Study on Decline in Cocaine Use Touted as Progress in War on Drugs

The Bush Administration claimed Thursday that it has fresh evidence its war on drugs has been working--a study showing declining cocaine use when supplies dwindled and prices rose.

The study was released two weeks after the government reported that cocaine-related visits to hospital emergency rooms during the first three months of 1992 hit a record 30,103, wiping out earlier gains and exceeding the record set in the fall of 1989.

The study was based on data between 1986 and 1991. Released by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and paid for by the Administration, the study by Abt Associates of Cambridge, Mass., said cocaine use fluctuated in that period depending on its price and availability.

“Supply reduction efforts are an indispensable ally of demand reduction programs,” said drug office director Bob Martinez. “By making drugs more expensive and difficult to obtain, they help reduce drug use.”

Herbert Kleber, a professor at Columbia University Medical School, said a basic flaw in the study was that it assumed drug supplies can be reduced or halted with more law enforcement.

Cocaine “is too easy to smuggle in and it’s too easy to grow. It’s much more cost-effective to treat addiction,” said Kleber, who was an assistant director of the drug control policy office early in the Bush Administration.

He said the fluctuations in drug use cited in Thursday’s study may be accurate because they coincide with disruptions in Colombia cocaine cartels.