2,622 offenders diverted from prison, more than three-quarters
(77 percent) tested drug-free at the end of their treatment programs.
The same percentage made at least one payment toward the cost of their
treatment, as the new procedure specifies.

The program appears to be substantially cheaper than putting people in
prison. The court estimates that treating and testing these people was
$2.5 million less costly than jailing them would have been.

John McDonald, the spokesman for the Supreme Court, noted that it will
be at least another year before the recidivism rate can be established
to gauge how many of these people stay clean. But he said political
support for the program -- financed chiefly by a luxury tax on liquor
- -- has grown.

It long has been known that drug abuse is the major factor in swelling
our prison and jail population almost to 2 million. But few of the
prisoners get treatment. The astonishing figure cited by Maryland Lt.
Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the coordinator of her state's
anti-crime program, is that half of the country's entire consumption
of heroin and cocaine is by people who are on probation or parole. If
that is even remotely accurate, targeting this population for
treatment could significantly reduce the demand that keeps the
international drug traffickers in business.

Maryland has begun a program aimed at getting all 25,000 of the
state's parolees and probationers into a rigorous testing regimen. The
first results on the people who began the twice-a-week tests last
autumn "are so good we're leery about them," said Adam Gelb,
Townsend's policy director. After three months, the percentage testing
positive dropped from 40 percent to just 7.4 percent -- a drop of more
than four-fifths.

Before this "Break the Cycle" program began, Gelb said, a probation
officer could order only about seven drug tests a month for a typical
caseload of 100 probationers. If someone failed, it was up to a judge
to set the punishment -- and often overworked judges just voiced a
warning to "clean up your act."

In the new system, the courts have pre-authorized an escalating set of
penalties for each failed test, climaxing in a return to jail. With
the certainty of punishment for failure and the potential of shortened
probation for staying clean, the incentives to seek treatment are
vastly greater.

Like her Arizona counterparts, Townsend does not want to claim more
than a promising start for the program. "It could provide a way out of
the paralyzing and stupid debate between treatment and incarceration,"
she said. "A combination of sanctions and treatment works best."

McCaffrey agrees. In congressional testimony last week, he said it was
time to abandon the phrase "war on drugs," because "addicted Americans
are not the enemy. They require treatment. Wars are waged with weapons
and soldiers. Prevention and treatment are the primary tools in our
fight against drugs."

And they offer hope of success.