Change the approach in drug war (Don't worry about marijuana go after heroin)

"Drugs arouse paranoia in politicians," complains Anthony Lewis in a
recent column in the TribuneHerald. But why shouldn't those politicians
worry?

They know what happened to others who dared suggest that maybe we should
restudy the question of drug control. They know opponents will be quick
to label them as "soft on drugs" if they appear to waver in the least on
this issue.

We are running the war drugs like Hitler ran the Battle of Stalingrad.
No retreat. No withdrawl. The real military experts knew this was not
the way the German army won battles, but for Hitler the symbolic was more
important than the sensible. And so he sacrificed the lives of thousands
of German soldiers in that vain struggle.

So we too go on year after year, standing firm in our struggle against
the drug traffic, always certain that we will eventually win if we just
pour enough money and people
into the the fight and continue to lock up more and more addicts and
dealers.

To suggest otherwise would be to show a weakness that would guarantee
our defeat in this part of the general war against depravity as Cal
Thomas prefers to call it. Even when we find ourselves in a stalemate we
can still wistfully hope that somehow, sometime "education" will solve
the problem.

Meanwhile whole sections of our cities are no longer safe places in
which to raise a family. Every year more and more children take up the
drug habit. Some get into the business themselves. A number lost their
lives in battles with rival dealers.

Loyal DEA agents are tortured and murdered by opponents, who continue to
grow richer. The law enforcement and judicial systems in some Latin
American countries fall into ruin as the drug trade becomes more powerful
than their government.

Even those of us who can afford to live outside the problem areas may
still find our homes and automobiles burglarized and our theft insurance
rates rising because of addicts desperate to support their drug habit.

Since drug addicts are responsible for a disproportionate share of the
most serious aspects of the drug problem such as theft, enticement of
others to take up the habit, the spread of HIV, and drugresistant
tuberculosis, would it not be sensible to look at all the ways by which
their harmful activities might be reduced and concentrate on some
programs which might prove more effective than those we've already tried
even though it may appear that we are retreating from our traditional
insistence upon unconditional surrender and total victory. Needle
exchange programs have been a very small step in this direction.

If we were just willing to let heroin and cocaine addicts remain
addicts, at least until they themselves decided that they really wanted
to kick the habit, how much less would be their activity in recruiting
new users?

Whether we allow them to purchase drugs for their own use legally and at
a low cost (probably from a government outlet) or supply them in a
controlled fashion in hospicelike settings, the cost to society would
have to be less than what we are already paying for police to round up
only a fraction of them and keep them in prison, not to mention the
losses in lives and property.

How best to do this is what we should be studying first. Marijuana
issues are much less urgent. James Morse of McGregor is a physician
employed at Fort Hood, retired from the faculty of the Texas A&M College
of Medicine.