Most experts we talked to said any money you pour into education and treatment comes back fourfold. The idea is to think of drug policy in those terms, to personalize it. There are so many small steps that could be taken, but any politician who proposes them runs the risk of being attacked for being soft on drugs. Our former drug czar Barry McCaffrey takes the position that there is no such thing as recreational drug use. The statistics for people who become addicted are between 12 and 15 percent.
People can have a problem with sex, money, power, chocolate, anything.
To me, drugs are just one of those things. If you could get people to think of drugs as a health care issue, not a criminal issue, that would be a big step. Well, the funny thing was we went to Michael initially. He said no. But, I don't think that character is there yet.