DRUG PROBLEM REQUIRES NEW APPROACH

Kathleen Parker's Aug. 6 Other Opinion column, "In Drug War, Honesty Is Best
Policy" [about actress Barbara Eden's appearance on "Larry King Live," where
she discussed her views on drugs and her son's death from a heroin
overdose], highlighted the insanity of the drug war. Insanity is doing the
same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Thirty-five years ago, when I lost my mother to an apparent heroin overdose,
I was where Eden is today. Back then, there weren't mountains of data that
say that what we are doing doesn't have a chance of succeeding.

Eden's remarks go against two aspects of basic human behavior:

People are never going to stop using drugs - at least that what history
says. So how are we going to create a society that does the least amount of
harm to those who use drugs and, also, the least amount of harm to society
as a whole?

The second aspect is the law of drug prohibition economics, which says that
through our drug prohibition strategy, we have made these drugs many times
more valuable than gold. How can we compete with this? Legitimate economic
investment can never be more profitable than drug prohibition-induced drug
trafficking or cultivation.

Today, anyone who says we should not or could not medicalize and
decriminalize these drugs, or that decriminalization sends the wrong message
to our children, simply doesn't have a clue.

Clifford Wallace Thornton Jr.
President
Efficacy
Hartford

Efficacy is a nonprofit organization that advocates peaceful ways to respond
to social problems