The Hell of Addiction.

In the new U.S. thriller "Traffic," just opening on international screens, Michael Douglas plays Ohio judge Robert Wakefield, a Scotch- drinking conservative who is named the new U.S. drug czar. During an information-gathering trip to the Mexican border, he begins to see how complex and intractable the illegal-drug trade really is. Local honest cops like Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) might be able to withstand the temptation of taking bribes, but they are powerless to stop corruption among those around--and above--them. Wakefield's misgivings about his appointment parallel the growing realization that his own teenage daughter is addicted to crack. Near the end of the movie, during his first official press conference, the drug czar deviates from his prepared text and launches into an impromptu speech about the futility of the fight against drugs. "I don't see how you wage war on your own family," he says, effectively resigning his post. A few scenes later, he and his wife are shown beside their daughter at a meeting for substance abusers. "We're here to listen," he says.

That's hardly the attitude the world has come to expect from the American drug czar. After all, U.S. prisons are filled with drug offenders; the number of inmates tripled over the past 20 years to nearly 2 million, with 60 to 70 percent testing positive for substance abuse on arrest. The country has spent billions of dollars attacking the problem at its roots: coca growers in Latin America, poppy cultivators in Asia, even domestic marijuana farmers. But there is a growing consensus that the "war on drugs" has been lost; the United States is still the world's largest consumer of illegal substances; cocaine continues to pour over the border from Mexico. "Traffic" taps into the national frustration, depicting the horrors of both drugs and the drug war. Without taking sides, the film illuminates the national debate and poses an alternative that Americans seem increasingly willing to consider: finding new ways to treat, rather than merely punish, drug abuse.

Policy revolutions--like legalizing narcotics--remain a distant dream. But there is growing public awareness that the money and energy wasted on trying to stanch the flow of drugs into the United States might be better spent on trying to curb demand instead. Voters in several states are far ahead of the politicians, approving ballot initiatives that offer more treatment options. "Drug courts" that allow judges to use carrots and sticks to compel substance-abuse treatment have grown fiftyfold since the mid-1990s, part of a new understanding that, even with frequent relapses, treatment is much less expensive for society than jail and interdiction. Each of the former drug czars as well as the man rumored to be President Bush's choice for the job, retired Col. James McDonough, stress treatment and demand-side reduction as their first priority.

Drug addiction is increasingly being viewed more as a disease than a crime. Science is yielding clues about the "hedonic region" of the brain, while breakthrough medications and greater understanding of the mental-health problems that underlie many addictions are giving therapists new tools (following stories). California approved Proposition 36 last fall, a landmark referendum that offers treatment options in place of jail. New York is rewriting its draconian Rockefeller-era drug laws. The outgoing drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, says the phrase "drug war" should be retired in favor of "drug cancer." His No. 1 recommendation on leaving office last month was that insurance companies offer "parity" coverage for mental-health and drug disorders. Even hard-liners like to say that Americans can no longer incarcerate their way out of the problem.

All this is a way of saying that American views are coming into line with Europe's. The allies' drug-use patterns are similar: marijuana is the most widely used illegal substance, and while cocaine is more prevalent in the United States, its use is rising across Europe. Amphetamines and ecstasy are the second and third most commonly consumed drugs in Europe, and their use--especially of ecstasy--is growing rapidly in America as well. In both places, heroin addiction remains the most deeply entrenched--and costly--public-health crisis. In a dozen major American cities, men ages 20 to 54 are more likely to die of a heroin overdose than in a car accident. And according to the Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, of the EU's 1.5 million estimated "problem" drug users, most are heroin addicts.

Officials across the continent have already begun shifting their focus from repressing drug flow to rehabilitating drug users. The new European Union Drugs Strategy for 2000-2004 makes a commitment to increasing the number of successfully treated addicts. Germany, Italy and Luxembourg have transferred responsibility for drug policy from their Ministries of the Interior to the Ministries of Health or Social Affairs. In Britain, Tony Blair's government has set up a National Treatment Agency to coordinate the efforts of social-service agencies and the Department of Health. And drug-prevention and support agencies there are getting about 30 percent more funding this year.

The first step in confronting addiction is understanding the addicted population. And often that means facing up to some uncomfortable facts. In most places, drug users are getting younger and younger. So some countries all over the ...