SECOND OPINION: DRUG USERS AS TRAITORS

Who could forget those Patriots at the Super Bowl - Rah! Rah! Rah! Or those
patriotic anti-drug commercials between plays - Rah! Rah! Rah! "Where do
terrorists get their money?" asked one ad. "If you buy drugs, some of it
might come from you."

This is the latest ad campaign from the White House: To fight the war on
drugs is to fight the war on terrorism. The implication is that people who
use illegal drugs are supporting the likes of Osama bin Laden. They are
aiding the enemies of the United States. They risk becoming not just drug
addicts but traitors, too.

"It's important for Americans to know that the traffic in drugs finances
the work of terror, sustaining terrorists, that terrorists use drug profits
to fund their cells to commit acts of murder," says President Bush on the
Web site for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "If
you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in America."

Our world has changed since Sept. 11. But this brand of medical jingoism is
deeply disturbing. I'm all for imaginative prevention campaigns that
educate youngsters on the dangers of drugs. The country needs effective
programs that discourage use and persuade people to stop.

And - call me a mush - I love my country. I want to stand up and be counted
in the national effort to combat terrorists who target Americans and wish
to destroy the United States. But I'm wary of using the war on terror as a
Trojan horse for other political agendas.

Mixing the old war on drugs with the new war on terrorism is a stretch.
It's hard to see any link, say, between American teenagers trying Ecstasy
and foreign terrorists attacking the World Trade Center. To put them under
the same patriotic umbrella diminishes the hard realities of both kinds of
tragedy.

"You undermine the credibility of anti-drug campaigns by exaggerating the
dangers," says Peter Reuter, professor of public policy at the University
of Maryland and co-author of "Drug War Heresies: Learning From Other Vices,
Times, and Places."

"The nation is appropriately alarmed about terrorism," he continues, but
"if the connection isn't there, you're degrading the credibility of
anti-drug programs."

The $10 million ad campaign is aimed at shaking up teenagers. "It's
important not to overreach," says Tom Riley, communications director of the
White House office. "If we can give them another reason not to do drugs,
that helps people in other countries as well as people in our country."

But it is an overreach. The link is weak even in Afghanistan. To be sure,
the country that harbored bin Laden and his terrorist network has long been
a fertile source of drugs. In 1999, Afghanistan produced more than 70
percent of the world's opium. But very little makes its way to the United
States. The bulk - about 90 percent - ends up in Europe. So it's not likely
that a heroin addict in Detroit is aiding poppy growers in Afghanistan, let
alone abetting al Qaeda terrorists planning attacks in the United States.

Besides, our allies in Afghanistan - the warlords of the Northern Alliance
- - are themselves big-time narco-traffickers who have lived high off the
poppy seed. With the Taliban gone, farmers are once again planting their
crops, according to news reports. Taking the logic of the Super Bowl ads to
an absurd extreme, you might say: "Keep using illegal drugs. You're
supporting the team that toppled the Taliban!"

The closest connection between drugs and political violence is in Colombia,
the world's primary source of cocaine. As the script in one full-page
newspaper ad put it: "Last weekend, I washed my car, hung out with a few
friends, and helped murder a family in Colombia. . . . C'mon. It was a party."

But the terror described here is not the bin Laden brand of political
terrorism that is aimed at destroying the United States. It is old-
fashioned criminal terror that rules a violent underworld of illegal
activities with nasty, ruthless outlaws who corrupt and destabilize
governments. These Mafia-style groups need to be dealt with. But blaming a
teenager who uses drugs at a party for a murder in Colombia is like blaming
a gin-drinking youngster during Prohibition for a gangland slaying in Chicago.

What's more, teen use of cocaine has plummeted since its peak in the
mid-1980s, further weakening the link between drug use in the United States
and drug-related murder in other countries.

There are good reasons to make kids responsible for their behavior when it
comes to risky activities involving drugs, alcohol and sex. There are also
good reasons why the United States wants to help clean up the international
underworld that trafficks in drugs and sex slaves and the like.

But neither need the political seal of approval of the country's war on
terrorism. One young woman looked at the newspaper ad and dismissed it with
"Oh, PU-LEASE."

Public health messages work best when they are based on science, not
advocacy. There is indeed a new threat in the country's war on drugs. It's
not terror, but Ecstasy, the "love drug" popular among some teenagers.

Its use by teens has increased more than 70 percent in three years,
according to a national survey released yesterday by the Partnership for a
Drug-Free America. Today, more than 12 percent of teenagers have used
Ecstasy - a higher proportion than have used methamphetamine, LSD, cocaine
or heroin.

To educate teenagers and parents on the dangers of Ecstasy, the Partnership
has launched a nationwide media blitz of television and print
advertisements. All the information was reviewed for accuracy by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse. One ad features the story of Danielle
Heird, 21, from Las Vegas, who died in an Ecstasy-related death. Her
parents appear in the ad to talk about their daughter.

"You never go wrong with realism," says Steve Dnistrian, executive vice
president of the Partnership.

Whether it's the war on drugs or the war on terrorism, reality sells.