WAGING WAR ON THE WAR ON DRUGS More than 80 years ago, California's legendary U.S. Sen. Hiram Johnson said, "The first casualty of war is the truth." And so it is in the war being waged against the war on drugs. In truth, the combat catchall is a misnomer, as America is fond of applying military metaphors to serial social undertakings. See previous "wars" on poverty, hunger, inflation, homelessness, etc. As we've known wars hot and cold, perhaps now we have something in between: a tepid tussle, seeking to stamp out not a foreign enemy, nor a domestic malady, but a flawed human condition. Today, the war on drugs is indeed under attack, and from a curious amalgam of the ultra-wealthy, Republican libertarians, and, of course, drug-legalization advocates. The byproduct of their efforts is Proposition 36 the "Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act" and ground zero for their war is this year's California ballot. The initiative is currently drawing support from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, GOP Senate nominee Tom Campbell and George Soros, a resident of New York and a billionaire financier. Soros and two other wealthy businessmen from out of state have pledged $3 million to advance the Proposition 36 campaign, which aims to outspend its opposition 10-1. Once one looks past the stale rhetoric of "treatment, not incarceration," and the dubious economic savings pro-drug economists claim we will all reap if everyone has access to all the heroin they want, it becomes clear that we are witness to a great social movement, played out on the political stage, all advancing in slow motion. Proposition 36 is not a clarion call to throw off the bondage of harsh drug laws in oppressed minority communities. It is not a revolutionary effort to extend a healing hand where only a clenched fist has been previously offered to those suffering from addiction. It is not an imaginative strategy to free up prison beds for violent offenders. It is a brilliantly attired decriminalization statute wrapped in the garb of tougher enforcement and a more compassionate approach. A closer look reveals the startling facts found in the initiative's fine print. It would allocate $120 million a year in taxpayer funds to "drug treatment," but would prohibit spending any of these funds for drug testing, perhaps the most critical element of successful ad diction management. It excludes drug treatment programs that last longer than 12 months. It would also virtually end the use of our state's drug courts, which have proved an effective resource. Most shockingly, the initiative would prohibit a prison sentence for virtually any felon convicted of using or possessing heroin, PCP, crack cocaine, methamphetamine or even rohypnol, the "date rape" drug. This is "Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention"? Commissioner Deborah Christian presides over a drug court in the Inglewood branch of the Los Angeles County Superior Court. She says: "Proposition 36 will only hurt the people it claims to want to help. Relapse is reality." When asked why she favors combining the option of criminal sanction with treatment opportunity, Commissioner Christian replies, "For most cases, if jail time is not a possible result, effective treatment will be an even less probable outcome." Naturally, backers of Proposition 36 are hoping to capitalize on the success of Proposition 215, the "Medical Use of Marijuana" initiative, which California voters enacted by the unambiguous margin of 56-44 percent in 1996. These initiatives are not disconnected. Rather, they are parts of a whole, a step-by-step march toward relaxed drug standards. Listen to Bill Zimmerman, a campaign strategist for Proposition 36. An affirmative vote for initiatives of this type, he says, "puts increasing pressure on the federal government to repeal the drug laws." In 1972, a statewide initiative to legalize marijuana was crushed at the ballot box by a 2-1 margin. So, legalization advocates learned that a frontal assault on the voters simply wouldn't do. Thus, the 1996 focus on "medicinal" drug use, and, today, a purported boost for "treatment." George Soros, Jesse Jackson and other advocates of effectively legalizing hard-core narcotics should know better, and it's to their discredit that they have resorted to cunning word manipulation in an attempt to claim a moral high ground they don't deserve. Proposition 36's backers may consider their stealth campaign the equivalent of political hardball, but given their tactics, the truth is being savaged and fast becoming a battlefield casualty. But, then again, isn't that what Hiram Johnson said about war?
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