A Special Editorial Page Report

TOO MANY CHILDREN THINK POT, COCAINE IS OK

We deluded ourselves. We Americans foolishly thought we had won the war
against drugs.

Awareness of a continuing U.S. drug crisis began fading a decade ago, amid
a comforting glow that resembled triumph. A false triumph, it has since
turned out, but few realized that at the time.

Hadn't the United States, after all, gradually cut the number of drug
abusers from the 1979 high of 25 million? And weren't American children
keenly conscious of the dangers of narcotics and therefore shunning
marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other braindamaging substances?

Yes, but not for long. By 1992, a growing number of children either had
immunized themselves against antidrug messages, which were sent their way
less often, or had embraced the alluring glamorization or phony
normalization of drug use filtering through the mass media.

In movies, in magazines, in printed advertisements, the subtle but clear
message said drug use was considered normal in this nation. Children are
quick to pick up a change in signals, and since they were receiving fewer
antidrug messages, the glamorized and false life of drug abusers portrayed
in the media slipped rather easily into their consciousness.

Not detected at first, children in seventh and eighth grade began to
experiment with drugs, more so than before. Every year since then, the
number of children who use drugs pushed upward, so that by now 1 in 10
eighth graders triple the rate of the late 1980s has dabbled in
narcotics.

Some are careering pellmell toward addiction, or already there. They're
dropping out of school, burglarizing neighbors to feed their habit, joining
gangs for camaraderie and drug parties.

By any rational definition, this nation is mired in a deepening drug crisis
because children in frightening numbers think pot is ok, cocaine is ok,
heroin is ok and paralyzing mixtures of the above won't hurt. Their younger
brothers and sisters are drawing similar conclusions, and drug dealers are
targeting them and the baby echo boom on its way with a flood of children.

Those Americans who must deal with the drug trade and its effects every
day, from drug enforcement agents to counselors in treatment centers, know
firsthand how the emergency has changed and intensified at the
middleschool level. These are sixth, seventh and eighthgraders, the
marketing prey of drug dealers not burdened with morality.

Outside the world of narcotics enforcement or treatment, however, public
understanding of the crisis is spotty. Partly that's because many political
leaders, from the White House to South Florida, either downplay the drug
emergency or brush it off entirely, failing miserably in their public
responsibility. During Bill Clinton's visit to Miami this month, he
managed to squeeze in a rousing tribute to the Coast Guard entirely
deserved for its antidrug actions. As usual, though, Clinton's message
on drugs seemed an afterthought, during a trip focused mostly on
fundraising for political campaigns.

A sense of urgency is imperative. Right now, it doesn't exist except in
what could be called the antidrug community.

Wise and strong action against narcotics will be most effective if the
wider community, meaning South Florida specifically and the United States
more broadly, fully accepts a social norm that condemns drugs as
unacceptable. Rebuilding that norm or attitude to the level of, say, the
early 1960s, requires a consistent and persistent attempt across the board
to prevent drug abuse before it starts.

That's where America's best minds should direct their energy and creativity
toward equipping this nation's children and their parents with the inner
strength to reject drugs. Research already has shown a number of ways to
accomplish that, with more live studies in the pipeline.

We know how to intervene in the lives of parents and children to increase
the odds for staying drugfree. In just a few places, though, is this
knowledge being put into effect, which is a shame.

America's goal, as well as South Florida's, should be this: To galvanize a
wide range of citizens to, first, understand the drug crisis for the deadly
threat it is and then to act decisively.

Copyright © 1997, SunSentinel Company and South Florida Interactive, Inc.