What Would It Take to Get America off Drugs?

By Richard Lacayo

Mathea Falco's favorite image for the failure of American drug-fighting policy is the thin gray line of 10 radar balloons, each costing $20 million, that stretch across the U.S. border with Mexico. Their purpose is to spot cross- border drug flights. But there is no evidence that the balloons have led to any increase in drug seizures. Like the claims that the nation's drug problem can be solved by law enforcement, they may need to be deflated.

Falco, a drug-abuse specialist who was Jimmy Carter's Assistant Secretary of State for international narcotics matters, has written a new book, The Making of a Drug-Free America: Programs That Work (Times Books; $22). A consumer guide to the most promising and cost-effective efforts in antidrug education, treatment and grass-roots action against dealers, Falco's book argues for giving drug education and treatment priority over law enforcement because, she insists, those approaches work better than most people realize. "We know that drug abuse is driven largely by demand, not supply," Falco writes. "And we have learned to reduce demand."

But first, she says, the nation has to move away from the Reagan-Bush policies that transformed the war against drugs into a vain attempt at sealing the borders while rounding up dealers and users at home. Ronald Reagan dramatically shifted federal drug-fighting dollars from education and treatment to law enforcement. George Bush sustained those priorities, nearly doubling the antidrug outlay to $12 billion but devoting nearly 70% of it to the cops-and-Coast Guard approach. That strategy has contributed to the costly doubling of the prison population during the past decade. But while casual drug use may have declined, the number of heavy drug abusers, a crime-prone population now estimated at 5.5 million, is still rising.

Falco argues persuasively that tilting the balance back to education and treatment would substantially cut the number of cocaine and heroin addicts. Even if that required higher initial spending, it would be a bargain when lower crime and health-care costs are counted in -- to say nothing of reduced human misery. But treatment is only part of her notion of a drug war that starts in the classrooms. Too bad that in her view it generally begins on the wrong foot. While Washington offers American schools $500 million each year to adopt drug-use-prevention programs, school officials are on their own when it comes to deciding which curriculum is most likely to work.

"There's virtually no guidance," says Falco. "And the research on drug programs is often inaccessible and incomprehensible." Bewildered school administrators find themselves drawn to the programs that have the most eye- catching props, including classroom games and hand puppets. But most of them don't deliver. Of 350 programs examined by one 1988 study, just three produced decreases in student use of drugs, alcohol or tobacco.

Falco has found, surprisingly, that the most successful classroom programs use techniques like role-playing to equip self-conscious teens with basic ! social skills, such as as how to conduct a conversation or respond to rudeness, as well as how to resist peer pressure to get high. The working assumption is that kids who can handle their anxiety in social situations are less likely to turn to drugs for comfort.

That approach is part of a no-puppets program called STAR -- Students Taught Awareness and Resistance -- that has been adopted by more than 400 middle and junior-high schools in Indiana, Kansas and Missouri. In five-year follow-up studies undertaken after they complete the 13-session program, graduates have been found to be 20% to 40% less likely than other students to have tried drugs or alcohol. The price: just $15 to $25 a pupil, including the cost of training teachers to conduct the project in their classrooms.

What to do with the millions who will go on to heavy drug use anyway? Falco says the best hope lies with lengthy residential programs, such as Phoenix House in New York City and Amity in Tucson, Arizona. Phoenix House loses about a third of its clients within the first six weeks, but 80% of those who stay the course for at least a year remain drug-free. She also wants more prisons to serve, in effect, as compulsory residential programs for incarcerated drug offenders. But while more than three-quarters of state prison inmates are drug abusers, no more than 20% get any help while serving time.

Falco's title is probably too optimistic. Even universal drug education and treatment on demand will not guarantee a drug-free America. For one thing, only about a quarter of all drug abusers currently seek help to kick their habits. And treatment is far less effective with the inner-city poor than with middle-class drug users. But even a partial success would save more lives and dollars than the present, failed approach. All it would take is a recognition that real wars aren't fought with balloons and puppets.

With reporting by Ratu Kamlani/New York