Bad Reactions to Anti-Drug Column
“We Must Do More Than Just Say No,” (Column, May 3): How true! Conner’s death was not due to crystal “meth.” His death was due to a total ignorance about the effects of a drug. It’s so much easier to threaten our children with death or insanity rather than the truth. Like it or not, drugs are easily available in our society. Why not listen to the medical community with regard to the dangers of all drugs? Suzanne M. Miller repeats the same canards put forth by administrations since the big drug scare of the ‘60s. It didn’t work then and it’s not working now.
My question is: Why don’t we put our emphasis on the drugs which cause the most damage? Alcohol and tobacco will kill more people this year than all illicit drugs combined by a factor of 100. Reported deaths due to caffeine were higher than all illegal drugs combined! And I love my coffee. The problem is not marijuana, LSD or even, God forbid, “inhalants.”
The chances of encountering a driver (or anyone else) “high” on marijuana are minuscule compared to the chances of encountering a driver “high” on alcohol, with far more devastating consequences. By the number Miller reports, in 80% of all crimes, alcohol had been used within 72 hours.
Her statements about community-based intervention programs, sustained prevention programs and smarter evaluation for success and failure are the only part of the article which made sense. What will it take to open our eyes and rearrange our priorities? The problem of drugs in our society will be solved only when we deal with the real problems.
Education, not incarceration or death!
RICHARD A. HEIN
Fullerton
* I find it so curious these days that the phrase “Just Say No” coined by Nancy Reagan exactly a decade ago still crops up for ridicule. While I applaud Suzanne M. Miller’s commitment against drug abuse and The Times’ publishing her message, I think many are lax for superficial reasons to credit much of the decrease in youth drug abuse during the ‘80s to Nancy Reagan’s valiant campaign.
As First Lady, she circled the globe spreading the message against drug abuse. A mere two years after she left the bully pulpit she so effectively utilized, drug use began to rise again and the reasons for this are rather plain to see. Where are the champions of anti-drug use today? Where are the political leaders--of either party? Where is the media that once flooded newspaper pages and television news shows profiling the horrors of drug addiction?
The spotlight on drug abuse left when Nancy Reagan left the Washington fishbowl. The Clintons are strangely silent on the subject and the White House Office on Drug Control Policy has been gutted by this Administration.
Miller is right when she says we need more community-based interventions for adolescents at-risk, but many of those have failed because they ignore a fundamental necessity of effective anti-drug programs. The teaching of decision-making skills is not what it takes to turn our youth against drugs. Drug use is wrong and harmful and there is no “choice” to be made. The message that works is “no drugs”--not at any time, not for any reason, because it is wrong and always hurts someone, whether that person is the user, her family or the dealers that get shot or jailed.
Until another champion comes along who has the guts to call the casual drug user “an accomplice to murder” as Nancy Reagan did in 1988, this country will not turn the rising tide. If demand fuels a drug trade that causes so much death, crime and despair, the casual end-user of the illegal product must take ultimate responsibility for the results and reality of his purchase power.
WENDY D. WEBER
Former deputy press secretary
to First Lady Nancy Reagan
Huntington Beach
