At the beginning of summer drug abuse was only one of many national concerns. Before the end of summer it was America`s Number One Concern.
National leaders were calling for billion-dollar solutions, for dragooning the armed forces into stopping drug runners in the air and on the beaches, and for allowing the police and courts to bend established rules of evidence.
On the floor of Congress, they talked about hanging and ”frying” drug pushers.
How the issue of drug abuse got from a national concern to an emotional and moral crusade involves the politics of illusion and crisis, plus the suggestibility and manipulation of both the television and print media.
The upcoming elections, for sure, boosted political interest. Until narcotics were recognized, there were mostly vague economic and local issues to compare local and congressional candidates. But the drug issue is the offspring of more than just the off-year elections.
It also illustrates the power of the Oval Office–the spotlight that is part of the presidency–to focus on and elevate any issue to a ”war” level literally overnight. President Reagan did that early last month when he usurped what until then had been his wife Nancy`s social policy domain and declared his personal involvement in abating drug use.
The crisis of drug abuse and the cocaine-derivative crack shows how the American political system can be whipsawed by both the Democratic and Republican Parties into shunting aside hard-to-handle issues such as the budget deficit and focusing on others that have more ”sex appeal” and create stronger visual impressions on television.
Earlier this month, two networks ran back-to-back specials on the drug crisis in the cities. There also was videotape of Sen. Alphonse D`Amato (R., N.Y.) dressed in streetclothes and, followed discreetly by cameras and police, arranging drug buys on the warm streets of New York.
The national newsmagazines have made drugs the cover issue for several weeks during the late summer. Newspapers have carried almost daily front page stories giving examples of drug abuse and its consequences. The networks have pledged to donate tens of millions of dollars of public service advertising time to messages against drug abuse.
The kickoff of the summer drug wars is widely attributed to Rep. James Wright (D., Tex.), the House majority leader who discovered a problem in his home district in Ft. Worth and found a campaign issue for himself and for fellow Democrats.
The Reagans are scheduled to make a televised address to the nation Sunday night from their living quarters in the White House to talk of their personal concerns about drug use. The President is expected to outline some new administration proposals that will be contained in legislation to be sent to Capitol Hill and in executive orders.
Earlier in the week, the Cabinet-level Domestic Policy Council reportedly suggested mandatory drug testing for up to half the federal civilian work force–more than 1 million employees.
And the House passed legislation that was extraordinary not only for its controversial social mandates but for its largesse at a time when Congress is charged with cutting at least $10 billion from the budget.
That generous antidrug package was best illustrated in one amendment offered by Rep. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) to increase federal grants to state and local police and build new prisons. After 10 minutes of debate, his amendment passed, increasing the antidrug authorization by another $1.045 billion. That brought the entire package to about $6 billion over the next five years.
Senate Democrats have come up with their own $1.65 billion package, and this week Senate Republicans expect to announce a more modest drug bill of their own–”about $1 billion,” said one staffer.
The pace was so quick last week that on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R., Kan.) said: ”It just seems to me that we need to slow down and find where we are going and where we want to go. . . . The war against drugs should not be a political contest. But, unfortunately, the race is already on.”
The President himself has been outbid in this eagerness ”to get out front” against drugs. Reagan initially talked of exercising peer pressure and the power of persuasion, and his spokesmen talked of adding $25 million to $50 million here and there for education. Last week, it was bid up to $250 million, and spokesmen were including money already used for law enforcement and education and saying the administration`s proposal exceeds $2.2 billion a year.
Those amounts supposedly make powerful impressions–as they are meant to
–though it is uncertain what really will be passed before the end of the congressional session in October and the elections in November.
The rhetoric of ”drug epidemic” and ”war on drugs” are muted, however, by trends reported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse that drug use has been declining since 1979. The estimated number of heroin addicts is about 500,000, the same as 15 years ago. And the number of high school seniors who smoked marijuana every day has dropped from 10 percent to 5 percent between 1978 and now.
According to Time magazine, which recently ran a 13-page article on drug abuse, new statistics to be released this month show that cocaine use already has peaked and ”the use of other drugs is declining significantly.” And according to a study by the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina under a contract from the federal government, the cost of alcohol abuse is fully twice the social costs of all illegal drug abuse.
In addition, the new administration proposals and rhetoric insist on more money for drug treatment and education. The House Select Narcotics Abuse and Control Committee, however, reported that since 1982 the government has cut off block grants to the states for that treatment and education by 40 percent. The drug-abuse institute itself had a publishing budget, mostly for drug education, of $2 million to 3 million a year for almost a decade, but by 1984 that budget had been cut to $600,000.
