A Larger War on Drugs May Worsen the Problem

Tonight on a nationwide television broadcast, the President of the United States and his wife, speaking from their family quarters in the White House, will talk to us about America’s drug problem. This past week Congress took up legislation that would greatly step up the country’s attack on drug use.

Most of what is proposed, however, will do little to stem the rising tide of illegal drugs, mainly cocaine.

For almost three years I watched the cocaine phenomenon. I rode with undercover cops, sailed with marine patrols, toured treatment centers, met money washers, smugglers, addicts and politicians, read reports and statistics and saw the situation deteriorate despite a massive federal drug war. That effort would be doubled by the $2-billion legislative package that hit the floor of the House of Representatives last week.

There have been prior wars on drugs. Prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, was one. After that, alcohol agents in the Roosevelt Administration made a national cause celebre of marijuana, then a marginal problem, in order to keep their jobs (the government-sponsored film, “Reefer Madness,” is now rented on video cassettes for its entertainment value). Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general, led a well-publicized war on drugs, and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller battled heroin in New York with life sentences for pushers.

During the 1968 presidential campaign, Richard M. Nixon sought a newsmaking menace to replace declining domestic communism. His aide John Erlichman told him that “narcotics suppression is a very sexy issue. Parents who are voters are very worried about narcotics,” which is equally true in the current age of crack.

It also happens to be true that drug wars tend to become more ham-handed than clear-headed and sometimes wind up doing more harm than good. Prohibition, for instance, institutionalized the mob.

Bureaucratic tensions caused the Nixon Administration to create a strategy called interdiction, which involves trying to catch smugglers in transit between foreign drug-production zones and the mainland. In the 1970s the U.S. Customs Service balked at the loss of its narcotics investigation role to the newly founded Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and began sabotaging DEA cases. To placate Customs, the Administration allowed it to roam air and sea borders in search of narcotics, though Washington knew interdiction would be more successful against bulky marijuana than against more portable cocaine and heroin.

Simpler than adjusting corrupt Andean economies and cleaner than undercover work, interdiction grew increasingly popular in later administrations. The Coast Guard, Department of Defense and other agencies signed on, contributing personnel and an alluring array of high-tech gear, from Airborne Warning and Control aircraft and Hawkeye radar planes to nuclear ships, jets and pursuit helicopters. By mid-point in the Reagan years, interdiction absorbed about half of the $1.7-billion federal drug budget.

Neither “mother ships,” the rusting freighters that once lugged tons of marijuana, nor lumbering World War II bombers favored as pot transports could pierce the interdiction net. But small, quick business jets could sneak fortunes in coke across the border, as could travelers carrying it in baggage or in swallowed condoms. As interdiction tightened, more and more smugglers switched to the more easily concealable drug. Cocaine, once the toy of the rich, became cheap, pure and prevalent throughout society.

The legislation Congress is now considering would continue the surging growth of interdiction. Instead, we should begin scaling down this costly, counterproductive approach. This would induce some smugglers to switch back from cocaine to marijuana, for which they can get a substantially greater markup. (Cocaine is more labor intensive and requires several stages of chemical processing.)

The government should start being candid about the fact that it cannot stop all drugs, and set priorities according to degrees of danger. Reducing interdiction is probably one route to cutting the cocaine supply. The economic inducement for smugglers to carry marijuana should be reinforced by setting lower penalties for its delivery than for cocaine and heroin--much as we treat marijuana possession more lightly.

I hold no brief for marijuana but cannabis, unlike crack, does not cause convulsions or click off lives. Also, the market is aging and stable, with about 20 million regular users. More imported marijuana would not expand this market, but compete within it against the domestic crop, which flowered during interdiction into a $16-billion agribusiness, our largest cash crop after corn.

Washington speaks loudly about “going to the source.” The new legislation has been designed to facilitate more U.S. military expeditions like the recent Bolivian raid, as well as crop eradication. But sending soldiers to smash coke labs in a jungle ultimately does little except to destabilize the local government. Likewise, attempts to induce equatorial farmers to substitute legal for illegal crops fail, because drugs fetch better prices.

Instead, they should be paid at drug-crop rates to grow food. There are reportedly about 125,000 coca farmers. Even if each received the regionally staggering yearly wage of $10,000 for legal harvests, the sum would be less than the proposed federal drug budget.

Moreover, the United States should not foot the whole bill. More than 100 countries have signed the U.N. Single Convention, prohibiting the non-medical production and use of drugs. States could finance crop substitution in proportion to their illegal drug markets. (The United States currently would donate 60%, since it absorbs this amount of the drug output.)

As a society, we should take responsibility for the demand side of our drug problem. During the early 1980s, Washington tilted the drug budget toward enforcement and interdiction and cut back on education and treatment--just as the need became more acute. The Department of Education’s budget for programs to combat drug abuse declined from $14 million in 1981 to just $2.9 million in 1985.

The Reagan Administration currently favors widespread random drug testing, especially in the workplace. Not only does this fly in the face of venerable privacy and probable-cause standards, but, like interdiction, it could shift the market to more dangerous drugs. Marijuana traces remain in the body for weeks, while cocaine metabolizes out of the system within days. A drug user, especially one who is employed, will choose the substance that is most likely to escape detection. The wave of testing has also given impetus to a boom in the production of “designer drugs,” horribly addictive new synthetic opiates that don’t register in standard urinalysis. Nor will testing affect the drug-addicted street criminal, who is the root of much of public fear.

Though the House package meets most of the Administration’s law-enforcement goals, it surprisingly hasn’t yet earmarked a dime for drug testing. “There’s no urgency about buying more drug tests for 40-year-old bureaucrats,” said a staff member of one of the 11 committees that worked on the bill.

If enacted, the legislation could provide $500 million or more for education and treatment, much of it funneled through the states.

We know that concerted public education campaigns slowly have changed attitudes about smoking, drinking and drunk driving. Credible public information about drugs could have a similar influence. But shallow propaganda of the “Reefer Madness” genre will be ignored.

The heart of our demand comes from people who are hooked. Even before the crack craze, the Drug Enforcement Administration found that about 6% of cocaine users consumed more than 60% of the supply. Drug habits cheat employers and keep dealers, enforcers, money launderers and terrorists afloat.

Many companies now provide extensive drug- and alcohol-treatment programs. But most people with habits, especially crack addicts, don’t work for benevolent corporations. The government should fill the breach by funding detoxification and care for those who need it.

The drug problem won’t vanish tomorrow. But a rational approach, one not married to past failure, could make a difference.