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Show Sunday. April 19. 1981. THE HERALD. Provo. 43 Utah-P- age What the Herald thinks, what the columnists say and what our readers think Opinions The Herald Comments Central Utah Drug Abuse Falls on Our Shoulders Drug abuse is out of hand in Central Utah. The extensive research which led to The Daily Herald "Drug Alert'" series shows that it poses an insidious threat to Central Utahns' health, welfare and safety. True, the problem may not be as serious as it is in other parts of the country, but Central Utah no longer can afford the luxury of thinking it is a "sanctuary" from it. The increasingly transient U.S. population easily transplants social evils and diffuses them into our midst. Literally thousands of Central Utahns, including either many teen-agerhave taken on themselves the awful chains of drug addiction or they are flirting with it. Some who s, It's impossible to calculate the misery spread by one hard-cor- e drug pusher. The currency in which that price is paid destroyed futures, divorce, broken families, dereliction, crime, violence and insanity isn't divided easily into un- iform denominations. Drug abuse alters personality, diverts genius from achievement and focuses the intellect on subterfuge, conspiracy and antisocial behavior. It's time to do something about it. The first job falls to the public. The people must realize a problem exists and, if anything, the "Drug Alert" series The Herald is publishing exposes only a portion of the drug abuse fall into its pit may We must ourselves of the idea "All is well in Zion." but for most, the road ends in misery, despair and even death. drugs. If we can cross that hur rehabilitate themselves, iceberg. free that and realize that Mormons and gentiles alike are abusing dle we need to consider other steps. Some ideas: Law enforcement needs to close ranks throughout Central Utah to attack the problem on a un- ited front. Authorities, themselves, concede that dope smugglers and drug peddlers are better financed and organized than the police. Police need to organize a more effective version of the now defunct Region IV Task Force to squeeze drug dealers out of Utah County. We are gaining a reputation as "a place easy to do dope." The sheriff has the jurisdiction and responsibility as chief law enforcement officer to provide that leadership. Judges need to get drug tougher on hard-cor- e dealers. A $500 fine and a year's probation are hardly a deterrent. Drug smugglers and dope peddlers should be treated as the slime on society they are. signs of drug abuse and catch the problem early. They need to establish good communication with their children. They must also realize that teen drug School officials need to be more alert to the problem. True, society unjustifiably dumps too many jobs on its school authoritiics. It expects them to do the work left undone by parents. School officials shouldn't try to be drug officers too. but because law enforcement by its own admission doesn't try to break teenage drug dealing in the abuse is phenomenon a group that and youths get involved in it out of peer pressure. Parents who work with other parents have a greater chance of success. Prescription drug abuse and abuse of the schools, school administrators at least over-the-count- medica- er tions comprise the worst should be aware of the problem and alert parents to their suspicions so it can be handled in the home. drug problem in Central Utah. All of us should be more conservative in our use of any medication, and pregnant women should be especially careful. Doctors and pharmacists also figure in that odious equation. They both need to cooperate more in dealing with abuse and to police the "bad apples" in their own ranks. "Script doctors" who derive most or all of their income from providing amphetamines. should Parents shoulder the ultimate responsibility. Most are unaware of their children's activities with drugs. Most of the teens interviewed for "Drug Alert" would speak only as confidential sources, but they did tell the Herald that their parents had no idea of their drug behavior. Parents need to learn the tell-tal- e tranquilizers and narcotics should be hauled before licensing boards and kicked out of medical practice. Pharamcists not only should police the few u- nscrupulous illegal purveyors of controlled drugs in their midst but they also should keep tabs on script doctors and alert the Utah Department of Registration which has only one enforcement agent to police the entire state. University of Utah pharmacologist Dr. Ewart Swinyard says the development of highly selective, potent drugs is one of God's choice blessings to His people on earth. "When used wisely," Swinyard adds, "modern drugs prevent disease, prolong life, relieve suffer-in- g benefit all and mankind. When misused or overused, they may induce disease, destroy life, cause untold suffering and weaken society." Don Graff We Musf Face U.S. Crime Facts, Begin Work CM The timing couldn't be more effective. With the nation still shaken by the attempted assassination of the president, along comes the FBI with some more bad news in the latest statistics on violent crime. To no one's surprise, the find the national crime rate up. They always do. But even more so this time, a rise of 13 percent that is the steepest in more than a decade. Murder, rape, assault and robbery are all up, the last the most 20 percent. When violent crimes are combined .with property crimes -burglary, larceny and the like the overall index is up 10 percent, the most significant increase since 1975, according to FBI Director William one-ye- - H. Webster, and "a continuing cause for concern by law enforcement and the American people." To say the very least. The stark figures themselves are not the only cause for concern, however. They are all in the bureau's pre- Uniform Crime Index, about which you've liminary report on its 1980 probably heard. But have you heard about Criminal Victimization in the United States? Likely not, and that's not surprising. This also is an annual report dealing with crime, published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, like the FBI an agency of the Justice Department. But it does not receive anything like the same attention from the department's publicists or, consequently, from the press and public. Yet the crime index cannot be properly understood unless evaluated in conjunction with the victimization" report. What's the difference? The crime index records only reported crimes, first reported by the victims to police and then reported to the FBI by more than 12,000 local and other law enforcement agencies. Voluntarily. The FBI does not go digging for its data, it compiles what others provide. The victimization report is a controlled field project in which 160,000 households throughout the country are checked annually as to their experiences with crime. The sampling is huge, compared with the few hundred or thousand interviews upon which most polls are based. Actually, inter n public-opinio- viewing is done by Census Bureau personnel, with Justice Statistics processing the results for a comprehensive report covering all criminal incidents, whether reported to authorities or not. Does it make a difference? Yes indeed, an immense one. Most crimes are never reported to a current estimate is authorities 55 percent to 60 percent of all committed. Far from revealing a national crime orgy,. Criminal Victimization in the United States shows the violent crime rate virtually unchanged since the reports 33 incidents per began in 1973 More, there is 1,000 population. some evidence of a decline. The robbery incidence in the latest report is below that of 1973. Statistics in the victimization - report are up in one respect, the percentage of reported crimes. An notable category is rape, where public and private agencies have been measurably successful in persuading victims to seek redress. some experts in the criminal-justic- e field read it, the steady increase in reporting of crimes alone largely accounts for the steadily increasing national crime rate that the FBI index appears to be As ' recording. Don't take this as a dismissal of the problem of crime in the United States, however. We do have a problem. The rates in all crime categories are disturbingly higher than are those of comparable developed societies in Western Europe and Japan. It is undeniably a bad situation. But not a rapidly worsening one. And it is not only inaccurate but a disservice to the public and to effective law enforcement to suggest that it is. ' Crime in America can best be dealt with through a realistic understanding by Americans of its actual dimensions rather than annually frightening ourselves with skewed statistics. It is to be hoped that the FBI's release of its preliminary figures for 1980 the complete report won't be available for months at a time when the public is hypersensitive on the subject of. violence is only coincidental. But to repeat, the timing couldn't be more effective. ENTERPRISE (NEWSPAPER ASSN.) Robert Walters Are Weapons too Advanced? WASHINGTON (NEA) - If the recent years is a reliable guide to the future, the substantial budget increases now being proposed for the Defense Department will not necessarily improve the nation's military capability. experience of Instead, much of the money earmarked for strengthening the armed services is likely to be spent on aircraft, missiles and other items too complicated to be efficiently operated and maintained by military personnel. The popularity of those highly complex weapons systems is the product of a process in which defense contractors anxious to increase profits sell "advanced technology'' to generals and admirals impressed by the gimmickry but oblivious to its frequent unreliability, especially in combat. The Eagle, one of the Air Force's most "advanced" jet fighters, typifies the problem of weapons systems whose sophisticated technology is beyond the control of those who must fly. maintain and repair the plane. The highly advanced avion high-price- d 5 's Feedback would be given in heaven or hell Perhaps the person who is in charge of crossword puzzles should consider that when they print the small puzzles At $5 a month. I think there might 5 fighters. Defects - than that called for'' in the Air Force specifications, according to the General Accounting Office. or perhaps because of Despite their technical superiority, scores s of and were grounded last summer. During a period a year earlier, there were five separate crashes. In 1979, the most recent year for which data is available, the was classified as "not mission unqualified to perform capable" the tasks for which it was designed more than 44 percent of the time. Figures for other aircraft suggest there is a direct correlation between and frequent "high technology' breakdowns. The Air Force's ID was "not mission capable" s of the time in almost was in 1979, and the Navy's that category almost half of the time in 1979. Back in the late 1960s, when the was being developed, the Air Force predicted that its sophisticated Mark II avionics system would require an average of only slightly more than 14 hours of maintenance between sorties. F-1- nine-mont- h 5 5 in those electronic combe diagnosed only by a ponents can computer, which can check only one rack of circuit boards at a time in a procedure that averages 3'z hours but can last as long as 8 z hours. Finally, the computers suffer from breakdowns that leave the entire system inoperable. To reach speeds as high as 2'j is times the speed of sound, the 5 equipped with a pair of Pratt and but the engines Whitney Air Force stressed performance rather than reliability when it established engine specifications. The engine, which also provides jet power for the Air Force s fighter, had a malfunction rate in the late 1970s "three times higher 0 - 6 - 1 two-third- In fact, the electronic components required an average of 33.6 hours of maintenance between sorties in a figure 24 times higher 1980 than originally estimated by those who placed their faith in "advanced - technology." The Tomcat, the Navy's newest and hottest jet fighter, also has failed to live up to its advance billing, in great measure because of technological failures. Of the first 270 planes in operation, 25 crashed. 4 Among other problems, the suffers from "water infiltration" 4 the Navy's way of saying the aircraft leaks when it rains. The water then seeps into the electronic circuits, causing them to malfunction. The recent history of military procurement contains dozens, of but there is no similar examples evidence that the Pentagon's planners have abandoned their fascination with weapons systems that cost more while doing less. - (NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.) The Lighter Side Need Magnifying Glasses Editor, Herald I think the Provo Herald wants to go into the business of selling magnifying glasses or is in cahoots with the optomologists and optometrists When I was small. I was told that when I did something bad. that after I died, that would be the chore I ics system was designed around a supposedly simple system in which racks of plug-i- n electronic circuit boards could, in theory, be readily removed and replaced in the event of any malfunction. But there are 45 racks of circuit and thai boards in each means 1.080 units in a squadron of 24 planes and 3.240 in wing of 72 be room to publish a puzzle that would not give you a headache from eye strain. I can read the whole paper in 20 minutes tasilv and don't have to think It takes much longer to work a puzzle and you do have to exercise your brain, Try to work one of the small puzzles yourself and see how you come out Have a sharp pencil and good eyesight and it will still drive you crazy. Margarelt M Reedv 609 E. 400 N. No. 4 Spanish Fork It Makes My Appetite Soar Bv DICK WEST If what WASHINGTON H'PIt the world needs now is yet another cookbook that void has just been filled by the National Air and Space Museum. The aeronautics wing of the - Smithsonian Institution has published a collection of the favorite recipes of 50 of America's most famous fliers, from aviation pioneers like the Wright Brothers all the way down to today's spacemen. The "Wright boys were partial to pear salad, especially Orville and. according to their niece Mrs. Ivonette Miller, also used to pig out on fig ice cream Amelia Earhart is represented in the cookbook by sour cream waffles Charles A. Lindbergh by Swedish butter cookies and former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, now a U.S. senator by what apparently is some kind of outer space chili. Although the "Famous Personalities of Flight Cookbook" may be a real grabber for aviation buffs, for someone with only a minimal interest in flying (me) it is curiously unsatisfying. I was disappointed that only a brief mention was made of what I regard as the key development in airline meals. aerial cuisine The cookbook is unsparing in historical vignettes about the personalities whose favorite dishes are featured but of airline meals it notes only that they are usually "prepackaged reheated foods.'' Nothing at all is said of the brave and hardy pioneers who first ate the stuff, It is all very well to tell us that " Cochran contributed "ingenuity and persistence" to |
