Beyond Addiction

Almost 13,000 people were killed in alcohol-related traffic accidents in 2007.

Every 40 minutes, somebody is killed by a drunken driver.

About 4 in 10 kids who start drinking before the age of 13 will abuse alcohol or develop alcohol dependence at some point in their lives.

Alcohol is dangerous.

But imagine taxpayers' outrage if the Obama administration, in a bid to reduce this devastation, paid the makers of beer, wine and distilled spirits not to produce and distribute their products. That would make about as much sense as rewarding criminals for not breaking the law or giving automatic refunds to tax cheats so they file accurate income tax returns next year.

But something very similar might occur. The administration is considering a proposal that marks yet another misguided shift in the ever-failing "war on drugs," which no Democratic or Republican president ever has won.

According to The New York Times, the U.S. is proposing to pay Afghan farmers not to plant poppies and leave their fields fallow in the next growing season. Afghanistan supplies most of the world's opium, much of which ends up in the form of heroin in downtown New York, suburban St. Paul, Minn., and small towns like Anywhere, USA. The profits also fuel the Taliban-led insurgency in the war there.

The proposal is part of a larger strategic shift to go after the drug lords and their supplies rather than attack the local farmers who depend on the annual poppy crops to survive. The existing approach has angered and alienated farmers and their communities at a time when the Afghan central government is struggling to hold on to support. "We are reorienting our counternarcotics strategy ... to put much less emphasis on eradication and to shift the weight of our effort to interdiction," a Pentagon official said.

There is nothing wrong with tough law enforcement or targeting the flow of illegal drugs into America.

But as long as the main focus is on the source and the supply, nothing this administration does can work. The most effective way to reduce the production, distribution and sale of opium is to get the consumer — the addict — to stop demanding it. Treat the addict at home and Afghan farmers (like their coca-growing brethren in Colombia and marijuana harvesters in Mexico) suddenly will discover that their cash crop is worthless. Maybe then they'd plant wheat or cotton or something that consumers around the world would pay for but isn't addicting.

Dear Mr. Moyers: This is a follow-up to the letter I sent to you about a year ago, when I was at the bottom of my despair and without hope. I am a college-educated woman from a middle-class family with strong morals and high values and lofty aspirations. But along the way, I used drugs and got hooked on heroin. Heroin! I didn't see myself as being a "junkie"; they're supposed to be emaciated, strung-out dirt balls who shoot up with needles in dirty places. Not I. Needles were out. I just snorted heroin in the bathroom and smoked it. The result was exactly the same. I hurt my parents beyond imagine, lost my fiance, almost lost my job and nearly was killed in a robbery. But finally, I did what you suggested: asked for help. I've been clean for 11 months now. I steer clear of all those old people, places and things that might tempt me. Most of all, I stay away from heroin. Today I know hope, not despair. Thank you. — Elizabeth L., Garland, Texas

President Obama can do something else closer to home to control the ravages of alcoholism and drug dependence: make sure that treatment for addiction is part of any health care reform that he signs into law.

The audacity of hope has nothing to do with placating farmers trying to make a living in Afghanistan. It's all about planting seeds for healing closer to home.

William C. Moyers is the vice president of external affairs for the Hazelden Foundation and the author of "Broken," his best-selling memoirs. Please send your questions to William Moyers at William@WilliamMoyers.com. To find out more about William Moyers and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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