Michael Spasaro
For The New Era
After reading State Sen. Floyd Prozanski’s March 8, 2005 Register-Guard opinion piece concerning the methamphetamine problem, I felt compelled to respond. For more than 30 years I was on the front lines of the “Drug War” from the streets of Fort Lauderdale, Florida as a local law enforcement officer to the great alleyways of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey as an agent with the DEA.
During all of those years I interacted daily with drug dealers, drug addicts, users of every type of drugs, our criminal justice system, foreign criminal justice systems and victims of the drug epidemic.
There is no debate that there is an epidemic facing us, but the epidemic is not methamphetamine. It is “drug abuse.” It’s meth today, crack cocaine yesterday, black tar heroin before that, Quaaludes before that, PCP before that and so it goes.
Sen. Prozanski is correct when he says there is a solution and there are tools that we must use to address the issue. However, he fails to mention that he and others like him are also part of the problem of our drug epidemic.
Drug abuse has been around for thousands of years and we will never be able to eliminate it, however, we can control it. We have made significant progress in fighting drug use and trafficking in America. On the demand side, the U.S. has reduced casual use, chronic use and addiction, and prevented others from even using drugs. In 1974, some 25.4 million Americans used illegal drugs. In 2001 that number dropped to 15.9 million, which means that five percent of the American population use illegal drugs and 95 percent of us do not. (2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.)
We can curtail drug abuse to where it was before 1960. There is a solution and there are tools. The solution lies with education and changing the attitude of the American people toward the use of illegal drugs. Can it be done? We have done it. Look at our fight toward an addictive drug that kills: nicotine in the form of cigarettes. It took us 40 years but we are winning that war which was accomplished with education and changing the attitude of the American people.
How can I say that Sen. Prozanski, Rep. Barnhart and others like them are part of the cause? Well, they both sponsored legislation that supports Medical Marijuana. How can we tell our children that drugs are bad for you when we put the word “medical” in front of a drug when there are prescription drugs that can provide the same benefits in a controlled pill form? We are negatively impacting the attitude of our youth with our medical marijuana laws. In our state, marijuana usage for 18-24 year olds is 65 percent above the national average.
I have never met a meth addict who did not use marijuana first. Does that mean everyone who uses marijuana will go on to harder drugs? Of course not, but it directly affects the attitude towards drug use.
We need to implement certain tools to fight drug abuse. (1) education, (2) changing of our attitude toward the use of illegal drugs, (3) strong community involvement, (4) effective law enforcement (5) treatment, and most importantly, (6) accountability.
We need accountability throughout the system from law enforcement, to prosecutors, to judges, to our legislators, to our governor and to those in our society who think there is nothing wrong with going home and smoking a joint once in a while, the personal drug user.
Most of all, we have to hold those accountable who sell this poison. As of 2004, I know for a fact there are more than 200 individuals walking the streets of Linn and Lane counties who have been convicted four to 10 times for the manufacture of methamphetamine and other major drug felonies. Why? Why are they not locked up where they belong? Are we lacking accountability, certainty of punishment?
These are just some of the tools that must be implemented. The solution is that we have to address the real issue of drug abuse and the causes through education and changing the attitudes of our citizens toward the use of illegal drugs. We have to remember that illegal drugs are illegal because they are harmful.
Programs like the proposed Meth Watch Program are not the solution but tools. Yes, we have to implement programs like this, but this specific program will have an adverse effect on Linn and Lane counties. I will address this issue in a following op-ed piece.