Letter to Editor: Drug War Reality

Our nation has a renewed interest in drug abuse problems. Realities must be addressed. While problems in the criminal justice system are getting attention I must comment that the past “war on drugs” and “war on crime” injustices contributed heavily to our ongoing drug problems. After inappropriately long sentences for minor nonviolent offenses we then sent people, who were poorly equipped to make a living and return to society, back onto the streets. Fortunately we are beginning to address our national misbehavior.

In my professional past as a psychologist I was involved in clinical evaluations of drug abusers in a major program. Two issues stood out clearly to me.

The first was the inadequacy of funding. Frequently we would do an “intake” and then, because of limited funding we had to tell many of them to come back in six months when there might be a place for them. We knew what they were going to be doing during the six months if they returned at all. Willingness to seek help often has a brief window. And when people with such problems are returned to the streets they help feed the problems in general. We did not do them or our society any favors.

The other major issue was the modality of treatment and intervention. There is a difference between addiction and abuse and in the total picture there is a bewildering array of histories, personal reasons for abuse and the type of intervention needed. It was my job to help the social workers and addiction counselors search out the best means of intervention. The interventions often clashed with the need of professionals to provide “mental health treatment” when there were underlying issues of habilitation and rehabilitation. In fact many drug abusers begin their problems so early that they never really had good social and job skills. Habilitation was then needed. And rehabilitation had many components as well.

In planning intervention we must pay attention to adequate funding and the complexity of the issues. There are a myriad of drugs interfacing with a rather large number of individual stories. It is time for wisdom, flexibility and commitment at the national level. And, in the midst of this often absurd political campaign, we have to foster responsible behavior amongst ourselves. It is not about the desire of “conservatives” to save money. This is not a time for grandstanding or political manipulation. Much of the attention will almost surely be about money which has not been well spent in “criminal justice”. Rather we need to attend to sober assessment, social responsibility and compassionate responses which are productive for all of us.

Roger Burt