FEDERAL `DRUG WAR' STRATEGY IS BOUND TO FAIL -- AGAIN

Treatment Is The Best Weapon

`WE must mount an all-out effort to banish crime, drugs and disorder
and hopelessness from our streets once and for all,'' said Vice
President Al Gore Monday, announcing this year's plan for the war on
drugs.

It's the same old strategy, and it's likely to produce the same old
results.

Two-thirds of $17.8 billion will be aimed at reducing the supply of
illegal drugs, with more money for South American militaries, Coast
Guard patrols, border guards, federal drug enforcement agents and
local cops. One third is aimed at suppressing demand, which includes
anti-drug ads, school programs, drug testing and treatment.

Adolescent drug use, on the rise since 1992, leveled off last year,
according to the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future
survey. The administration is touting that as a sign of success -- and
predicting drug use and availability will fall 25 percent by 2002, 50
percent by 2007. Drug-related crime will fall by 30 percent in eight
years, says drug czar Barry McCaffrey. Health and social costs of drug
abuse will decline by 25 percent.

The Pleasantville scenario sounds nice. But it's not very
realistic.

As long as Americans are willing to pay to get high, farmers in
desperately poor countries will grow drug crops, smugglers will sneak
drugs across the border and dealers will get the product to customers.
Helicopters and herbicides won't change that.

Coca cultivation is down in Peru and Bolivia, McCaffrey said. But it's
up sharply in Colombia.

The budget to eradicate coca crops in South America keeps going up,
while the street price of cocaine keeps going down, the Drug Policy
Foundation reports. ``The street cost of cocaine in 1996 (the most
recent year for which figures are available) was one-third of what it
was in 1981, when the government spent virtually no money on
interdiction and eradication efforts.''

School kids who want drugs know where to find them. Over the last five
years, it's become easier for high school students to acquire most
drugs, the Monitoring the Future survey found.

McCaffrey touted a $195 million media campaign to tell kids that drug
use is ``wrong'' and dangerous.

In one ad, a young woman with an iron skillet bashes a kitchen to
bits, illustrating that drug abuse not only fries your brain, it also
hurts everyone around you.

``Will this persuade high school students not to use drugs?'' I asked
my daughter and her friend.

``OK, Mom. I'll give up my plans to become a heroin addict,'' my
daughter said.

After years of drug warnings in school, teenagers have stopped
listening, her friend said. They know the dangers. The question is
whether they care.

There's no evidence ads reduce drug use, said Scott Ehlers, senior
analyst at the Drug Policy Foundation in Washington, D.C. ``I hope
so,'' he said, ``but there hasn't been much research. We don't know.''

There is lots of research, including a 1998 University of Illinois
study, showing that DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) doesn't
reduce students' use of drugs. DARE is still used in 70 percent of
school districts, and the federal funds continue to flow.

The one strategy that works -- treatment for addicts -- gets only a
fraction of the funding.

Every dollar spent on treatment is 23 times more effective in lowering
drug abuse rates than a dollar spent on destroying foreign crops, RAND
concluded in a 1994 study. One treatment dollar is the equivalent of
$11 spent trying to stop drugs at the border or $7 spent on police and
prisons.

Providing treatment lowers long-term drug use, criminal activity,
health problems, homelessness and family break-up, government research
shows. And it's cheap, compared to locking people up in jail.

Drug and alcohol treatment is needed urgently to prevent child abuse
and neglect, concludes a two-year study by the Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University. ``Most parents who need
treatment don't receive it and much of the treatment is not
appropriate for these predominantly female parents.''

In a 1997 survey, child welfare agencies estimated that substance
abuse treatment was needed for two out of three parents and one out of
three pregnant women involved with the child welfare system. Treatment
was available for only 31 percent of parents and 20 percent of
pregnant women.

The plan calls for ``closing the treatment gap'' but the money
allocated won't come close to meeting the need.

``We're creating a system where you have to get into the criminal
justice system to get into treatment,'' Ehlers said. The plan stresses
drug testing for parolees, so they can be sent back to prison for
backsliding, and more drug treatment for inmates. Prison rehab has
been shown to cut recidivism. But why wait?

In announcing the plan, Gore spoke eloquently of the despair that
underlies drug abuse. ``If young people have emptiness in their lives,
if they have a lack of respect for the larger community of which they
are a part, if they don't find ways to feel connected to the adults
who are in the community, if they feel there is phoniness and
hypocrisy and corruption and immorality, then they are much more
vulnerable,'' he said.

That's very true. So we need a drug strategy that rejects the
phoniness, hypocrisy, corruption and immorality of the war on drugs.

Joanne Jacobs is a member of the Mercury News editorial board. Her
column appears on Mondays and Thursdays.