Pubdate: Sun, 18 Mar 2001
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2001 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260
Fax: (713) 220-3575
Website: http://www.chron.com/
Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html
Author: Tom Webb

MEDIA, LEGISLATORS, RESEARCH SPUR RETHINKING OF DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON -- Hollywood, medical research and a group of new lawmakers seem 
to be combining to make official Washington rethink the nation's war on drugs.

For years, government has fought the war on illegal drugs with a steely 
focus on the supply: destroying crops, intercepting shipments, jailing 
smugglers, arresting dealers. And for years, Congress wasn't swayed by 
critics such as Sen. Paul Wellstone and Rep. Jim Ramstad, who argued that 
equal effort be focused on demand -- including drug and alcohol treatment.

"Our priorities have been misplaced as a nation, when we're spending only 
16 percent of our funding on treatment," argues Ramstad, R-Minn., himself a 
recovering alcoholic. "That's not working."

But in the past few months, treatment advocates are seeing the pendulum 
swing their way. New studies on addiction have revealed the social and 
economic costs. The Academy Award-nominated movie Traffic, along with 
popular TV shows like The West Wing, are reaching a broad public and 
fueling new debate over how best to address the nation's drug problem.

Among the new faces in Washington, President Bush comes to power with his 
own history of alcohol abuse, as does Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., a 
recovering alcoholic. And the outgoing Clinton administration has fueled 
the treatment debate, too, in ways both intentional and not.

Said Wellstone, "There's more public focus; there's more visibility; 
there's more education; there's a little less stereotyping than there used 
to be, so that makes it a better climate."

This past week the president's budget included an extra $100 million for 
substance abuse treatment, a 3.5 percent increase touted as a first step to 
bridging the "treatment gap." Said Mark Weber, spokesman for the Substance 
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, "This administration has 
singled out treatment as an area where they've called for increased 
investments."

But Wellstone and Ramstad have bigger plans. The Minnesotans are leading 
efforts in Congress to prohibit health insurers from treating addiction 
differently than other diseases. They face an uphill fight with many 
opponents: business groups, who fear it would raise health-care costs; 
citizens wary of government mandating health coverage; traditionalists, who 
want to retain social ostracism of drunkenness and drug abuse.

At a hearing last year, insurers noted that treatment is costly, repeated 
stays are commonplace, and even the best programs fail as often as they 
succeed.

But advocates point to a raft of studies with one conclusion: providing 
treatment is less costly to states, families and society than withholding it.

"My toughest sell is the Republican House leadership, no question about 
it," Ramstad admits. "I realize Rome wasn't built in a day, but this is a 
real passion with me, because I see the ravages of addiction every single day."

Now Ramstad is working to enlist a powerful ally: the new president. 
Ramstad has met with Bush to discuss his own alcohol problems, and found 
that the former Texas governor grasps the ravages of addiction.

"He did not commit to supporting any legislation, I must make that clear," 
Ramstad said. But, he added, "His own personal experiences with alcohol 
abuse have made him sensitive to the problem. There's nothing like personal 
experience with addiction to become a believer in treatment and recovery."

In Congress, the first battle involving treatment may arise over U.S. 
funding for the drug war in Colombia. Last year, Wellstone and Ramstad were 
soundly defeated when they tried to take drug-eradication money for 
Colombia and redirect it to better treatment in this country.

"Part of the way people viewed the vote on Plan Colombia was you had to 
show you were tough on drugs," Wellstone said. He also thinks some senators 
were attracted to "high-tech solutions; they're less complicated, so we'll 
do interdiction on the high seas, and we'll do aerial spraying, and it just 
seems easier to people."

Except they're not enough. That's what Colombian President Andres Pastrana 
said this past week, when he visited Washington. He said that helicopters 
and aerial spraying in his country must also be accompanied by curbing 
demand in this country.

Wellstone plans soon to make a second trip to Colombia. He hopes to shed 
light on human rights abuses in the South American nation, but also, to 
question the U.S. focus on the drug supply, instead of also looking at demand.

He'll have a surprising ally: the movie Traffic, a multilayered look at the 
fallout of the drug war. The New York Times said in an editorial this past 
week, "It is rare for a Hollywood movie to stimulate meaningful debate 
about social policy, but that has been the case with Traffic. With its 
disturbing images of middle-class teen-age addiction, outgunned American 
counternarcotics agents and corrupt Mexican drug officials, the movie has 
touched a nerve at a time of flux in the nation's decades-long campaign 
against illicit drugs."

Former President Clinton, in his final month in office, signed an executive 
order that gave federal workers parity for addiction-related treatment. 
Inadvertently, he also drew a real-world parallel to the movie Traffic, 
with his controversial pardon of convicted drug trafficker Carlos Vignali, 
who was freed thanks to the efforts of prominent religious and civic 
leaders, including the brother of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton's drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, is now advocating treatment as 
the best way to address the drug problem, and is promoting the Wellstone 
and Ramstad bill. Ramstad would have liked the help last year.

"We got lip service from President Clinton," Ramstad said. "Every time it 
was time to move the bill, we couldn't get a letter of support from the 
administration. So we've just decided to wait for the new administration."

Together, the landscape is a welcome change for treatment advocates. Said 
Jane Nakken, an executive vice president at the Hazelden Foundation, "The 
awareness is a wonderful step, and we're seeing that all over the place." 
She also cites new research detailing the cost of addiction, and 
state-level initiatives like Proposition 36 in California that promote 
treatment over jail for drug offenses.
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