WASHINGTON - 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 Proposition 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 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 them 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.

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."

David Broder writes for the Washington Post