NONVIOLENT DRUG OFFENDERS LANGUISH IN FEDERAL PRISONS

Eight Virginia clergy have joined more than 500 religious leaders
across the country in petitioning President Clinton to commute the
sentences of low-level nonviolent drug offenders in federal prisons.
It's a worthwhile cause.

While Clinton is unlikely to accede to their request, the petition
itself may help draw attention to a continuing injustice in the
nation's penal system, spawned by the failed war on drugs.

The clergy's letter, delivered to the White House Monday, does not
condone drug use. It urges the president to parole minor, nonviolent
drug offenders who have served at least five years of lengthy federal
sentences. The petitioners assume that only an outgoing president
unconcerned with the political repercussions could make such a gesture.

But however warranted clemency may be, larger principles are at stake:
questions of policy and proportionality.

Indiscriminate mandatory sentencing rules and zealous federal
prosecutors have incarcerated thousands of low-level drug offenders
who have no violence on their records. As a response to America's drug
problems that gives short shrift to prevention and treatment
strategies, this is both ineffective policy and a lamentable injustice.

One of the clergy who signed the petition is the Rev. Gordon Woolard,
a Presbyterian minister from Blacksburg. He said he became interested
in drug laws after a man engaged to be married to a member of his
church was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for growing
marijuana for his personal use.

Though no one from Hampton Roads signed the letter, the legal
harshness it decries is as evident here as elsewhere.

As the religious leaders pointed out, ``Scores of Americans are
serving unconscionable long sentences for drug offenses -- in some
cases 20 years or more -- which are grossly out of proportion to the
nature and severity of their crimes.''

The clergy petitioners have proclaimed 2000 a ``jubilee year,'' a time
to forgive debts and sinners. They ask the outgoing president to show
mercy.

Better yet would be a show of resolve by the next president and
Congress to consider thoroughgoing reform of the nation's drug laws.