EDUCATION NOT INCARCERATION

Does The Inland Northwest Meth Problem Concern You? Here's One
Solution Many People Probably Haven't Considered Before

The so-called meth epidemic in the Inland Northwest has ignited fears
of backyard explosions and poor, white people with rotten teeth and
bad attitudes doing dangerous actions. Seldom does a day go by
without hearing of another meth bust. Heavily armed soldiers smashing
through front doors dominate media images.

But I wonder: Is this a war on drugs or a war on people?

More people are coming to the conclusion that prohibition laws and
zero-tolerance thinking, translated into laws, have driven controlled
substance manufacture out of the pharmaceutical industry, where it
was once done competently, and into the hands of bootleggers.
Remember those jumpin' '50s,'60s and '70s? Amphetamines were the
nation's diet pills. More plentiful than McDonald's hamburgers, they
had mainstream public acceptance. Using amphetamines to control a
super-sized appetite was socially acceptable. To use "speed" as a
psychological stimulant, or "uppers," was reserved for truckers, then
bikers, and viewed as serious abuse.

While housewives buzzed around, following any fad diet in 1971,
Congress, worried only about bikers, considered moving amphetamines
and methamphetamine to a more restrictive Schedule II. With profits
on prescriptions sure to plummet, the pharmaceutical industry pointed
to President John Kennedy's use of uppers in office, especially on
the grueling occasion of the Khruschev summit. If Kennedy was on
speed while conducting sensitive global negotiations, what complaint
could government have about responsible use of amphetamines by
ordinary people?

Amphetamines were put on the less restrictive schedule, but didn't
stay there long. Through the '80s unto this day the most popular
"upper" is RitalinTM, a drug permitted for children who must make
sensitive school negotiations, and so teachers dispense it to more
and more children every year. It's a performance-enhancing drug,
increasing children's ability to focus.

Uppers have been around since 1908 when a group of chemical compounds
were discovered to have dramatic effects on human behavior. Ninety
years later, the illegal form of the old drug -- and similar to
problems with bathtub gin and moonshine -- produces overdoses and
explosions. Many drug reformers consider this a consequence of
Prohibition.

Many of us can remember how bennies -- the pill-form of amphetamine
- -- disappeared from the market and were quickly replaced with powders
of dubious pedigree. Called crank, crystal, and now meth, there is no
potency or dosage control -- critical factors that were previously
handled invisibly for consumers by trained, regulated chemists in the
pharmaceutical industry.

Rotting teeth is an indicator of serious physical damage, and
clandestine meth-lab chemists perform the most dangerous form of
chemistry, sometimes resulting in a shotgun reaction. There's a lot
of amateur chemistry being passed around in this unregulated
atmosphere, and it's deadly.

Raw chemicals mixed in bathtubs are generally bad news, and a Pew
Research Poll found three out of four U.S. citizens concluding that
the war on drugs has failed. In a recent poll conducted by the ACLU,
75 percent of the population was dissatisfied with the entire
criminal justice system.

So what is to be done that's better than battering in trailer houses
and shanty doors of the poor and addicted?

Treatment works.

A 1994 study by the RAND Corp. found that treatment is 10 times more
cost effective than interdiction in reducing the use of cocaine in
the United States. The government-ordered study also found that every
additional dollar invested in substance abuse treatment saves
taxpayers $7.46 in societal costs.

While politicians remain uncritically concerned with increasing
police departments' budgets to fight meth, voters should know that
the RAND study also found that additional domestic law enforcement
efforts cost 15 times as much as treatment to achieve the same
reduction in societal costs of drug abuse and addiction.

Comparing cost of treatment to cost of incarcerating addicts,
treatment is fiscally responsible and avoids the harms experienced by
people sent to prison for drug law violations. In one of many studies
scrutinizing government policies, the 1997 National Treatment
Improvement Evaluation Study found that with treatment drug selling
decreased by 78 percent, shoplifting declined by almost 82 percent
and assaults declined by 78 percent.

Furthermore, there was a 64 percent decrease in arrests for any
crime, and the percentage of people who largely supported themselves
through illegal activity dropped by nearly half, decreasing more than
48 percent.

A healthy economy works, too. Drug abuse and addiction follow the
same curve as a community's unemployment rate. Scotland officials
have recently begun a national discussion, claiming that
zero-tolerance drug war programs are damaging public health.

International support for humane treatment of addicts and
legalization of scheduled soft drugs, such as marijuana, is now
common throughout South America and Europe. Almost one-third of U.S.
voters support marijuana legalization. The state of Louisiana has
admitted that harsh drug sentencing laws were not only fiscally
irresponsible, but also immoral. They are releasing thousands of drug
prisoners.

It's time for sea changes in our thinking about drugs, legal and
illegal. In a period of budget restraint, can we afford to continue
ineffective, expensive, inhumane policies that favor incarceration
over education and treatment?

It takes a great human being to admit wrong, but that's exactly what
November Coalition and other drug law reform groups are demanding of
U.S. leaders. Our policy-makers should admit that the war on drugs
has failed and adopt humane and effective drug policies.

Chuck Armsbury, formerly of Greenacres, Wash., now lives and works in
Colville. He is senior editor of the Razor Wire, a publication of the
November Coalition (www.november.org), a nonprofit organization
dedicated to reforming drug laws. You can contact him at
chuck@november.org.