cannabisnews.com: A Report from Both Fronts in our 'War on Drugs' 





A Report from Both Fronts in our 'War on Drugs' 
Posted by FoM on January 24, 1999 at 12:14:19 PT

Cross a Tom Wolfe novel with a sharp editorial on drug addiction and the result would be Michael Massing's compelling book on America's failed drug war, ''The Fix.'' The book's cover sums up its point, noting that: ''Under the Nixon Administration, America Had an Effective Drug Policy. WE SHOULD RESTORE IT. (Nixon was right.)''
But instead of a dry policy recommendation, Massing - who has spent a decade covering the drug world for The New York Times and other publications - offers a sweeping story. Chapter 1 drops readers onto the streets of Spanish Harlem in New York City, inside the scruffy office of Hot Line Cares. This is where Raphael Flores - one of the book's imperfect heroes, ''a lumbering walrus of a man'' who earns $13,000 a year - has been working with alcoholics and drug addicts for more than 20 years. This first part of the book, called ''The Street, 1992,'' is a cinematic accomplishment. Through Flores's campaign to help addicts, Massing shows drug users, drug dealers, fearful neighbors, and the police. Apartments in housing projects turn into drug dens. And grimmest of all are the reception areas of the treatment centers where Flores drags his clients, only to be told that there are no available beds. The temptation is to satisfy readers' voyeurism by coughing up lurid details of junkie life. Massing doesn't. His facts are blunt, but not sensationalistic. Monday, readers learn, is a good day to get people into detox, since many patients were discharged over the weekend. And in the apartment of a family hit by drugs, a counselor sees beyond the grime to signs of a once-thriving family: ''In the living room were track trophies and yellowing photos of smiling young girls.'' This is the pseudonymous Hamilton household. And it is an addicted daughter, Yvonne, who acts as Massing's guide. Behind these faces is Massing's public policy point: Treatment works - and it desperately needs federal financing. President Nixon's staff knew this, and they relied heavily on a psychiatrist named Jerome Jaffe, another of the book's heroes. In 1965, Jaffe was an early proponent of using methadone to help heroin addicts. He ran a successful treatment program, and he helped treat American soldiers coming home from Vietnam who were addicted to heroin. And he argued that the country needed a national treatment system. Part 2 of ''The Fix'' shifts to Washington, D.C. In the first few pages, it's easy to miss the intensity of Part 1's street scenes. But Massing's reports of federal policy-making are as eyebrow-raising as his bulletins from the lives of addicts. Nixon, in this history lesson, is the visionary. He relied on tough law enforcement. But guided by Jaffe, the president also invested $105 million in treatment. For the first time in US history, Massing writes, ''a president had declared war on drugs. And Richard Nixon, the apostle of law and order, was going to make treatment his principal weapon.''But after Nixon, the commitment fades. The Reagan years are a dark age. The president needed budget cuts, Massing argues, and Mrs. Reagan needed an image-enhancer. The ''Just Say No'' campaign served them both. A slogan for children, ''just say no'' was what the first lady also said to teenagers and adults: With personal responsibility, she argued, no one needed costly government programs - as if stopping drug dependency and drug crimes was like giving up dessert. Pushing for drug-free workplaces, President Reagan led, in part, by getting his own urine tested. But this had little impact on drugs and urban crime. More perversely fascinating is Massing's account of the angry, activist parents who hijacked national drug policy. They believed their children and marijuana were America's drug problem. Research showed that hard-core heroin and cocaine use were what threatened the country, and that casual drug use had declined. But Nancy Reagan and others signed up for the war on teenage potheads. In an eerie example of government of, by, and for the suburbs, an official of the Office of National Drug Control Policy explained to Massing that the office was created not because of the problems of and with hard-core users but because of exploding drug use in the suburbs and among young people. The Clinton administration was worse. It gave lip service to treatment, but fell back on a policy potpourri - police, boot camps, drug-free workplaces, personal responsibility - with treatment tossed in. And when the administration needed to make news, it trumpeted the evils of teenagers smoking pot. The third part of the book, ''The Street, 1993-1997,'' returns to Spanish Harlem. (After Washington, it feels good to be back.) Massing critiques New York City's weak anti-drug efforts and wisely assesses several treatment centers, pointing out that they badly need to be fixed. His conclusion is a list of smart policy steps that range from outreach to more money to more adolescent treatment centers. These ideas are the well-argued outcome of the intensely persuasive journey that is ''The Fix.''
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