Drug Hysteria

WHILE RONALD REAGAN inundates the masses with emergency warnings of a nationwide "drug epidemic," Americans ought to begin to wonder. Wonder, for example, why the same man who cut the Alcohol, Drug Abuses and Mental Health Administration's funding by almost $300 million between 1980 and 1985 now tells us that drugs are "killing America and terrorizing it with slow but sure chemical destruction."

Perhaps Reagan believes that in the last six months drug users have reproduced themselves at a rate previously unknown to mankind. If so, he would do well to consult the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an organization that would inform him that the use of almost every major drug has remained steady or has declined in the past two years.

But Reagan may not be as dumb as he lets on. He knows that drug abuse peaked in the early 1970s and has been leveling off ever since. Yet, at the same time, he also knows that anti-drug hysteria is the perfect way to make Americans ignore the rest of his pernicious policies. Ignore the fact that his Administration has seen the poverty rate escalate to its highest level since the late 1960s; the fact that he won't introduce stricter sanctions against South Africa despite opposition from even his most steadfast supporters; the fact that his elevation of Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist garnered more Senate opposition than any other Chief Justice nomination ever.

Of course, this is not the first time that Reagan has attempted to create a foe to explain away this country's social malaise. Only last spring the paradigm of evil was terrorism. But a few months and a couple of bombings of Libya later, he has come to realize that all of his empty bellowings will do nothing to stop TWA flights from being hijacked or Paris from becoming a veritable graveyard.

Drugs and drug dealers, on the other hand, may seem like a more manageable enemy. Moreover, the drug culture is a perfect foe since it reminds Reagan of long-haired "hoodlums" burning draftcards and threatening the security of the wealthy business classes who support him so fervently.

If Reagan were really concerned with substance abuse, he would concentrate on alcoholism. Alcohol is involved in over two-thirds of the nation's homicides, half of the nation's incidents of child molestation and rape, and almost 70 percent of the nation's assaults. In total, alcohol contributes to as many as 100,000 deaths each year. Even Dr. Carlton Turner, director of the White House Drug Abuse Policy Office, agrees that alcohol is America's greatest drug threat.

But political threats, not drug threats, are what concern Ronald Reagan. Alcohol is too much a part of our dominant culture--the culture of Reagan's martini-guzzling business cronies--to be attacked by a President hoping to gain political points.

Not that drug abuse isn't worth attacking too. But anyone genuinely concerned with the drug problem would spend more time and money on drug education and rehabilitation and less on attempts to punish drug dealers. Yet Reagan continues to pour money into border patrol programs that have proven utterly ineffective while there remains a three to six-month waiting list for treatment at New York City drug addiction centers.

Reagan's political logic is all too patent. Spending money to help victims reveals that drug abuse is a terrible disease. Spending it to catch pushers, on the other hand, shows that there is an enemy to be conquered.

Drug abuse is a serious problem worth fighting. But only if we keep in mind that it is not of epidemic proportions will drug abusers become recipients of our aid instead of victims of our president's rhetoric.