PRESIDENT SHOULD SUPPORT RECOVERY

If only America's so-called war on drugs could be recast in the spirit
of my chance meeting with President Bush last year in the White House
Rose Garden.

"Mr. President, my name is William Moyers, I'm from Minnesota and I am
a person in recovery," I said.

Without batting an eye, the president grasped my hand and replied,
"Sounds like we have something in common.""* I was all but a complete
stranger to Bush. But in that moment we connected. And because I told
him nothing else about me, I assume it was from the commonality of our
experiences of having overcome the desperate condition of drinking too
much.

I am a recovering alcoholic and addict. Whether the president labels
himself the same, I don't know. But on that day at least, Bush knew
exactly where I was coming from because, by his own account, he once
drank too much and now he doesn't drink at all.

Ironically, our handshake occurred just after the president had used
the Rose Garden ceremony to announce his nomination of John Walters as
the nation's drug czar. Critics within the drug policy reform movement
denounced the appointment, saying Walters' track record showed he was
no friend of addicted people. What's more, Walters has said he sees
addiction as a moral or criminal issue, rather than an illness. In
policy terms, that translates into funds going to law enforcement and
supply suppression rather than to the kind of treatment programs that
helped me and thousands of others.

But flush with optimism that finally we had a president who understood
the power of addiction and the possibility of recovery, I urged
restraint in opposing the Walters nomination. Maybe now, I argued to
my fellow policy reform advocates, the president's own experience
would allow his administration to refocus the war on drugs, promoting
effective prevention and treatment programs over previous policies
that emphasized interdiction and tough law enforcement. My position
was met with criticism from my colleagues in the addiction treatment
field, solicited an angry call from a U.S. senator and sparked disdain
from some of my fellow recovering alcoholics.

Ultimately, the Senate approved Walters' nomination, after both he and
the president spoke repeatedly about narrowing the treatment gap for
the 3.5 million people that the federal government estimates need
treatment but are not seeking help. For a while at least, it appeared
that the administration's approach had been tempered by the reality
that America's war on drugs required a more balanced approach.

And then Sept. 11 happened, which abruptly rewrote the national
agenda. Suddenly the war on drugs became an adjunct to the war on
terrorism. The Office of National Drug Control Policy has run
distasteful television ads equating teen-age drug use with support for
terrorists, part of a $185-million-a-year media blitz that Walters now
admits has been ineffective. Proposed funding for prevention and
treatment of drug addiction did increase in the president's 2003
budget - as did federal dollars for interdiction and law enforcement.
But the fact remains that two-thirds of the $19 billion the Bush
administration wants to spend fighting drugs merely targets the supply
- - rather than treating the demand.

I had hope for a more balanced approach. The first family knows all
about underage drinking and the problems it causes. And earlier this
year the media reported that a relative of the president was arrested
and ended up in treatment after forging a prescription for a
tranquilizer in Florida. Surely these personal experiences would
resonate at the White House, leading to a saner drug policy for all of
us.

Alas, it was not to be. In April, the president spoke in favor of more
equitable insurance coverage for people struggling with debilitating
mental illnesses such as depression and bipolar disorder. But he left
out any mention of the illness that his family and mine know well,
alcoholism and drug dependence.

The nonprofit foundation I work for extends about $5 million a year in
financial aid to addicted people and their families seeking treatment.
Ironically, most of this assistance goes to employed people whose
private health care insurance won't pay for the professional and
comprehensive help they need to overcome their illness. In Congress,
legislation to fix this disparity draws strong opposition from some of
Bush's biggest political supporters, including the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and the insurance industry. When it comes to the politics of
addiction, it seems the president has more in common with his campaign
contributors than he does with people like me.

Yet treatment for addiction does work. According to the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, treatment cuts drug use by
about 50 percent, reported alcohol and drug-related medical illnesses
decline by more than half and criminal activity drops by as much as 80
percent.

And recovery benefits all of society. When people like me stop using
and abusing, we stop demanding Colombia's cocaine, Afghanistan's
heroin and Mexico's marijuana. We get back to work, pay taxes, obey
the law and vote. And once in a rare while, one of us who changed our
drug or alcohol habits gets a chance to be president of the United
States.