Legalize drugs: just say never.

I AM AGAINST legalizing illicit drugs. My position is predictable, given my role as a physician, drug researcher, and founder of the 800-COCAINE line. While the arguments in favor of legalization derive from social theory, my arguments are based on real-life experience as a specialist in substance-abuse treatment who has spent years trying to help users stop taking drugs. Dr. Gazzaniga ["The Federal Drugstore," Feb. 51 seems to think that drugs should be considered innocent that is, harmless-until proven guilty. This places the burden of proof upon the wrong shoulders. His comments contain more errors and contradictions than I have space to correct. I will confine my responses to what I see as the four basic arguments for legalization.

1. "We might as well legalize; nothing else seems to work." Wrong. The most recent studies by the National Institute on Drug Abuse  (NIDA) tell a different story. These studies which Dr. Gazzaniga himself cites found that in 1978, only 35 per cent of high-school seniors believed that marijuana posed a great risk to health. A decade later, 77 per cent felt that way-a rise of 120 per cent. In the same period, daily use of marijuana by seniors fell from 10.7 per cent to 2.7 per cent-a drop of 75 per cent. In the general population, use of marijuana fell 28 per cent in a year. The difference? Education. When people learn the risks, drug use falls.

The same is true of cocaine. Today, nearly 90 per cent of seniors disapprove of cocaine use, and in just one year the proportion of them who used cocaine dropped 20 per cent. Among the population as a whole, cocaine use fell 33 per cent. Use of all illicit drugs is down 37 per cent.

We are getting the anti-drug message across. This is precisely not the time to surrender to the temptations of legalization. 2. "Legalization won't increase the number of addicts." Dr. Gazzaniga guesses" that crack isn't more addictive than other forms of cocaine. This guess is naive and dangerous. It is like saying that sucking a coca leaf is as dangerous as snorting cocaine. Basic research has shown that route of administration determines absorption, time to peak euphoria, and peak drug concentration at the target organ-the brain. Crack is more addictive and more rapidly addictive than other forms of cocaine. In our 800-COCAINE surveys of thousands of drug users we discovered that, while people might snort cocaine for five years before becoming addicted, crack smokers report being hooked within two months. Three million people have called 800COCAINE, and many of them have told us that their greatest fear is getting a raise or even winning the lottery-they know that more money means more drugs and that more drugs threaten their very lives. If Dr. Gazzaniga could only listen for an hour to callers telling how quickly their lives were ruined by crack, I doubt he would continue to claim that crack is only perceived to be more addictive. It is more addictive.

Dr. Gazzaniga claims the level of drug consumption has little to do with whether drugs are illegal. He is wrong. Surveys sponsored by the Partnership for a Drug Free America find repeatedly that the greatest deterrent to drug use is fear-fear of getting caught, fear of punishment, fear of harm. Without legal sanctions against drugs, we lose a key defensive weapon. 3. "Tobacco and alcohol are legal, why not other drugs?" Right now illicit drugs cause approximately six thousand deaths a year. That total would soar under legalization. Thanks to crack, cocaine is now the number-one reason for drug-related emergency room visits, and it tops the list of causes of death-ahead of alcohol-on coroners' reports.

Those favoring legalizing drugs argue that Prohibition failed to stop drinking. Failed? Prohibition reduced drinking by one-third, and produced a 64 per cent drop in deaths from cirrhosis and a 53 per cent drop in admissions to mental hospitals. Alcohol and tobacco have been a deadly part of American life for at least three hundred years; adding more potentially dangerous drugs would only increase the toll of death and destruction.

Dr. Gazzaniga repeatedly points out gaps in our knowledge about drugs: There are "no solid data" that crack is more addictive; we need a science of comparative pharmacology" and "more serious research" on neurobiological issues. I agree absolutely. 0 ILLUSTRATE why we need more information: In 1983, a caller to 800-COCAINE asked if there were studies proving cocaine would harm her unborn baby. I told her there were no studies available at the time, but if you use coke while pregnant your child will certainly end up in such a study. Today, of course, we are treating thousands of babies born addicted to cocaine. Similarly, a few years ago we lacked data showing the impact of cocaine on the heart. But Dr. Gazzaniga himself cites a study from the New England Journal of Medicine showing that doses of cocaine smaller than the amount needed for anesthesia can trigger heart attacks and cause heart-muscle damage. The prudent thing is to wait until all the facts are in before we even consider legalizing.

4. "Legalization means less crime." That is, if addicts can buy crack at the local 7-Eleven, they won't have to rob old ladies to pay for drugs. While the crimes associated with heroin are usually committed while the patient is in withdrawal-that is, while desperately trying to get another fix-cocaine-related crimes are committed while the user is in the drugged state.

Cocaine in crack form makes users notoriously irritable and prone to violence. Miami residents are afraid to honk their horns lest they offend an irritable crack addict. In the first quarter of 1989, 76 per cent of all people arrested in New York City had cocaine in their urine, even though cocaine is quickly eliminated from the body. With every new study the cocaine crime link is being proved. This statistical link is supported by real-life data: a January 1990 survey of crack users by 800-COCAINE found that nearly 25 per cent admitted to committing a violent crime while under the influence of crack. For some drug users, crime is their business. Just making drugs available legally won't turn these users into model citizens. Yes, without drug dealers we might temporarily clear a court docket-only to crowd it again with cases involving drug fallout: claims for damages due to drug-related accidents and negligence, assaults, rapes, robberies ... the list will go on.

Legalizers argue that we can take the money we save on courts and jails and spend it on treatment. What treatment? Right now there are no treatments for cocaine emergencies or cocaine overdose, no cures for cocaine addiction. The only 100 per cent sure way to treat cocaine disorders is to prevent them from ever starting in the first place.

Dr. Gazzaniga blithely says that if the legalization experiment fails, "It would take five minutes to reverse." How many years did it take to get warning labels on alcohol and cigarettes? And it takes much longer than five minutes to reverse the birth defects, developmental problems, cardiac and lung problems, psychiatric disorders, and seizures that drugs cause. And we can't reverse death-not in five minutes, not ever.