New upper-class drug wave?

Autumn is a beautiful time of year. For me, no fall would be complete without a guy wearing dorky tennis shoes, mirrored shades and a Land's End jacket interrupting my down time on The Oval by asking, "Hey man, you know where I can score some weed?"

Narcotic activity report control systems exist in some form or another all around the country to monitor the drug trade in our communities. In Columbus, as students flock back to campus and proceed to indulge in some less-than-legal pharmaceutical recreation, these men and women become more and more obsequiously present, particularly in high-traffic public spaces.

Ohio State students should be particularly familiar with this kind of in-your-face drug prevention. It has been nearly two years since the infamous "prescription speed abuse" story aired on NBC's "Dateline."

For those who missed it, this exposé piece took a hard-hitting look at the problem that has plagued our inner cities, ruined the lives of our children and threatened the very bedrock of the institution of the family for years: college students dealing in ritalin. "Dateline" reporters got down and dirty with Ohio State's counseling and consultation services then-director Louise Douce, asking her "What is being done about ritalin abuse on this campus? Are you aware of the seriousness of the problem?"

They also spent an afternoon on The Oval. Using super-stealth, hidden-camera, undercover investigative journalism techniques, they asked OSU students probing questions like, "Hey man, do you know where we can score some, uh, Ritalin?"

As overblown and ridiculous as this sounds, consider this: Adderall, used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy, and widely considered the next-generation Ritalin, is the brand name of amphetamine saccharine. In its generic form, it is dispensed by pharmacies in little bottles that say "amphetamine salts." It also tastes like Sweet-n-Low.

Adderall and street drugs, like crystal meth, are mainly different in the degree to which they are soluble in fat and penetrate the neural network. Desoxyn, however, is a drug that is more rarely prescribed, but is by most standards, a pure, legal form of methamphetamine.

Prescription drug abuse is eclipsing street drug abuse among the upper-middle class. It offers hundreds of different chemical euphoria, without the stigma of breaking the law or the inconvenience of dealers who run dry.

Pharmaceutical law varies from country to country. For this reason, it's possible to order many of these drugs (especially those from the highly addictive benzodiazepine family: Valium, Ativan, Xanax, etc.) from pharmacies in southeast Asia, eastern Europe and Latin America through the Internet. In many instances, the drugs are covered by managed health care companies. If you have insurance, you can afford to get high.

Why, then, is there a difference in the way the law treats the crackhead who asks you for change on High Street, and your Ritalin-fueled dormmate who stays up all night downloading mp3s and playing Freecell? Race, money and possession of socioeconomic capital, most likely.

Seventy percent of US prison inmates are being held for street-drug related offenses, and about half of them are black. Street-drug users get jail time, while prescription drug abusers get counseling and messages like "your children are in danger" from network media.

Pharmaceutical and insurance companies are two of the top big-money lobbies in Washington. Next time you hear the phrase "war on drugs," give a little thought to which drugs are under attack, who's using them, who's selling them, and why we favor one buzz over another.

Bryan Dale Miller is a junior in social work and can be reached for comment at bryandalemiller@aol.com.