Embassy of the United States

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Drug Abuse

Drug Abuse Prevention is Everybody's Business

By Bernie Diaz

The Miami [Florida] Coalition for a Safe and Drug-Free Community is among the most successful substance abuse prevention programs in the country. It played an instrumental role in establishing the Miami-Dade County Drug Court which has since become a model program for other jurisdictions around the country. Founded in 1988, the group's work has contributed to significant declines in substance abuse problems, as documented in numerous federal, state, and local surveys. The coalition has helped develop programs to introduce substance abuse prevention in job training programs, and to specifically focus prevention efforts on Haitian and Cuban immigrants. The supporters of the coalition have assisted like-minded people in 564 U.S. cities and 64 nations to establish anti-drug community coalitions.

The author is director of communications for the Miami Coalition for a Safe and Drug-Free Community, and coordinates many of the coalition's community outreach and education efforts.

The decade-long success of the Miami Coalition for a Safe and Drug-Free Community in fighting substance abuse is neither mysterious nor complicated. It is a fundamental and organized effort between various factions in the private sector to combat a dangerous, societal ill. Moreover, it has become the most influential coalition of its kind in the United States and throughout Latin America. Recently, the coalition has been besieged with requests from public and private sector leaders in Argentina, Peru, and Columbia on how to best organize such associations in their own struggle against drugs.

The most intriguing and to some mystifying aspect of the coalition's effectiveness has been the willingness of the business community to join the regional effort. Businessmen could have distinct disincentives for participation. Community activism doesn't contribute to corporate profits. Other community groups swamp business leaders with requests for involvement. Many of these leaders have had neither the time nor inclination to do so efficiently and consistently.

Despite those disincentives, the Coalition broke through to the private sector in 1988. A group of socially active business and community leaders, many from the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, responded to an urgent local problem. They involved their peers by effectively communicating the need for business to be involved in the drug prevention effort for financial, if not altruistic, reasons.

Through the mid- to late 1980's, greater Miami suffered a crack cocaine epidemic of staggering proportions. The Latin American drug cartels were a menacing presence on the local scene. Rates of drug abuse and related crimes were at all-time highs. A successful and nationally popular television program, "Miami Vice," portrayed the ocean side tropical city as a place of rampant drug trafficking, violence, and crime. The successful action-adventure show undermined Chamber of Commerce efforts to portray the city as a decent and stable place to do business.

Then, the business community began to recognize how substance abuse was adversely affecting profits. Analysts estimate that profits nationwide erode by nearly $100 million per year because of poor performance from drug users in the corporate workforce. Increasing absenteeism, tardiness, accidents, worker's compensation claims and diminished productivity among substance-abusing workers were all causing losses in company profits. A U.S. business may pay several thousand dollars more per year for each of its drug using workers than it does for employees who do not engage in substance abuse. That number takes on greater significance combined with other statistics examining substance abuse on the job. According to a survey conducted by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, between 7% and 9% of full-time employees report drug or alcohol use while working.

Coalition leaders and volunteers who founded the organization were inspired by the dream of making Miami business drug-free. Bill Stokes, an executive with the technological giant Lockheed Martin, was an original Coalition leader after having helped form a predecessor group, Businesses Against Drugs (BAD). Of the coalition's initial mission, Stokes said, "If the parents didn't do it (prevent young people from using drugs), who would? We knew the Coalition was the right thing for the community, improving the quality of life. Businesses had to take the lead."

Critical to the group's success was a strategy allowing coalition founders to rally support among their peers in the business community. Among the keys to success were:

-- No Politics! It became apparent that keeping the public sector at a distance from the Coalition leadership would be important. Aaron Podhurst, a founding member and prominent local attorney, said, "Once they (local politicians) get involved, they have political or electoral agendas, public agendas which can get in the way."

-- Credit where credit is due. Stokes said, "Many civic minded-people do things for several reasons. For some it's networking reasons, for others it may be self-satisfaction or ego gratification. Either way, we have to take advantage of that and give those folks the credit."

-- A social conscience. According to executive committee member Marty Urra, a former local AFL-CIO chief, "A coalition needs a core group of socially active or conscious business leaders. It is those types of individuals with a passion for an issue and a community, who will attend and become active in board meetings and projects."

Adherence to these principles in the pursuit of aggressive goals has led to a decade of significant achievement in reducing the drug problem in the Miami-Dade County area. Sixty percent of the area's workforce is employed by businesses or agencies that have adopted a drug-free workplace policy. Stokes found a way to communicate these strategies to his business peers, saying, "We tried to sell them on the idea that a drug-free workplace would be as good for business as it would be for the community. Since that time, Miami has been making a difference in the workplace."

Just as important, the Coalition accomplished its original mission: to greatly reduce the crack cocaine epidemic it faced more than a decade ago. Miami-Dade County cocaine and crack-related deaths have stabilized among adults since 1993. Cocaine-related arrests declined by nearly 20% from their 1989 peak, according to the National Institute of Justice.

Acknowledging the media's impact on the culture, particularly among youth, the coalition began and has cultivated outreach efforts with local media. This has enabled south Florida to become the number one media market in the United States for broadcasting anti-drug messages produced by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America over the past five years.

In addition, the Coalition influenced the formation of the nation's first county drug court, which provides treatment for drug-involved first-time offenders and has now been replicated in more than 300 cities.

The Coalition helped secure the region's designation by the federal government as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), bringing additional law enforcement resources to the area. Also, the coalition's community-based drug abuse surveillance system consistently has been among the first to identify and report emerging national drug trends, including the introduction of South American heroin, a surge in marijuana use among youth, and the arrival of Rohypnol (the so-called "date rape" drug) into the United States.

However, the end of the drug war is not yet in sight. As one epidemic is controlled, another is spawned. Because the Coalition has observed violent crime in connection with drug abuse, the organization is incorporating violence prevention in its program. The Miami Coalition will attempt to utilize the same fundamental, common sense approaches to reducing violent crime as it has in reducing drug abuse.