ART IMITATES LIFE

"Education, rehabilitation and prevention, that's not significant to these
reporters. They want to see people in prison. They want to see the gory
aspect of the drug problem."

- -- U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's self-scripted line in the upcoming Michael
Douglas movie "Traffic."

Perhaps not all reporters, Sen. Reid.

In fact, I think the majority of reporters wouldn't want any nonviolent
drug offenders to go to prison. Most of us know the prison building boom
could be eased significantly if drugs were not classified as crimes,
especially not felony crimes, as they are here in Nevada.

We'd be all for education, if it was realistic, honest and not taught by
the gun-toting police officers of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
program, which studies have shown has had little effect on preventing drug use.

We'd be all for rehabilitation, if it wasn't presumed that every drug user
is an addict in need of treatment. What about people who freely choose to
use drugs and whose drug of choice isn't state-sanctioned alcohol or
state-subsidized tobacco, but rather marijuana, cocaine, heroin or acid?
Why should someone like that need "rehabilitation" any more than someone
who likes to take a drink after work?

And prevention, well, we'd be for that, too, if we didn't see the negative
effects of prosecuting the drug war: Search and seizure violations,
pretrial asset forfeitures, arbitrary traffic stops, rogue cops planting
drugs as an excuse for a phony arrest or even, in the case of Los Angeles
Rampart scandal, cops stealing drugs from dealers so the police themselves
can sell them.

All of those things are very significant to reporters, I'd say. At least to
this one.

But the "gory aspect of the drug problem" is not only found in the
legitimate cases of people who got addicted, and who now cannot break the
grip of their chosen escape. The gory aspect of the drug war is playing
itself out now in places like Colombia, where the United States has sent
advisers to interfere in that country's long-standing civil war, ostensibly
to cut down on drug cultivation. President Clinton himself has declared
that this will not turn into another Vietnam (it's all right now, Mr.
President; you're too old to be drafted).

But as Clinton himself should well realize, the chain of events that lead
to Vietnams happen when we start down a road of military intervention with
impossible goals. And ridding South America of drugs is an impossible goal.

In the film "Traffic," in which Reid makes his cameo, Douglas stars as an
Ohio judge nominated to be drug czar, one of the cabinet-level positions
that government-cutting former President Ronald Reagan created that his
successors haven't had the temerity to eliminate. (Clinton, to his credit,
has cut funding for the office significantly, but appointed the unfortunate
former Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who brought the same zeal to demonizing drug
use as he did to prosecuting wars.) Reid's counterpoint in the scene with
Douglas was reporter Jeff Podolsky, formerly of George Magazine, who said:
"If a judge or a politician is willing to put a reefer in his mouth, I'll
do a story on it."

Ha! We get it, the drug-crusading politician who takes a toke the way
Cuba-embargoing President John F. Kennedy was rumored to enjoy Cuban
cigars. But that attitude misses the point: Stories on hypocritical
politicians are as common as contraband drugs in prison. (A good side
issue, by the way: how can we keep drugs off the streets of a free society
when we can't keep them out of maximum security? Unless of course, we were
to remove the modifier "free.") The real story would be finding a
politician with the courage to stand up and say, "The drug war has failed,
the government shouldn't have been telling us what we can or cannot ingest
in the first place and the erosion of liberty is too great for this to
endure another second. I'm introducing a bill that will end this tomorrow,
and I urge all my colleagues who know what I'm saying is true to join me."

If a real-life politician was willing to put those words in his mouth, I'd
do a story on it. Any takers?

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs
Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.