Wednesday, August 27, 1986 Daily Nebraskan
'Get rough' policy needed for users E
Page 5
3
KRAUTHAMMER from Page 4
In 1 978, the New York City Bar Association did
a study of the law. The law had two objectives.
One was to "frighten drug users out of their habit
and drug dealers out of their trade." The other
was "to reduce crimes commonly associated
with addiction." The study's conclusion: The law
had zero effect on use or crime.
Why the panic? It's a puzzle. You wouldn't
know it from the magazine covers, but the level
of cocaine use has been fairly stable. Even
Newsweek had to admit that "the number of
regular cocaine users, which apparently peaked
in the late 70s, has remained in about 5 million
ever since." Every year the National Institute of
Drug Abuse does a very large survey of high
school seniors. From 1979 to 1985 cocaine use
increased by one percent, from 5.7 to 6.7 percent.
Hardly the stuff of epidemics.
And if it were an epidemic, it is not going to be
stopped by a President volunteering a urine
specimen, by the U.S. Army knocking over a
couple of Bolivian cocaine refineries, or by a few
AWACS planes overflying the Mexican border
with look-down radar. The anti-drug crusaders
want to nail everyone in the chain from Bolivian
coca farmer to the New York street hustler. Every
one, that is, up to and excluding the American
user, against whom the only weapon deployed is
sympathy.
The House anti-drug bill, for example, pushes
a rough, tough five-part program: eradication,
interdiction, enforcement, education and reha
bilitation. Rough and tough, that is, until part
five, which deals with American users, referred
to as those who have "fallen victim to drugs."
Fallen victim: passive and innocent. Kids,
maybe. But when it comes to the subject of the
current panic, crack cocaine, kids are a very
small part of the problem. "There is a gross
distortion about crack," says Dr. Arnold Wash
ton, director of research for the National Cocaine
Hotline, "that it is just a teen-age problem and
that it is a problem of the poor." A study of 500
callers to the cocaine hotline found that of crack
addicts, 54 percent are in their twenties, 36
percent are in their thirties, less than 5 percent
are adolescents. A quarter earn more than
$25,000 a year.
Want to beat crack? Save the hundreds of
millions in the omnibus bill. Disarm the commit
tees. Give users, everyday ordinary users, a stiff,
stinging fine and a taste of jail. Not three years to
life in Attica. A year's pay and three weeks in
Allenwood or Danbury or another "Watergate"
hotel. Make crack so hot that ordinary people
won't want to be seen near it, let alone hold it. A
stretch in Allenwood does not look good on a
yuppie resume.
Serious about crack? Bring our boys home
from Bolivia. Get rough on the user.
" 1986, Washington Post Writers Group
Krauthammer is a National Magazine Award
winning columnist.
Administration acknowledges
Nicaraguan drug trafficking
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) The Reagan admini
stration, in a new report, acknowledges that
some Nicaraguan rebels and supporters have
engaged in drug trafficking, but insists that evi
dence is lacking against the chief U.S.-backed .
Contra group.
"The available evidence points to involvement
with drug traffickers by a limited number of
persons having various kinds of affiliations with
or political sympathies for resistance groups,"
said the report sent to Congress by the State
Department.
Specifically, the report cites U.S. intelligence
information as saying "a senior member of Eden
Pastora's Sandino Revolutionary Front" in late
1984 agreed to help a Colombian narcotics traf
ficker ship drugs to the United States in
exchange for an airplane, two helicopters and
money.
Last December, The Associated Press, quot
ing U.S. investigators and American volunteers
who worked with the rebels, reported that Nica
raguan rebels operating in northern Costa Rica
engaged in cocaine trafficking to help finance
their war against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista
government.
The AP said the smuggling operations included
refueling planes at clandestine rebel airstrips
and helping transport cocaine to other Costa
Rican Points for shipment to the United States.
The AP also cited a U.S. intelligence report that
said a Pastora commander used cocaine profits
to buy military equipment.
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