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It is hard to say precisely why drugs are this year's public bane, just as it is hard to know why other threats that are ever present -- from nuclear holocaust to world hunger to environmental disaster -- seem to obsess the national consciousness in cycles. Perhaps it is the sheer insidiousness of crack, the newly popular, highly potent form of cocaine that can in short order transform the casual pleasure seeker into an addict. Perhaps it is the perception that drugs have spread into the workplace and the neighborhood, that they have arrived like the wolf at the door, or at least next door.
In any case, this is hardly the nation's first drug crisis, nor will it be the last. Just as the U.S. periodically launches antidrug crusades, it regularly succumbs to new waves of forbidden indulgences. In the late 19th century, Americans swigged the true Classic Coke, Coca-Cola bottled with a dash of cocaine. A panicked nation banished cocaine to the shadows back then, but over the years new drugs -- from pot to heroin to LSD -- always seemed to come along, promising momentary escape and delivering long-term misery and waste.
It is of course possible to lose perspective on the actual dimensions of today's crisis. Statistics to be released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse this month will show rather surprisingly that the current cocaine epidemic has already peaked, and the use of other drugs is declining significantly. Drugs kill, but not nearly so often as the family car. Coke and heroin cause much less overall harm, in statistical terms, than alcohol or tobacco.
Even so, the fear that has seized the nation is hardly unwarranted. Drug abuse remains unacceptably high, and its more virulent form -- crack addiction -- appears to be spreading. The press and politicians may be guilty of hyping the drug crisis, but the costs to users and society are nonetheless appalling.
When President Reagan mounted his bully pulpit to call for a "national crusade" against drugs last month, he was hard put to offer any specifics beyond suggesting that federal employees in "sensitive" jobs, like air- traffic controllers, be required to undergo drug testing. Until now the Administration has focused on interdiction -- catching drug smugglers and . their booty at the border. But while federal seizures of cocaine have increased tenfold in five years, the available supply on the street has not been dented.
The Administration has nearly doubled its drug-enforcement budget, from $853 million in 1982 to $1.5 billion this year, but has neglected efforts to reduce the demand for drugs. The federal budget for drug treatment and prevention has actually declined, from $200 million in 1982 to $126 million this year. Somewhat belatedly Reagan seems to have realized that the flow of drugs will abate only when the U.S. curbs its persistent craving. What since 1984 had been the personal cause of First Lady Nancy Reagan -- getting young people to "Just Say No" to drugs -- finally became a top item on the President's own political and public agenda. Promising a massive drug- education campaign and a nationwide drive for "drug-free" schools and workplaces, Reagan urged "a sustained national effort to rid the U.S. of this scourge by mobilizing every segment of our society against drug abuse."