THE WAR WE ARE LOSING

Now that our president has demonstrated that he can go to war to win, I hope
he will turn his focus to what has been euphemistically called the 'war on
drugs.'

A recently retired U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent told me that
it pained him to see how the campaign against illegal drugs, at the federal,
state, county and local levels, have been abysmal failures.

When he was a young DEA agent, a kilogram of heroin, cocaine or marijuana
cost much more than today and the drugs were not as pure as they are today.

The failure of government efforts to combat illegal drugs is a disgrace.

For proof, go no further than to a couple of substance-abuse centers in
North County. The McAlister Institute has a respected, 21-day adolescent
substance-abuse treatment program. There's a waiting list for teenagers to
get into the program. It varies from two to four weeks.

The Aurora Rehabilitation Center in Rancho Bernardo has beds available on a
catch-as-catch can basis. That center is so busy its staff doesn't have the
time, personnel or facilities to treat adolescents abusing marijuana -- a
drug that enjoys social acceptance in Southern California.

I've had North County parents tell me horrifying stories of teens not only
abusing illegal drugs but sparking internal strife in families by criminal
conduct under their roofs. One parent told me his child was introduced to
marijuana upon entering a North County high school. Within weeks, money
began disappearing from purses and siblings' piggy banks. Items that could
be sold for cash to buy drugs disappeared.

The parents are heartbroken.

It's bad enough that dealing with life in North County, trying to make ends
meet, is more difficult than ever with our sour economy. Having a teenager
stealing from his family to buy drugs adds another heartbreak.

Another parent told me that her child, who attends one of the big-name
coastal high schools, "lost three friends to cocaine" this year.

The teens didn't die but they are using cocaine. The normal lives of high
school students have been altered forever by cocaine. The fun, games and
innocence of those friendships has been lost to drugs.

These examples only scratch the surface. Drug abuse and the fight against it
do not generate the amount of media attention they did 10 to 15 years ago.

In 1988, when U.S. Customs agents and inspectors nabbed a kilogram of heroin
at the San Ysidro port of entry, the bust sparked front-page coverage.
Today, huge seizures of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana
barely generate any coverage in most media outlets in San Diego County and
the United States.

President Bush must focus his resolve and all levels of government to attack
this problem as a threat to national security. Thousands of young lives are
being ruined. Our level of commitment to fight this scourge on society has
become pathetic.