From: Christic Institute <christic@igc.org>
Subject: CAUSES & CURES: SOCIAL BREAKDOWN
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 11:43:18 GMT

/* Written 12:45 pm  Apr  8, 1992 by christic in cdp:christic.news */
/* ---------- "CAUSES & CURES: SOCIAL BREAKDOWN" ---------- */
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CAUSES AND CURES: SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC BREAKDOWN CAUSES DRUG CRISIS

By the Rev. Dr. JOAN BROWN CAMPBELL

[Dr. Campbell is general secretary of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., an alliance of 32 Protestant and
Eastern Orthodox denominations. In her address to the Causes and
Cures National Teleconference she summarized the report of the Task
Force on Drug Demand. The full text of this report is available
from the Christic Institute. See the note at the end of this file
for more details.]

Two years and $20 billion since President Bush declared the ``War
on Drugs,'' addiction to illegal drugs in the United States has
increased by 30 percent. Clearly, the Administration's War on Drugs
has failed. . . .

The Causes and Cures Task Force on Drug Demand examined the problem
of drug use and abuse in this country and concluded that there is
a
direct relationship between the economic and social breakdown of
our society and the drug epidemic. Because the Administration has
neglected the poorest neighborhoods and lowest strata in our
society, because it builds prisons instead of housing, prescribes
jail terms for drug offenders instead of treatment, funds
prosecutors instead of counselors, the drug epidemic still ravages
the streets and the schools of our country.

The Task Force found that the drug crisis crosses class lines,
touching everyone in our society. Four out of five illegal drug
users are white and affluent. But the so-called ``War on Drugs'' is
waged in the African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods of this
country. The result is that an entire generation of
African-American and Hispanic youth have been criminalized: An
estimated one half of blacks in the United States will spend time
in jail or prison before their 30th birthday. And even though
blacks are less than 20 percent of the total drug user population
they comprise nearly 50 percent of all drug arrests.

Imprisonment as a drug-control strategy is discriminatory. It does
not work. We now have the highest rate of incarceration in the
world--higher even than South Africa. But drug treatment and
counseling are available to only one fourth of the addicts serving
prison terms, meaning that the majority of the 300,000 addicts
arrested under the President's ``War on Drugs'' will eventually be
released into society without any treatment at all.

We need treatment and we need prevention programs, not longer
prison sentences. One congressional study estimates that for every
dollar spent on treatment services, nearly 12 dollars is saved in
social costs.

But the Administration has chosen to abandon the drug addict and
the small-time drug dealer--the victims of the drug crisis in our
country. Treatment and prevention continue to shrink as a
percentage of the national anti-drug budget, now comprising only 27
percent, while law enforcement and interdiction now claim nearly 70
percent--and that figure does not include the cost of building new
prisons or sending military missions to drug-producing countries in
the Third World.

The result of the Administration's indifference to the drug addict
is devastating. A total of 90 percent of Americans seeking drug
treatment are turned away because programs are underfunded. Among
that number in 1989 were five million women. A quarter of a million
of those women were pregnant. An estimated 375,000 babies are born
every year exposed to drugs, and society must spend an average of
$100,000 a year to care for just one of those babies. Denial of
treatment to the poor exacts a financial as well as a moral and
social cost on our society.

We must ask what will happen to a nation that depends on police,
prosecutions and prisons as an alternative to social policy.

Because a strategy based on law enforcement and military operations
continues to fail, and the drug epidemic continues to spread, the
Administration's answer will be more law enforcement, more military
operations, longer prison terms, less protection for civil rights.
And the majority of those jailed will be users and small-time
dealers in African-American and Hispanic communities. It is
terrifying to realize that in the 1990s we are getting used to the
idea that fifty percent of black men will do time, just as in the
1980s we got used to the idea that millions of Americans must live
permanently on the streets. The failure of the Administration's
anti-drug policy is part of a pattern of social and economic
injustice that has become institutionalized in America.

                            *    *    *

Our _Policy Report_ on the drug crisis includes the final report of
the Task Force on the Demand for Drugs. Copies are $7 each, and
full citations are provided. For a complete catalogue of books,
magazines and videos on covert operations, drug trafficking,
addiction and treatment, please use one of the e-mail addresses
posted below or write us at the following address:

                     Causes and Cures Campaign
                        Christic Institute
                  1324 North Capitol Street, N.W.
                      Washington, D.C. 20002
                          (202) 797-8106

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