Drug Abuse

By Arnold Sterne "Arnie" Leff

It is time to end the war on drugs and replace it with a compassionate program of treatment and prevention

With that as background, I must emphatically state that the emphasis on "WAR" has failed. We are spending tens of billions to little avail. We are supporting questionable regimes and teaching foreign soldiers how to make war on their own people. All in the name of "the drug war". It is hard for me, as a physician, to reconsile our country's approach to this problem. We should immediately change priorities. Only by supporting appropriate treatment as necessary and by keeping adolescents happy with other outside activities (sports, art, etc) can we even begin to acheive a society that uses less drugs. Only by looking at ourselves can we begin to decrease the chaos of life and spend more time with our families. Only this will deal with drug abuse. Spending 1.3 Billion tax payer dollars to support herbicides and an army in Colombia is an incredibly wasteful policy that will have long ranging effects of violence promotion and little effect on drug use in the US. Harm reduction (lets keep our children from hurting themselves) and prevention (outside activities) are critical. The "Drug War" is counterproductive as well as very expensive.