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The movie “Traffic” not only “captures the hopelessness and tragedy of drug addiction,” as William J. Bennett observed [op-ed, Feb. 18], it captures the hopelessness and tragedy of the war on drugs.

The number of addicts needing treatment today is roughly the same as when Mr. Bennett left the drug czar’s office in 1990 -- 8.9 million persons. The number of dead from illegal drugs grew from 9,463 in 1990 to 16,926 in 1998. Emergency room admissions for illegal drugs grew from 371,208 in 1990 to 554,932 in 1999.

Illegal drug availability has increased, prices are down, and purity is up. Yet federal government anti-drug spending has nearly doubled, from $9.75 billion in FY ‘90 to $19.2 billion in FY ‘01. The number of drug arrests is up from 1,089,500 in 1990 to 1,532,200 in 1999, and the number of drug prisoners is double.

The real lesson is to abandon the approach of zero tolerance advanced by Mr. Bennett and adopt a reality-based drug strategy. A conservative strategy of regulation of drug use, production and distribution offers the only opportunity to achieve controls over the market and the users and bring down the social costs.

A drug strategy should not be based on a movie script, as ours still is “Reefer Madness.”

Mr. Sterling, president of the non-profit Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Silver Spring, MD was counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, principally responsible for anti-drug legislation, from 1979 to 1989.