COMPASSIONATE APPROACH TO UNSOLVABLE DILEMMA

On Aug. 19, a United States Coast Guard vessel noticed three small
plastic pipes skimming the surface of the ocean near Guatemala and
Costa Rica. Curious, they decided to find out what was going on,
never dreaming that they would stumble onto a veritable gold mine. White gold.

The "white gold," they seized was none other than cocaine, three and
a half tons of it, worth some $352 million when it hit the streets of
the USA. The three pipes skimming the ocean's surface turned out to
be connected to a homemade submarine, carrying its deadly cargo from
the fruitful coca growing regions of Latin America straight to the
noses (snorting), arms (shooting IV) and lungs (smoking crack) of
those cursed with an addiction to cocaine.

In recent years, almost a dozen such submarines carrying tons of
cocaine have been apprehended by the U.S. Coast Guard and the
Columbian Navy. Obviously the War on Drugs is being won, but not by
the people we were hoping would win it.

It is long past time to re-evaluate the logistics of the War on
Drugs. Our tactics are not working. In fact, our strategies have
gotten worse and our jails are crowded with "dealers and dopers," the
two ends of this never-ending supply and demand cycle.

It is far cheaper to treat and rehabilitate substance abusers than it
is to jail them. Studies have shown that for every dollar spent
treating substance abuse, seven dollars are saved in cleaning up the
aftermath of it.

But there is a legitimate place for jail in this equation. Hard core
dealers need to be jailed and not let out on bond simply because they
have unlimited funds to back them. Here is a good time to describe
what I mean by "unlimited funds."

Several years ago, WGBH-TV of Boston asked Lowell Bergman to produce
a series on the drug wars. Bergman is the producer who quit "60
Minutes" when its network owner tried to quash a story about the
tobacco industry's cover-up of how deadly cigarettes really are.
Bergman and WGBH teamed up to produce "The History of the Drug Wars,"
an in-depth documentary which traced the step-by-step growth of the
drug empire that flooded America with illicit drugs from all over the
world, particularly South America.

The entire series is riveting, but one statement said it all for me
regarding the utter futility of trying to intercept drug runners. A
simple "runner" who was low on the totem pole described trying to
count the money that was piling up from the sale of drugs.

"At first it was fun," he said. "Then it began to take up all of our
time. Finally we couldn't keep track of it anymore. There was just
too much of it."

It was then that a system of money laundering, the buying of
legitimate enterprises with drug money, was implemented as a way to
hide cash under the cover of legitimacy. The implications of that
brilliant move go far beyond the limits of one single column.

Then came the simple statement that changed my entire view of how to
fight the War on Drugs. The runner was asked what happens when a
shipment is intercepted. He shrugged nonchalantly. "It doesn't really
matter," he said.

Drugs are so profitable that even if 90 percent of them were
confiscated by law enforcement agencies, that last 10 percent will
still bring in enough money to make it more than worth the trouble.

When asked what percentage of drugs he felt made it into the states,
the runner smiled shook his head and said, "a whole lot more than 10 percent."

The law of supply and demand is not going to change. There is a
definition for insanity which aptly applies to this situation:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results.

As hard as it is to concede to the facts, reality is not going to
change. As long as there are people addicted to drugs, there will be
a need for people to supply those drugs. The question is, shall we
implement a system to do it legally and safely, or shall we leave it
as it is now, in the hands of ruthless criminals who think nothing of
killing anyone who gets in their way?

Just as making abortion legal took it out of the hands of back alley
butchers, making addiction a legally treatable disease instead of a
crime will take it out of the hands of criminals and place in into
the hands of trained medical professionals who are in a position to
help drug addicts find the road to recovery, or at the very least to
use drugs safely and without having to resort to crime to support their habits.

As with abortion, it is not the best solution to the problem. But
just as people are not going to stop having unprotected sex, they are
not going to stop using illegal drugs. Period.

# A compassionate approach to this problem would include:Serious drug
education, beginning in elementary school # Ban advertising of all
drugs, including tobacco, alcohol and caffeine # Provide serious
substance abuse treatment in jail # Mandate that insurance companies
cover substance abuse treatment # Do away with dealers by putting
addicts in the hands of trained addictionologists, allowing them to
prescribe drugs legally and manage the treatment of addicts # Enforce
severe penalties on big time dealers, not small time addicts

The War on Drugs can be won if we are willing to stop chasing our
tails and fight it in a way that makes sense.