Feather pen and ink

Dear Editor,

I have to disagree that Nixon is the prime source of the systematic abuse that the "war on Drugs" has become.   Having been in the drug field at that time and until 1983, I had a front-row seat for drug policy and its effects.
        Nixon's solutions at least were mostly positive. he established the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), which provided a great deal of funding for treatment, not interdiction, arrest and incarceration. That came later, beginning in the '80s, and accelerating for 20 years after that. 
        The "get tough" approach came when there was impatience with the success rates of treatment, which still are under 50% for some drugs. It was doomed from the start--it was ludicrous to think the prison could solve a medical problem--but it paid off for many sectors of government. Politicians got a "bad guy" to blame when anything went wrong, and putting druggies in jail became the solution of choice. It was the polar opposite of the Nixon Administration's treatment-oriented approach.
        After the politicians, the police began sucking at the drug tit. Drug enforcement brought them billions and the feeling that they were saving people. That's hard to give up.
        Then there was the power. The DEA people were the ones who got drunk on their power and used it to justify all sorts of abuses, such as seizing property from the families of drug users, even though they had nothing to do with the crime.
        Worst of all, the black community became the target of choice. Although the black community seems to have been hit hardest by the cocaine epidemic in the 1990s, the response was not to find solutions, but rather to type-cast all blacks a drug users. This gave bigots a lot of amunition to target blacks, and they certainly used it. Many others were sucked unwittingly into the stereotype and participated in the abuse. So, a whole generation of black men end up with felony convictions in the name of saving the community from drugs.
        So, while I can't agree the Nixon was the cause, I certainly agree that the "war" was, not only unjust and a tool of bigotry, but a collossal waste. If they had flushed those billions spent on interdiction and prosecution down the toilet, the effect would have been the same. Drug abuse was not stopped and millions ended up in prison.
        Now, what to do. Certainly, many agree with your position (except about Nixon), but the question is how to turn that into effective programs. 
        For me the first step is redirecting money from prosecution to treatment. Even with their dodgy success rates, most treatment programs are a helluva lot more effective than prison, and a lot cheaper.
        Second, we should work to turn the focus from viewing drug abuse as a moral failure to the medical problem that it is in reality. Most people, even those who try drugs, don't abuse them, but a few do. What makes them different? It's not personality or even social standing (except as it affects access to treatment). It's already known that the basis of drug abuse is physical. Some people just react differently to certain drugs. What is needed is more research to find out exactly what the difference is physically, so truly effective medical treatments can be developed.
        Third, keep hitting on the bottom line, all that money wasted and nothing accomplished.
        Anyway, that's my two cents (although it's about 25 cents long). :-)

Charlotte Wolter, Santa Monica, CA