A Special Editorial Page Report

PREVENTION AND TREATMENT TAKING FIGHT A LONG WAY FROM `SAY NO'

For 30 years as a cop, Joseph C. Gerwens tried to reduce drug addiction and
related crimes by arresting narcotics violators. Drug busts make good
television and politics, he concluded, but aren't effective by themselves.

Now the former Fort Lauderdale police chief has shifted to a more promising
direction, emphasizing drug prevention and treatment as chairman of the
Broward County Commission on Substance Abuse. Gerwens is still a cop
inspector general of the Broward Sheriff's Office and still believes in
arresting drug violators, but realizes the best hope for real progress is
to prevent narcotics abuse from starting or, when it's too late for that,
to treat and rehabilitate users before addiction grips them in a deadly vise.

The commission he chairs is remarkably effective, and was recognized last
year as America's outstanding local antidrug coalition.

Winning plaudits as the best among 4,000 local coalitions is gratifying,
but it's not what the Broward coalition is about. It's about combating
illegal drugs and alcohol abuse to make Broward a better place to live.

The way the Broward coalition carries out its task can serve as a model for
other local coalitions, including the 6,000 new ones to be established
across America in the next five years.

The coalition takes advantage of the best and most advanced research on
drugabuse prevention and treatment. It enlists active members of the
executive committee who are interested in results, not merely in listing
their names on a letterhead.

It obtained an assured source of money, more than a million dollars a year,
and dispenses grants wisely and on a short leash.

Not only must grant recipients prove they have created measurable results
in prevention and treatment, they also are required to gradually wean
themselves from the commission's grants over four years. When a grant
recipient can't demonstrate it is making a difference, the coalition yanks
the money.

The coalition also does its own antidrug work. In the past three years it
has taught 1,800 parents how to raise drugfree children. For seven years
the coalition has helped to train teenagers as peer leaders, and is in the
second year of organizing DFYIT clubs Drug Free Youth In Town in
Broward schools.

In its work since 1988, as Gerwens says, the Broward coalition has gone a
long way beyond ``Just Say No.''

Clearly and impressively, the coalition is resultsoriented and nobody's
patsy.

For the long range, the coalition is trying to create, or rebuild, an
antidrug atmosphere in Broward County that will be strong, durable and
pervasive.

This is a slow, complex process, requiring persistent action through many
institutions and, eventually, an antidrug commitment from the
overwhelmingly majority of the county's 1.4 million residents.

For the shorter term, the coalition pursues its own antidrug work and
offers grants with a firm requirement that measurable results be shown in
drug prevention or treatment. One of its early beneficiaries was the
Broward Drug Court, which received $1 million in startup funds from the
coalition and is today a stunning success in rehabilitating addicts.

Overall, the coalition remains an unfolding story, encouragingly successful
so far, but with daunting obstacles and challenges still before it.

To carry out its full promise, the coalition needs stronger financial
support from Broward's business community.

What could be a better use of a company's charitable donations than
sponsoring a DFYIT club in a middle school? Or expanding the teaching of
parents in how to rear drugfree children?

Broward County residents can feel pleased, legitimately so, at the
effective work so far of the coalition. It's the best in the nation, and
that's no accident.

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