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By Paul Singer, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Jan. 19, 2007

In the decades since President Nixon declared a "war on drugs" in 1971, no one has ever declared victory.

In the year that Nixon denounced drugs as "public enemy No. 1," about 3 million Americans took their first hit of marijuana, 480,000 people experimented with cocaine, and 113,000 sampled heroin. Thirty-four years, billions of dollars, and several major anti-drug campaigns later, 2.1 million people tried marijuana, 872,000 people had their first taste of cocaine, and 108,000 people sampled heroin. And a newer category appears menacing: In 2005, 2.5 million people introduced themselves to "nonmedical use" of prescription drugs.

Drug use spiked in the late 1970s, but after a steep drop in the 1980s, drug abuse has remained pretty constant. The most-recent data identify about 20 million Americans as "current users" of illicit drugs. The street prices of most major illegal drugs have plummeted over the past 30 years. According to federal statistics, drug-induced deaths rose from 19,000 in 1999 to 28,000 in 2004. Over the same period, alcohol-induced deaths rose from 19,000 to 20,000.

Underneath those broad outlines, however, the White House sees signs that the nation has actually turned a corner and that key indicators of drug use are trending in the right direction for the first time in years. In an annual survey of students in the eighth, 10th, and 12th grades, released in December, just under 15 percent of teens reported using an illicit drug in the previous 30 days, down from 19 percent in 2001. A vigorous enforcement effort has shut down hundreds of methamphetamine labs across the country, and the amount of cocaine seized globally has doubled in the past 10 years. Although opium production is expanding in Afghanistan, it is shrinking everywhere else, making it easier for governments worldwide to focus their eradication efforts.

Some critics calls these trends illusory and contend that the next wave of abuse has already begun. "We are getting new users of prescription opiates at the levels we were getting new users of cocaine in 1979," the peak year for first-time use of that drug, said Mark Kleiman, director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program at the University of California (Los Angeles).

Where drug use is dropping, pinpointing the policies that deserve credit is difficult. Lloyd Johnston, director of the University of Michigan study that documented the progress among young people, says that the downturn in drug use among eighth-graders began in 1997 and cannot simply be credited to the current administration's policies.

"The fact is that the individual drugs move up and down so much to their own drummers," Johnston said. "When a drug is first introduced, people don't know what the dangers are, because nobody has experience with it. It sort of rides on this honeymoon period and people are saying, 'Man, this is the best stuff.'" Only after a few years, when the downsides of abuse are widely known, does a drug's appeal diminish -- and the cohort moves on to the next drug.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (he scoffs at his "drug czar" moniker), agrees that it is hard to credit any single program on such a broad social issue, but he argues that the Bush administration's policies are driving drug use down. "It's really kind of stupid to talk about this as if nothing really changes," he said in an interview. "It doesn't change if you don't do the right thing. If you do the right thing, it can change dramatically, and it can change dramatically in a short period of time."

For Walters, the keys are to continue driving home to kids the dangers of substance abuse, to focus on early intervention when drug use starts, and to keep making it harder to move foreign drugs into the U.S. Drug use among the young rose in the mid-1990s when cultural messages and public policies were more equivocal, he said.

The polarization of drug policy makes it difficult to envision radical changes in government strategies. Peter Reuter, a drug researcher at the Rand think tank, has suggested that releasing 250,000 of the least violent drug dealers from prisons around the country would save the government an enormous amount of money and have little effect on drug abuse nationwide. But politicians are not lining up to introduce such a plan.

Both Walters and his critics suggest that advances in medical science have created a better understanding of how to manage drug abuse as a disease rather than a character flaw. The White House drug prevention office has begun several pilot projects to help medical professionals identify potential problems in patients and offer treatment options before drug users develop a full-blown addiction or a medical crisis. But fully implementing such an approach would require national attention and more money in an era when drug issues have largely disappeared from public debate. President Bush issued a proclamation last year declaring September "National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month," but he made no public appearances and gave no speeches to highlight the topic.

"We keep looking for a new problem to solve," Johnston mused. "This one has been around for a while, and it's boring." [an error occurred while processing this directive]

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