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Text File | 1993-04-08 | 6KB | 113 lines

                                                                                SOCIETY, Page 41

What Would It Take to Get America off Drugs?


A new book argues that the effort to cut off supply has failed.
It's time to focus on the treatment and education programs that
have proven power to reduce demand.

By RICHARD LACAYO -- With reporting by Ratu Kamlani/New York


    Mathea Falco's favorite image for the failure of American
drug-fighting policy is the thin gray line of 10 radar balloons,
each costing $20 million, that stretch across the U.S. border
with Mexico. Their purpose is to spot cross-border drug flights.
But there is no evidence that the balloons have led to any
increase in drug seizures. Like the claims that the nation's
drug problem can be solved by law enforcement, they may need to
be deflated.

    Falco, a drug-abuse specialist who was Jimmy Carter's
Assistant Secretary of State for international narcotics
matters, has written a new book, The Making of a Drug-Free
America: Programs That Work (Times Books; $22). A consumer guide
to the most promising and cost-effective efforts in antidrug
education, treatment and grass-roots action against dealers,
Falco's book argues for giving drug education and treatment
priority over law enforcement because, she insists, those
approaches work better than most people realize. "We know that
drug abuse is driven largely by demand, not supply," Falco
writes. "And we have learned to reduce demand."

    But first, she says, the nation has to move away from the
Reagan-Bush policies that transformed the war against drugs into
a vain attempt at sealing the borders while rounding up dealers
and users at home. Ronald Reagan dramatically shifted federal
drug-fighting dollars from education and treatment to law
enforcement. George Bush sustained those priorities, nearly
doubling the antidrug outlay to $12 billion but devoting nearly
70% of it to the cops-and-Coast Guard approach. That strategy
has contributed to the costly doubling of the prison population
during the past decade. But while casual drug use may have
declined, the number of heavy drug abusers, a crime-prone
population now estimated at 5.5 million, is still rising.

    Falco argues persuasively that tilting the balance back to
education and treatment would substantially cut the number of
cocaine and heroin addicts. Even if that required higher initial
spending, it would be a bargain when lower crime and health-care
costs are counted in -- to say nothing of reduced human misery.
But treatment is only part of her notion of a drug war that
starts in the classrooms. Too bad that in her view it generally
begins on the wrong foot. While Washington offers American
schools $500 million each year to adopt drug-use-prevention
programs, school officials are on their own when it comes to
deciding which curriculum is most likely to work.

    "There's virtually no guidance," says Falco. "And the
research on drug programs is often inaccessible and
incomprehensible." Bewildered school administrators find
themselves drawn to the programs that have the most eye-catching
props, including classroom games and hand puppets. But most of
them don't deliver. Of 350 programs examined by one 1988 study,
just three produced decreases in student use of drugs, alcohol
or tobacco.

    Falco has found, surprisingly, that the most successful
classroom programs use techniques like role-playing to equip
self-conscious teens with basic social skills, such as as how
to conduct a conversation or respond to rudeness, as well as how
to resist peer pressure to get high. The working assumption is
that kids who can handle their anxiety in social situations are
less likely to turn to drugs for comfort.

    That approach is part of a no-puppets program called STAR
-- Students Taught Awareness and Resistance -- that has been
adopted by more than 400 middle and junior-high schools in
Indiana, Kansas and Missouri. In five-year follow-up studies
undertaken after they complete the 13-session program, graduates
have been found to be 20% to 40% less likely than other students
to have tried drugs or alcohol. The price: just $15 to $25 a
pupil, including the cost of training teachers to conduct the
project in their classrooms.

    What to do with the millions who will go on to heavy drug
use anyway? Falco says the best hope lies with lengthy
residential programs, such as Phoenix House in New York City and
Amity in Tucson, Arizona. Phoenix House loses about a third of
its clients within the first six weeks, but 80% of those who
stay the course for at least a year remain drug-free. She also
wants more prisons to serve, in effect, as compulsory
residential programs for incarcerated drug offenders. But while
more than three-quarters of state prison inmates are drug
abusers, no more than 20% get any help while serving time.

    Falco's title is probably too optimistic. Even universal
drug education and treatment on demand will not guarantee a
drug-free America. For one thing, only about a quarter of all
drug abusers currently seek help to kick their habits. And
treatment is far less effective with the inner-city poor than
with middle-class drug users. But even a partial success would
save more lives and dollars than the present, failed approach.
All it would take is a recognition that real wars aren't fought
with balloons and puppets.