DRUG WAR VICTORY ON A SINGLE FRONT

A WORKING definition of a fanatic is a person who upon seeing his solution
fail, redoubles his effort.

Fortunately, that kind of business behavior is self-limiting. It ends when
you run out of money. Government has no such limitations - especially when
the solution is important to us all.

A perfect illustration of that principle can be found in the U.S. War on
Drugs . It's failed in the marketplace despite a huge escalation of our
efforts. Up until now, we have refused to come to grips with that failure
and look for other solutions.

Actually there have been two wars, and the least publicized one has been a
success.

That's because there are two drug problems in this country, not one.

Our success has been with the much larger group of casual drug users. Their
per-capita consumption has dropped sharply over the past two decades.

Now there are those of you who believe there is no such thing as a casual
user. One toke on that doobie goes the refrain, and you're hooked for life.

Of course, if that were true, the majority of the college graduates of the
1960s and '70s would be sitting on street corners with their stolen
supermarket carts, dressed in rags and holding signs saying, "Will work for
joints."

Fewer casual users

You can give credit to the big drop in casual drug use to a combination of
factors.

That big baby boom generation grew up and settled down. When you have a lot
more to lose, you worry about getting arrested for something that isn't that
big a deal for you in the first place.

Adding to that drop has been education and social pressure - the same things
that are decreasing the consumption of tobacco and alcohol in this country.

And business has had a large role in that decrease by refusing to employ
those who abuse drugs .

Where we've failed is in doing much about the hard core drug user - the
relatively small numbers who consume the majority of illegal drugs in this
country and also provide the biggest law enforcement problem.

Hard core hard to budge

Our prime weapons here have been to zap the people selling drugs and stop
the flow of drugs at the border.

The zapping part has worked all too well. We're seeing a million
drug-related arrests a year - primarily for low-grade peddling. Our prisons
are bulging because of these busts.

The drug interdiction policy has been a failure despite dangerous work by
dedicated American and foreign law enforcement agents and huge seizures of
drugs .

The best evidence of interdiction's failure is the marketplace. Prices for
drugs on the street have held steady or declined over the years.

We've made smuggling more difficult, sure.

But since production and smuggling costs are only 10 percent of cocaine's
final street price - according to a 1988 Rand Corp. study - those increased
costs have been readily absorbed by the drug business.

The Clinton administration looks as if it's now prepared to shift its major
efforts from drug interdiction to drug rehabilitation. It's a policy that
does seem to work among hard core users - especially when offered as an
option to prison.

The problem will be finding money for rehabilitation. It will be extremely
difficult to shift any of the $20 billion we're spending on interdiction to
rehabilitation.

Like any other federal program, interdiction has beneficiaries who will
lobby hard to protect their dinner plate. They'll use the romance of their
dangerous profession, which plays very well to the mostly elderly men in
Congress who grew up, like all boys, playing cops and robbers.

But let's not kid ourselves. Even with the most perfect interdiction and
rehabilitation programs, we're still going to have a drug problem. We can
reduce it, but until we change human nature, it's not going to vanish.

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