The Nation - News from July 5, 1989

Doctors and lawyers, role models with “a special kind of status,” should impose strict anti-drug standards on their elite professions, says William J. Bennett, the federal coordinator of drug-control policy. “If you’re serious about this thing, you don’t just go battering down doors in the inner cities,” Bennett said in an interview with the Associated Press. “To those who have been given much, much is expected.” Bennett, who has met in the past with heads of sports organizations and with Hollywood leaders, said he spoke recently with American Bar Assn. President Robert Raven and the American Medical Assn.’s chief executive officer, Dr. James H. Sammons. Both the ABA and the AMA--voluntary organizations without power to discipline members by lifting credentials--have programs to help impaired professionals. Raven and Sammons espoused treatment for drug abusers but indicated that people with such problems might shy away from seeking help if they thought strict records were being kept.