NONE TOO SOON TO REVIEW AMERICA'S 'WAR ON DRUGS'

WASHINGTON The high esteem in which former Representative Asa Hutchinson of
Arkansas is held was demonstrated by the 98-to-1 Senate vote confirming him
last month as the new chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In his four and a half years in the House of Representatives, Mr.
Hutchinson, a Republican and former U.S. attorney, earned an estimable
reputation as a thoughtful conservative and fair-minded advocate.

He will need all his skills in his new job, for America is clearly about to
embark on a long-overdue debate on the so-called war on drugs.

The Drug Enforcement Agency is, as the name implies, primarily a law
enforcement agency, but John Walters, President George W. Bush's choice to
head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, has been in
limbo, awaiting a confirmation hearing since May. Many of the same
Democrats who welcomed Mr. Hutchinson's nomination have argued that Mr.
Walters's hard-line approach, emphasizing interdiction and incarceration
over education and treatment, makes him the wrong choice for "drug czar."
At least until Mr. Walters's fate is resolved, Mr. Hutchinson is in the hot
seat on federal policy toward drugs.

Over the last three decades, the United States has invested billions in
fighting the scourge of drugs, and more and more serious people are
questioning its effectiveness. The critics range from conservatives such as
William Buckley and Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico to an array of
liberals, and they are having an impact on public opinion. While few agree
with the editors of the influential British newspaper The Economist, which
last month laid out at length "the case for legalizing drugs," many more
are expressing their doubts about current policies. A Pew Research Center
survey in February found that three out of four Americans believe "we are
losing the drug war," and by a margin of 52 percent to 35 percent they
agreed that drug use "should be treated as a disease, not a crime." In a
recent issue of the American Prospect magazine, Peter Schrag, a California
journalist, pointed to a growing trend at state level, where initiatives
allowing medical use of marijuana or mandating treatment rather than jail
for drug-users have been winning large public majorities.

Mr. Hutchinson was evasive in his confirmation hearing on the question of
sending federal agents out to arrest doctors who prescribe marijuana as a
pain- and nausea-relieving agent for cancer patients and other seriously
ill people, as eight states now allow.

The Supreme Court held earlier this year that the feds have that authority.

When Mr. Hutchinson was asked if he would use it, he said it was something
on which he needed to confer with the attorney general, adding that it was
important "that we do not send the wrong signal . that marijuana use is an
acceptable practice." But he also applauded a bipartisan bill in the Senate
that would expand funding of drug treatment, especially for prisoners and
youths, and increase the number of drug courts, where judges can order
nonviolent drug offenders to undergo treatment and continuing tests rather
than put them in jail.

Mr. Hutchinson took over his duties last week at the same time the
Department of Justice bragged that more people than ever are in federal
prisons on drug charges and are serving longer sentences.

That report showed there were more suspects arrested in 1999 on charges
involving marijuana than cocaine.

A higher portion of the marijuana suspects who wound up in federal prison
were simply users than was the case with any of the hard drugs.

That raises obvious questions about the priorities of federal drug
enforcement agents and prosecutors. No one seems to know how many people
are in state prisons for simple possession of marijuana.

But in 1998 those prisons held 236,800 people convicted on drug charges, 57
percent more than in 1990.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University
estimated in 1998 that 70 percent to 85 percent of all state prison inmates
- - not just those convicted on drug charges - need treatment, but only 13
percent of them get it. The whole "war on drugs" cries out for re-examination.