ANTI-DRUG PROGRAMS MISS MARK

Efforts To Curb Heroin Supply Fail To Affect Demand

THERE WAS ANOTHER heroin overdose in San Francisco last week. This time it
was singer Boz Scaggs' 21-year-old son, Oscar. Less than two years ago,
Nick Traina, Danielle Steel's 19-year-old son, overdosed on heroin and
died. In Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, 11 young people recently died of
heroin overdoses.

A natural reaction to these alarming reports is a call for increased
efforts to curb availability. The problem is, we're already trying this.
The federal drug control budget exceeds $17 billion a year. Add to that
state and local budgets for fighting drugs and the figure may be five times
larger. Two-thirds of this money is spent to try to stop drugs from
entering the country.

So far, (perhaps because the black market for drugs generates $64 billion
annually), this effort has been a dismal failure. In fact, since President
Reagan began escalating the War on Drugs, worldwide production of opium,
from which heroin is made, has expanded. The price of heroin has dropped
and its purity has increased. We cannot seem to make a dent in the supply,
so heroin is still with us.

Our efforts to reduce demand have fared no better than our efforts to
reduce supply. Today's young adults were in grade school when Nancy Reagan
first began telling them to ``just say no.'' Again and again, in the
schools and on TV, they have been warned about drugs' dangers. Yet for
nearly a decade now, drug use among adolescents has been rising. According
to government statistics, less than 1 percent have tried heroin, but
experts familiar with drug-use patterns believe its use among young people
is increasing.

More drug education of the sort existing cannot be expected to reverse
these trends. Indeed, study after study shows that current drug education
programs have no effect on drug use. Why? They lack credibility. Most
programs focus on marijuana, which the programs overly demonize, hoping to
frighten young people away from experimentation. Half of American teenagers
try marijuana anyway, and once they learn the dire warnings are not true,
they begin to mistrust everything about drugs that adults tell them. And
why shouldn't they? Why should they listen at all if they can't believe
what we tell them?

The truth about heroin is that it is much more dangerous than marijuana.
Anyone who injects heroin with a used needle risks contracting a deadly
infection, such as hepatitis or HIV. Anyone who uses heroin steadily for
several weeks will begin developing physical dependence on it and suffer
withdrawal symptoms if they stop.

People who occasionally use heroin do not become addicted. However,
compared to the addict, the occasional heroin user who has not developed
tolerance to the drug, is at much greater risk for a fatal overdose. Still,
because heroin is unregulated and uncontrolled, even the most experienced
user cannot know the potency of a batch of unlabeled white powder.

These are the kinds of warnings we should give young people about heroin.
But first we have to get them to listen by convincing them they can trust
us. They must also trust that they can come to us in an emergency. ``Zero
tolerance,'' another method for deterring young people from
experimentation, has meant that too many have died because their friends
were afraid to call parents or other authorities for help. Terrified of
being detected themselves, teenagers in Plano, for example, fled the scene,
leaving one boy to choke on his own vomit and die.

Like it or not, we cannot seal our borders or completely eliminate demand
for drugs. Moral indignation will not change that reality. A more pragmatic
approach would be to learn to live with drugs and to focus on reducing
drug-related harm. Our first priority ought to be gaining the trust of
young people. We ought to offer a scientifically grounded education that
allows them to learn all they can about drugs, alcohol and any other
substance(s) they ingest.

Young people will ultimately make their own decisions about drug use. When
they do, they ought to have information from sources they trust to insure
their safety.