DRUGS INTOXICANTS EVERYWHERE : It’s a Drive as Natural as Food or Sex : In a sense, the war against mind-altering substances is a war against ourselves, a denial of our very biology.

There is a silent spring of intoxicants that flows through our lives and bodies. Whether we wake up with a cup of coffee or a line of cocaine; whether we take a break with a cigarette or a beer; whether we relax after work with a cocktail or a joint of marijuana; whether we go to sleep with something we bought at the pharmacy or on the street--we use drugs to change the way we feel. Nobody wants this to be unhealthy or dangerous. Nobody wants people living out their lives inside crack houses, dying from cancer caused by tobacco or lying dead on the highways as a result of drunk drivers.

At the drug summit in Cartagena last month, President Bush announced a “new” emphasis on reducing consumption, although his speech echoed the words of former President Richard Nixon when he declared his war on drugs in 1971. Sure, we can discourage the use of a drug such as cocaine. Already, the image of cocaine has been transformed from a glamorous drug for the rich and famous to one found in dirty crack pipes on inner-city streets. This new image has turned off many users but the lower price of “crack” has attracted many more.

So we blockade their streets and bulldoze their crack houses. When we uncover huge warehouses full of cocaine, we find out who sent it. Then we go after them, encouraging extradition, kidnaping if we must, even invading a country to capture just one of the kingpins. The federal budget escalates as we provide military support for coca eradication in the jungles of South America and coerce foreign governments reluctant to help. At home, we use urine tests to uproot users from their jobs and write tough laws to treat dealers like so many coca shrubs.

If the domestic cultivation of coca now beginning in several states--Florida, Hawaii, Arizona, California--is curtailed, and the development of synthetic-coke labs can be avoided, these efforts might reduce cocaine use. Let’s say they do.

What if cocaine simply disappeared from the face of the Earth? The war on drugs would still be lost. Why? Because the drive to use drugs is unstoppable and the supplies are unlimited.

History shows that we have always used drugs. In every age, in every part of this planet, people have pursued intoxication by consuming drugs derived from plants, alcohol and other mind-altering substances. Surprisingly, we’re not the only ones to do this. Almost every species of animal has engaged in the natural pursuit of intoxicants. This behavior has so much force and persistence that it functions like a drive, just like our drives of hunger, thirst and sex. This “fourth drive” is a natural part of our biology, creating the irrepressible demand for drugs. In a sense, the war on drugs is a war against ourselves, a denial of our very nature.

Of course, this “fourth drive” sometimes runs amok and overshadows the other drives, as is the case when animals and people pursue an intoxicant to the exclusion of everything else in their lives. This tells us that we are doing the right thing when we try to curtail cocaine use. But there is simply no end to the supply of dangerous drugs. Already, there is a methamphetamine (“ice”) epidemic looming on the horizon, ready to recruit ex-cocaine users to its ranks. Designer chemistry, exotic plants, even over-the-counter medicines provide endless sources of new highs. And so the war on drugs will continue, as it has throughout history.

Some people want to stop the war, putting an end to its enormous societal costs, by legalizing drugs such as cocaine or heroin. The voices calling for legalization are not only well-intentioned, they are also louder and more respectable than ever. But calling a drug legal doesn’t change its basic pharmacology or safety any more than saying “no” changes our basic drive to pursue intoxication.

Making some dangerous drugs illegal while keeping others legal is not the solution. Outlawing drugs to solve drug problems is much like outlawing sex to win the war against AIDS. We recognize that people will continue to have sex for non-reproductive reasons, whatever the laws or mores. Thus, we try to make sexual practices as safe as possible in order to minimize the spread of the AIDS viruses. Similarly, we continually try to make our drinking water, foods and pharmaceutical medicines safer.

To solve the drug problem, we must recognize that intoxicants are medicines, treatments for the human condition. Then we must make them as safe and risk-free and--yes--as healthy as possible.

Dream with me for a moment. What would be wrong if we had perfectly safe drugs? I mean drugs that delivered the same effects as our most popular ones but never caused dependency, disease, dysfunction or death. Imagine an alcohol-type drug that never caused addiction, liver disease, hangovers, reckless driving or workplace problems. Would you care for a cigarette that is as enjoyable as marijuana but as harmless as clean air?

This is not science fiction. There are such intoxicants available now. If drug czar William J. Bennett can switch from smoking tobacco to chewing nicotine gum, why can’t crack users chew a cocaine gum that has already been tested on animals and found to be relatively safe?

Even safer drugs may be just around the corner. They could be made available early in the next century. What would it cost to develop them? Probably less than this year’s budget for the war on drugs. But it will first take a national commitment equal to putting a man on the moon.

We must begin by recognizing that there is a legitimate place in our society for intoxication. Then we can join in building new, perfectly safe intoxicants for a world that will be ready to discard the old ones as the corroding pieces of junk they really are.