MAYBE it's just that the election campaign
is over, but although the Dec. 19 release of a new survey showing
a slight increase in teenage drug use produced the usual expressions
of dismay, there was nothing like the clamor for new get-tough
policies that dominated the public dialogue on drugs just a few
months ago. And voices calling for a reappraisal of America's
war on drugs are increasingly making themselves heard. The University
of Michigan survey, which showed a sharp increase in marijuana
use in some age groups but more mixed results for other drugs,
"tells us that our 'zero tolerance' educational approach
is not having the desired effect," Adam Smith, assistant
di rector of the Washington, D.C.-based Drug Policy Reform Network,
said. "It's telling us that making the largest number of
drug arrests in our history is not having the desired effect."
Smith said that it's time to rethink our criminal justice-based
approach to drugs, as well as educational approaches that "rely
on scare tactics, saying any use is abuse."
Not everyone agrees with that assessment.
Announcing the findings, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Donna Shalala reemphasized the government's traditional line,
that "drugs are illegal, dangerous, and wrong." Shalala-perhaps
responding to California' s passage of Proposition 215, which
legalizes medical use of marijuana-particularly emphasized that
drug's alleged dangers. But dissenting views are becoming increasingly
prominent. Former surgeon general Joycelyn Elders, who took considerable
flak for suggesting that drug legalization be studied, argues:
"We can't build enough jails to get out of this problem,"
adding that much in current antidrug efforts "makes no sense
... We treat all drugs the same. We say that marijuana is the
same as crack cocaine or heroin or whatever."
Not only does that approach fly in the face
of a considerable body of medical literature (last year the prestigious
British medical journal The Lancet flatly stated that use of marijuana
"is not harmful to health"), but also critics of current
drug-educatio n programs argue that taking such a dogmatic line
is actually counterproductive: In a 1995 survey of California
students and educators, Joel Brown, Ph.D., director of the Berkeley
consulting firm Educational Research Consultants, found that students
reacted to school antidrug programs with great skepticism. These
programs-the most famou s of which is DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance
Education), developed by the Los Angeles Police Department under
the regime of former police chief Daryl Gates - strongly emphasize
the harmful effects of drug use. Unfortunately, 40 percent of
students interviewed said they were "not at all" influenced
by the programs, whose all-use-is-abuse approach often doesn't
jibe with what they see in their daily lives. The rigid no-use
doctrine and "scare tactics," Brown told the Bay Guardian,
"are what's turning the kids off."
The state Department of Education has not
been enthusiastic about Brown's work. Greg Wolfe of the department's
Healthy Kids program office calls it "not the most scientifically
rigorous use of evaluation" and suggests that Brown used
"leading questions" to get the results he wanted. Meanwhile
Brown is accusing the department of. reneging on its promise to
publish the report, while Wolfe denies that any such commitment
was made. Brown bristles at Wolfe's criticism, saying, "I
adhere to the highest ethical stan dards in research. The research
has been accepted in the most significant educational journal
in the U.S.," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
"There is now overwhelming evidence to suggest these programs
are not reaching
young people," he said. "In no way do I condone adolescent
substance use, but we need to examine different ways of reaching
our youth ... Our kids have had more drug education than any other
group in history and yet substance use is on the rise. More of
the same isn't going to work."
Copyright 1998 The San Francisco Bay Guardian
