HONESTY CRUCIAL IN DRUG ABUSE FIGHT

I hadn't dreamt of Jeannie in a long time, but there she was on
``Larry King Live'' a few nights ago, discussing her 35-year-old son's
death from a heroin overdose.

Barbara Eden of the enviable flat tummy has gone from granter of grown
men's wishes to poster girl for the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration.

First the qualifiers and disclaimers: Eden is a lovely woman whose
heart is in the right place. She has suffered a tragic loss and wants
to help others. She noted repeatedly on King's show that she was
offering only her own point of view.

Which was wrong in at least one way.

Unwittingly and with anything but malice, people like Eden are part of
the drug problem because they treat users like idiots. That is, they
tell them that all drugs are equally bad, evil and harmful. From their
perspective, smoking a joint is only marginally different than
shooting heroin.

Any casual user of marijuana knows this is a lie. And there goes
credibility.

Kids, with their overdeveloped baloney sensors, know it's not true.
They know that marijuana may diminish their culinary standards and
make them temporarily fascinated by the intricate lives of ants, but
they also know that they won't necessarily be shooting heroin by
sundown tomorrow.

Addicts are addicts; some, like Eden's son, may even become addicted
to steroids. But a social user of marijuana is no more likely to start
mainlining heroin than a weekend beer drinker is going to start
stashing Mad Dog in his lunchbox.

There isn't space here to outline all the arguments for and against
legalization of some drugs, but it's clear that: drugs are easy to
get; the drug subculture thrives in part because it is forbidden and
therefore attractive; dollar for dollar, the billions we funnel into
this ``war'' would be better spent on education, prevention and treatment.

Would it not be better to control those substances, tax them, limit
their availability to minors as we try to do with alcohol, rather than
criminalize a huge segment of the population that probably includes
many of our neighbors and even our own children?

The genie in the bottle is truth, and the truth is that not all drugs
are awful, evil or equally harmful. In fact, drugs are often quite a
lot of fun, which is why people consume, absorb, smoke, snort or shoot
them. But they also are dangerous to varying degrees and can wreak
havoc on users, families, friends and communities.

Truth is also this: Drug abuse is different from drug use, just as
alcoholism is different from the weekend cocktail party. Rather than
fight the abuse war from a moral, shame-on-you posture, which doesn't
work with any age, we might try a medical model that educates with
facts and urges human wisdom.

Several years ago, I interviewed Dr. Tom Ferguson, who had just
written a book called ``The Smoker's Book of Health.'' Ferguson, now
an online health guru (www.fergusonreport.com), never condoned smoking
but acknowledged that cigarettes did some good things for people,
which is why they smoked.

Ferguson pointed out that nicotine alters brain chemistry in ways that
help improve concentration, attention and performance. Smoking also
helps some people suppress anger and anxiety and cope with stress. He
began helping smokers quit and/or live healthier lives by granting
what they knew to be true, after which he had the credibility to
influence them in positive ways.

Likewise, according to new research, marijuana helps some people with
various psychological disorders, including post-traumatic stress.

Perhaps the anxiety-reducing effect is why so many people choose to
smoke marijuana. So a better approach to curbing drug abuse might be
to acknowledge those benefits. Think of it as an investment in
credibility so that potential users tune in to the discussion on
consequences that needs to follow.