'WAR ON DRUGS' CRIES OUT FOR NATIONAL RE-EXAMINATION

The high esteem in which former Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas is held by
his colleagues was demonstrated by the 98-1 Senate vote confirming him last
month as the new director of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Even more
telling was the fact that Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the senior
Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and an ardent opponent of the
impeachment of President Clinton, appeared at the Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing to praise Hutchinson, who had been one of the Republican
House managers presenting the case against Clinton.

In his 4 1/2 years in the House, Hutchinson, a former U.S. attorney, earned
an estimable reputation as a thoughtful conservative and, as liberals like
Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont
affirmed, as a fair-minded advocate.

Hutchinson will need all his skills in his new job. The nation is clearly
about to embark on a long-overdue debate on the so-called "war on drugs."
The DEA is, as the name implies, primarily a law enforcement agency, but
John Walters, 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 Hutchinson's nomination have
argued that Walters' hard- line approach, emphasizing interdiction and
incarceration over education and treatment, makes him the wrong choice.

The United States has invested billions in fighting the scourge of drugs,
and more and more serious people are questioning its effectiveness. Critics
range from conservatives such as Bill Buckley and New Mexico Gov. Gary
Johnson 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 last 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 said drug use "should be treated as a disease,
not a crime."

In a recent issue of the American Prospect magazine, California journalist
Peter Schrag pointed to the growing trend in the states, where initiatives
allowing medical use of marijuana or mandating treatment rather than jail
for drug-users have been winning large public majorities.

Hutchinson was dodgy 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.

Hutchinson applauded a bipartisan bill, crafted by Leahy and Sen. Orrin
Hatch, R-Utah, to expand funding of drug-treatment programs, especially for
prisoners and youths.

Hutchinson took over his DEA duties last week at the same time the
Department of Justice bragged that more people than ever are in federal
prison on drug charges and are serving longer sentences. That report showed
there were more suspects arrested in 1999 on charges involving marijuana
than for powder or crack cocaine.

That raises obvious questions about the priorities. 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 estimated in 1998 that
70 percent to 85 percent of all state prison inmates need treatment, but
only 13 percent of them get it.

The whole "war on drugs" cries out for re-examination.