IN DRUG WAR, HONESTY IS BEST POLICY

I hadn't dreamed 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 grantor of grown
men's wishes to poster girl for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

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's no expert and was offering only her own point of view.

Which was wrong in one important 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 from shooting heroin.

Any casual user of marijuana - and most people I pass on the street have
been downwind from a joint at some point in their lives - knows this is a
lie. And there goes credibility. Throw out the bong and the hypodermic
needle if you want to, but don't insist that the two are equal instruments
of destruction, as Eden did on King's show.

Kids, with their overdeveloped baloney-sensors, know it's not true. They
know that marijuana may 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 all drugs are not
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 are also 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 wisdom.

Several years ago, I interviewed Dr. Tom Ferguson, who had just written a
book called "The Smoker's Book of Health." Ferguson 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. In a
study just published in the British journal Nature, researchers found that
the primary active ingredient in marijuana mimics natural molecules that
help erase fearful memories, thus averting anxiety and panic attacks.

Perhaps the anxiety-reducing effect is why so many people choose to smoke
marijuana. So that a better approach to curbing drug abuse, which is what
we're allegedly after (right?), 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.