Abstract

There are three major fronts in the battle against the drug problem: 1) preventing our children from starting the use of cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs, 2) the rehabilitation of those addicted to drugs, and 3) stopping the supply of illicit drugs through enforcement activities. The current Administration is spending $10.6 billion on the drug problem with 71 percent going to the enforcement activities and 29 percent to rehabilitation, drug education/ prevention and "research." To actually win the war on drugs it will take a serious commitment by our society starting with a greatly expanded national drug policy plan.

A first and most critical step will be to address the advertisement of legal drugs, including the "gateway drugs" cigarettes and alcohol from which our children learn about drug highs. The advertisement of all legal drugs should be banned from media outlets other than inside liquor stores, inside pharmacies, and within medical publications. The advertisement of any drug normally gives a one sided understanding of the drug and should be severely restricted except in the above locations. Producers of legal drugs should help to finance an expanded budget to fight the war on drugs since legal drugs have helped cause the problem.

The budget to fight the war on drugs should be doubled by 1992. Funds exceeding the current budget amount of $10.6 billion should be allocated with a reverse priority: 70 percent of the funds used for drug rehabilita-tion, and drug education/prevention and 30 percent on enforcement and interdiction activities. As new federal anti-drug budgets reach $21.2 billion, 50 percent would then be spent on drug rehabilitation and drug education/ prevention and 50 percent on enforcement and interdiction activities. This would allow for the continued support of the important enforcement activities, while drug rehabili-tation and drug education/prevention activities are greatly expanded. The expansion of spending on the war on drugs should be covered by expected cuts in defense spending and by cigarette, alcohol, over-the-counter and prescrip-tion drug producers.

The war on drugs can be won, but strategic changes are needed to expand our prevention and rehabili-tation efforts as well as doing all that is possible to stop the supply of illicit drugs.

Introduction

 The goal of this national drug plan is to create a drug-free America and to stop the death and destruction that occurs due to the use of alcohol and other drugs throughout this great country of ours.

A recent National Institute of Drug Abuse survey of Americans over the age of 12 showed there are 106 million users of alcohol, 57 million cigarette smokers, 12 million marijuana users and 3 million cocaine users in the United States. There are an estimated  500,000 heroin users. These figures are staggering, yet there are varying opinions on these statistics with some feeling they are much higher. For example, the Senate Judiciary Committee estimates there are 2.2 million hard-core cocaine users or 1 in every 100 Americans while the National Institute of Drug Abuse estimates there are .9 million hard-core cocaine users. No matter who is more correct it is apparent that we have large groups of people that number in the millions that are addicted to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and many different pharmaceutical drugs.

Opinions on how to handle this massive drug problem is varied from spending the majority of the funds available on supply reduction and building more prisons, as the current administration is doing, to making marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs legal.

Yet, the most important point to make is every child that is prevented from using drugs, every addict rehabilitated and living a drug-free life, and every shipment of illicit drugs stopped from arriving on the streets brings us closer to a drug-free America.

The issue of legalization has been given far to much importance as it will not reduce either supply or demand, but will only change the source of supply and may very well increase demand. Its greatest benefit would be the unburdening of the court system on an immediate basis as well as the damage to the illicit drug cartels. At the same time one must not lose sight of the difference in numbers between the users of alcohol, our legal drug, and users of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. We have 106 million alcohol users. Do we risk haying 106 million marijuana, cocaine or heroin users once legalization occurs. One thing is for sure, the debate will continue. Meantime, a plan that includes all three approaches to the drug problem is needed.

Another issue that must be resolved is agencies of our government using profits from illicit drugs to support political groups in other countries as this will undermine any of our efforts.

AS President of Narconon International I feel it is very important for those of us in the trenches fighting the war on drugs to communicate our opinions on the direction we think we should be taking.

The President Bush Plan

In 1981 the federal anti-drug budget was 1.1 billion and today this budget stands at 10.6 billion with 71 percent being spent on law enforcement and interdiction and 29 percent for demand reduction, including prevention and treatment.

The 1991 federal anti-drug budget breaks down as follows:

Supply Reduction
Criminal Justice    $4.3 billion
Interdiction Efforts    $2.4 billion
International Initiatives    $0.69 billion
Intelligence    $0.17 billion
Demand Reduction
Treatment    $1.5 billion
Prevention     $1.2 billion
"Research"    $0.38 million

$10.6 billion is more money than has ever been spent on the drug problem, yet this is only a fraction of what the annual sales from illicit drugs are in the United States, that range in the of billions of dollars each year.

The Three Fronts in the War on Drugs

There are 3 major fronts in the war on drugs and each one is important to success.

1. Drug Education/Prevention. We live in a drug oriented society that has reached an important awareness — a change must occur to safeguard the future for our children. We cannot continue down the path of drug dependence without also experiencing a great deal of death, destruction and lost generations of young people.

Alcohol and drugs produce inferior but instant pleasures and have limited medical value, yet our children see throughout society the "gateway" drugs cigarettes and alcohol being promoted as an integral part of social life. In addition, there are prescription and over-the-counter drugs being produced and widely promoted for any and every mental or physical problem that exists. We have come to depend on drugs from birth to death for the treatment of both medical and recreational problems.

The behavior of our children reflects adult society and many children experience a wide variety of drugs, both medical and recreational, years before reaching adulthood. We should not be surprised when our children begin to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or choose other non-approved drugs such as marijuana, cocaine or heroin. We should be surprised if they don't! As an adult society we do not set good examples and this is readily apparent in our children.

Drug education and prevention programs have an enormous uphill battle, yet this front may on the long run be our most fruitful avenue towards success.

2. Drug-Free and Effective Drug Rehabilitation. We have millions of people in the United States using alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, pharmaceutical drugs, inhalants, or other drugs. They need help. If an addict reaches out for help we must be ready and prepared to help. There really is no such thing as "waiting" to get into a program. Alcoholics and those addicted to other drugs are not going to patiently wait for help. We are either there ready to help them or we are not. If we are not ready then we have blown an opportunity. In addition, when a person is arrested and tests positive for drugs, that jail or facility needs an effective drug program.

It is a matter of being properly prepared. We are not now properly prepared. We do not have effective programs in place in jails and prisons and many of the programs we do have use drugs in their therapy, both in prisons and in the community.

When an individual becomes dependent on drugs for whatever reasons and has reached a point where the will power is strong enough to try and stop using, it is defeating to offer him or her a drug such as methadone as the solution. This is an extension of the very problem that he or she is trying to recover from.

Drugs beget drugs. The cycle cannot be broken with another drug.

This is not to say that there are no benefits to medical drugs such as antibiotics, vaccines, operating room anesthetics, dental numbing agents, etc. But treating drug addicts with synthetic counterparts like methadone, is not drug rehabilitation at all. It has been said that treating a heroin addict with methadone to remove the craving for heroin is like drinking a Pepsi to remove the craving for a Coke. It will, but so what?

There are drug free and effective programs that do not advocate or use replacement drugs.

3. Stopping the Supply of Illicit Drugs. As the debate continues concerning the legalization of the illicit drugs we must not lose sight of winning the war. Legaliza-tion has received to much attention and importance. Whether drugs are legal or illegal, we still have millions of Americans addicted to drugs.
Meantime, these drugs are illicit and we should do all we can to stop marijuana, cocaine and heroin from reaching the market place as well as prosecuting those profiting from all the destruction and death that drugs cause in our society.

An Improved Plan

1. Spending. Since drugs are the number one problem facing our nation today we need to see this reflected in the federal anti-drug budget. The 1991 budget of $10.6 billion to fight the war on drugs is only a fraction of the several $100 billion generated in illicit drug sales each year. The federal anti-drug budget should be doubled immediately.

Additional funds for an expanded budget should be available from the Defense budget as the threat of conflict in Europe decreases. In addition, producers of legal drugs should be asked to help cover the cost of education, pre-vention and rehabilitation programs.

2. Shifting the Priorities on Spending. Current spending priority is on supply reduction vs. demand reduction with 71 percent to enforcement and interdiction activities and 29 percent going to education/prevention and rehabilitation programs. This is really inequitable as all three fronts are important and it may very well be proven out in the long run that education/prevention and rehabilitation will play more a critical role than enforce-ment or interdiction.

My recommendation on spending is not to re-adjust the existing federal anti-drug budget, but to re-adjust the spending priorities on the budget as funds exceed the current budget of $10.6 for 1991. 70 percent of the new funds would be allotted to drug rehabilitation and drug education/prevention, and 30 percent to enforcement and interdiction programs. When the budget reaches $21.2 billion there would be 50 percent being spent on drug rehabilitation and drug education/prevention, and 50 percent being spent on enforcement activities.

This approach would avoid the collapse of existing efforts and allow the necessary time to put in place ex-panded and effective drug education/prevention and rehabilitation programs in prisons and in community.

3. Ban the Advertisement of Legal Drugs. The most important recommendation that I could make that would cause a positive impact nationally would be the banning of all the advertisement of cigarettes, alcohol, prescription and over-the-counter drugs except inside of liquor stores, inside of pharmacies and in medical journals.

I am not against the concept of advertisement or free enterprise. Quite the opposite, it is an important freedom to preserve. But when it comes to the advertisement of cigarettes, alcohol, over-the-counter and prescription drugs the health of the consumer and his or her right to know and understand the full consequences both good and bad must be considered.

There is no such thing as a drug without dangers, drawbacks, etc. You can't have the good without the bad when it comes to drugs. When a drug is advertised the audience is not given Lui understanding of what the drug actually does in the body and what liabilities there are as well as any benefits. It actually goes against the very nature of advertising to cover the liabilities of a product. When the product advertised is a drug then the physical and mental health of the individual is at stake.

The advertising of cigarettes, alcohol, prescription and over-the-counter drugs are all to often patterned as a sexually romantic, sporting, comical or a cliche kind of experience having very little to do with uriderstanding the effects. New consumers of these drugs are normally in their teen years per National Institute of Drug Abuse statistics which means they may very well be the prime target audience for these drugs. In fact if a person does not start smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol before reach-ing adulthood the chances are he or she never will. One famous ad dresses up a little dog in sunglasses and swim trunks and is given the name of "party animal." Is this ad for adults or children?

No matter how painful this action is to corporate America, it is the first and most important preventative step that we could take and it is the right thing to do for our children. We need to let our children learn about the various drugs from their parents, teachers, doctors, and educational material, not from Madison Avenue on television, radio, billboards, major magazines, newspapers, etc.

4. Drug-Free and Effective Drug Rehabilitation. "Drug free" must become the theme of alcohol and drug rehabilitation occurring throughout America. Dependence on chemicals iE the very problem that those addicted to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, prescription and psychiatric drugs have. To further this very problem by proposing the use of a drug as part or all of the solution is not rehabilitating the alcoholic or drug addict, but something else.

Federally funded treatment programs should be able to produce drug-free lives through their respective rehabilitation programs. All programs that simply attempt to replace the drugs with drugs should be excluded from funding.

Every American prison should have in place long-term rehabilitation programs for any inmate convicted of drug use or testing positive for drug use.

Anytime a person addicted to alcohol and drugs requests rehabilitation and is willing to go through the intake process then quality programs should be made available. When an addicts decides to stop and is willing to confront their cravings and addiction to alcohol and drugs, they cannot be expected to wait. We could very well lose another life. Waiting lists need to become a thing of the past and this will only happen if there is an expansion of available drug free and effective rehabilitation programs.
Evaluation of drug programs should be based on results. Are the lives of those that have completed reha-bilitation programs improved and drug free?

5. Improving Drug Education/Prevention. There are a number of national education and prevention models that address a variety of areas such as drugs themselves, peer resistance, saying no to drugs and many others. Some people have tried to find one program that is good for all, but what is needed is effective programs and approaches no matter how many. Follow-up studies of the children should be conducted to listen to student opinions and reactions.

Programs such as Drug-Free Schools, National Federation of Parents for Drug-Free Youth, PRIDE, DARE, SANE, Committee for a drug-free America, and our Narconon education/prevention program are all deserving of a great deal of support. We just need to pour on the coals to do much more work.

The banning the advertisement of cigarettes, alcohol, prescription, over-the-counter and psychiatric drugs in all media outlets except inside of liquor stores, inside of pharmacies and in medical journals is a vital component of improving drug prevention. This action will change the messages that our children get from the media about the gateway drugs and give parents, teachers and doctors the chance to do their job in giving our children a true education.

6. Drug Enforcement and Interdiction Continues. While debate continues on the issue of the legalization of drugs we must do all that we can to stop the flow of illicit drugs coming into the United States or illicit drugs produced in the United States.
We should focus our international efforts on money laundering.

We should expose cartel leaders and their associates internationally, so who they are and what they are doing becomes known and they are searched for around the world.

We should eradicate the marijuana grown in the Unites States as well as the illicit production of methamphetamines, PCP, or designer drugs.

As enforcement efforts are intensified there must be rehabilitation programs for those drug users that are arrested.

7. National Anti-Drug Campaigns. Some of the best examples of national anti-drug campaigns are the Red Ribbon Week and The Great American Smoke Out. We need to make sure that schools, police, drug programs, community organizations, churches in every community are participating to receive the full benefit.

8. Better Coordination of Resources. An important area of improvement is the coordination of the existing resources.

A national network with members from education/ prevention, rehabilitation, and enforcement should be in continuous communications exchanging data and resources, and referrals. Yearly conferences on progress and information on new resources becoming available should be set up.

A national anti-drug network newsletter should come out monthly with input from all areas of the war on drugs.

Conclusion

Winning the war on drugs should have as its number one goal lowering the number of drug users in America. Each time we successfully prevent a child from using drugs or successfully rehabilitation someone ad-dicted to alcohol and other drugs or stop illicit drugs from reaching the streets we are winning and saving lives.

Both demand reduction and supply reduction need to occur with the federal anti-drug budget doubling by 1992. As the budget reaches $21.2 billion we should have going to demand reduction and 50 percent to supply reduction to equalize our efforts along all fronts of the war on drugs.

The banning of the advertising of cigarettes, alcohol, prescription, over-the-counter and psychiatric drugs except inside of liquor stores, inside of pharmacies and in medical journals is vital to preventing our children from using the "gateway" drugs.

Also needed is an improvement in the coordination amongst all that are working in education/prevention, rehabilitation and enforcement fields.

John S. Duff is president of Narconon International, co-author of The Truth about Drugs, the Body, Mind and You. Narconon is a drug-free and effective drug rehabilitation program developed by American author and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard.