Armed with an arsenal of more than $19 billion, President GeorgeW. Bush has unveiled a three-phase plan to try to achieve theunaccomplished — winning the war on drugs.
The United States has 2.8 million drug dependents and 1.5 millionabusers, according to the Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Bush’s newstrategy aims to reduce drug use by 10 percent in two years, and 25percent in five years.
The first phase is to inhibit drug use before it begins.
Between 1985 and 1992, drug use among adolescents declined everyyear, the White House Drug Policy’s Web site reported.
But, since then, drug use among high school students hasskyrocketed. More than 50 percent of high school seniors surveyed in2001 have experimented with drugs, according to the site.
The Bush administration has allocated $644 million to safe anddrug-free school programs. It will pair the Office of National DrugControl Policy with the Department of Education to ensure liabilityand to notify schools of areas they should be monitoring.
“No matter how much money the government spends, kids are stillgoing to experiment with drugs in high school,” psychology juniorLauren Woodman said.
The National Youth Anti-drug Media Campaign will get $180 millionto put toward national and local ads.
The second phase of the Bush plan is to treat America’s drugabusers.
Bush will put $1.6 billion into the drug treatment system over thenext five years. Funds will go to programs like 18-month in-patientfacilities, out-patient hospitals, 12-step programs and faith-basedprograms.
The final phase is to ruin the economics of the drug trade.
The ONDCP Web site reported that Bush will put $76.3 milliontoward more border enforcement and will enlist another 570 agents todesignated borders.
He will give $731 million to the Andean counter-drug initiative,which funds Columbia and its neighbors for border control and cropdestruction.
The question is, will Bush’s plan follow in the footsteps ofprevious strategies and fail?
“I don’t think we can reduce drug use by imprisonment andincreased border enforcement,” criminal justice professor JoelHenderson said. “Even the education programs are questionable.”
He said the decline in cigarette smoking over the past 30 yearshas come not from policy, but from people’s physicians telling themthey’re going to die otherwise.
“We need to change the hands that drugs are in,” he said. “Peoplewho want drugs are going to find a way to get them.”
About $160 billion is spent each year on drug treatment andrehabilitation.
Malaysia’s justice system is one of the harshest in the world,even willing to execute citizens caught for specific drug offenses.But that has no effect on the drug problem there, analysts say.
Just as the United States lies next to Mexico, Malaysia has aclose proximity to Burma and Thailand, making drugs — especiallyheroin — pervasive and inexpensive.
