JUSTICE EMPHASIZED AT CONFERENCE

Activists opposed to the nation's drug laws said Thursday they are
following in the steps of the civil rights, women's liberation and gay
rights movements.

"Every one of these were movements for political and social justice,"
said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of The Lindesmith Center-Drug
Policy Foundation. "And in every one of these cases, America was one of
the last (countries) to change."

Between 800 and 1,000 people were at Albuquerque's Hyatt Regency on
Thursday for a three-day conference on drug policies sponsored by
Nadelmann's organization. That group, funded by private donations,
argues that current drug laws are not scientific or rational.

And Gov. Gary Johnson, who spent much of the day at the conference, was
hailed as a hero, drawing a standing ovation and frequent applause from
the crowd.

"Current drug policy defies logic, defies common sense," he said.

New Mexico has been ahead of many states in enacting laws to ease the
exchange or purchase of needles by drug users.

Johnson is one of the few elected officials in the country calling for
legalizing marijuana, eliminating mandatory sentences for drug offenders
and treating instead of imprisoning low-level offenders convicted of
their first or second offense.

Speakers cited a number of ways in which they believe the war against
drugs has hurt people:

* Julie Stewart, president and founder of Families Against Mandatory
Minimums, said her brother spent five years in federal prison for
growing marijuana. Dorothy Gaines of Mobile, Ala., said she spent six
years in prison because she refused to testify in a case involving her
boyfriend, who did use drugs. "I didn't have, sell or use drugs," said
Gaines, who added that she got a 19-year, seven-month sentence for
possession of drugs and conspiracy, while one of the main drug dealers
got a 12-year sentence. President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence,
and she was released Dec. 22.

* Worldwide, 36 million people have contracted HIV and 23 million have
died of AIDS, said Dr. Alex Wodak, director of a hospital drug and
alcohol treatment program in Australia. In the United States, 36 percent
of those with HIV were infected by sharing needles, he said. For 10
years, people have known it is important to use clean needles, but
policy-makers have been afraid to make the needles available to drug
users, he said.

* "This is the new Jim Crow," said Nadelmann. Laws against drug use had
their roots in the dominant society reacting to drug use by Chinese in
San Francisco, Mexican immigrants in the Midwest and African-Americans
in the South, he said. People from minority groups are more likely than
Anglos to end up in prison for drug offenses, noted the Rev. Edwin
Sanders of the Metropolitan Interdenominational Church in Memphis, Tenn.

* Taxpayers are paying as well. Californians recently passed a
proposition that calls for drug treatment instead of imprisonment for
first- and second-time, low-level offenders. Drug-treatment costs $4,000
a year per person, compared with $25,000 a year for imprisonment, said
Bill Zimmerman, a political consultant who was active in that ballot
issue. The law change in California will keep 36,000 people out of
prison each year, he said.