DREAM OF A WORLDWIDE TRUCE

On the eve of a United Nations special session on drugs, an international
roster of luminaries signed a letter, penned by members of the Lindesmith
Center, that lobbied for radical change. "We believe that the global war on
drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself," read the June 1998
declaration. "Persisting in our current policies will only result in more
drug abuse, more empowerment of drug markets and criminals, and more
disease and suffering." Among the signatories were Willie Brown, Joycelyn
Elders, several former members of Congress, two former U.S. attorneys
general, a former assistant secretary of state, three federal judges, the
San Jose mayor, a former police commissioner of New York City, a former
secretary general of the UN, 28 Spanish judges, past presidents of Bolivia,
Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, and current legislators
from Australia, Britain, Canada, European Parliament, Mexico, and Peru.

Non-politicos who signed include Kweisi Mfume, Walter Cronkite, Stephen Jay
Gould, Andrew Weil, Isabel Allende, Gunter Grass, a slew of professors at
top-notch universities, CEOs, various clergy, and Nobel laureates.

Several representatives on Capitol Hill are also bucking for new
approaches. Reformers include California representative Tom Campbell, who
has suggested "experiments in supplying drugs to addicts the way Zurich
tried," according to the Chicago Tribune. Massachusetts representative
Barney Frank has repeatedly introduced a bill to change pot from a Schedule
I drug to a Schedule II drug, thus allowing states to legalize it for
medical purposes. In its current incarnation, the States' Rights to Medical
Marijuana Act is cosponsored by 14 representatives and is residing in a
House subcommittee.

Many on the federal bench have also seen the light. During his tenure as
chief judge of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (1993-2000),
Reagan appointee Richard Posner argued in favor of legalizing marijuana and
psychedelics. District Judge Warren Eginton of Connecticut wants to see pot
and cocaine legalized, while District Judge James C. Paine of Florida has
condemned the war on drugs.

Other leaders who question prohibition are listed below. --R.K.

Gustavo de Greiff, former Attorney General of Colombia - "We should
legalize drugs because we here are providing the dead, and the consumers
are there in the U.S." Source: El Diario-La Prensa, May 8, 1994

Peter Bourne, President Carter's Drug Czar - "We did not view marijuana as
a significant health problem--as it was not. . . . Nobody dies from
marijuana. Marijuana smoking, in fact, if one wants to be honest, is a
source of pleasure and amusement to countless millions of people in
America, and it continues to be that way." Source: PBS's Frontline: "Drug
Wars," October 2000

Joseph D. McNamara, former police chief of San Jose and Kansas City - "We
should immediately stop arresting people whose only crime is possessing
small amounts of drugs for their own use. . . . Marijuana should be treated
the same as alcohol and cigarettes." Source: The Washington Post, May 19, 1996

Jaime Ruiz, senior adviser to the Colombian President - "From the Colombian
point of view [legalization] is the easy solution. I mean, just legalize it
and we won't have any more problems. Probably in five years we wouldn't
even have guerrillas. No problems. We [would] have a great country with no
problems." Source: Ottawa Citizen, September 6, 2000

George Papandreou, Greek Foreign Minister - "I can officially state that my
government and myself believe that all over Europe we need to open a debate
on the 'drug question' in order to create more coherent and human policies
with better perspectives. . . . The policy of criminalizing consumers has
failed, creating many problems to our society." Source: Transnational
Radical Party's Anti-Prohibitionist Days, Brussels, December 11, 1997

Edward Ellison, former head of Scotland Yard's Antidrug Squad - "I say
legalize drugs because I want to see less drug abuse, not more. And I say
legalize drugs because I want to see the criminals put out of business."
Source: London's Daily Mail, March 10, 1998

Ray Kendall ,Secretary General of Interpol - "[I am] entirely supportive of
the notion of removing the abuse of drugs from the penal realm in favor of
other forms of regulation such as psycho, medical, social treatment."
Source: Report of Premier's Advisory Council, 1996

Juan Torruella, chief judge of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals -
"There is a need for pilot tests of some types of limited
decriminalization, probably commencing with marijuana, and obviously not
including minors." Source: Spotlight Lecture at Colby College, Waterville,
Maine, April 25, 1996

John Curtin, U.S. district judge, New York - "Education, counseling, less
use of criminal sanctions, partial legalization, and legalization are all
alternatives. It is a hard road, but the present course has failed."
Source: The Buffalo News, March 2, 1997

Robert Sweet, U.S. district judge, New York - "Finally, the fundamental
flaw, which will ultimately destroy this prohibition as it did the last
one, is that criminal sanctions cannot, and should not attempt to, prohibit
personal conduct which does no harm to others." Source: National Review,
February 12, 1996

House of Lords, Great Britain - "We consider it undesirable to prosecute
genuine therapeutic users of cannabis who possess or grow cannabis for
their own use. This unsatisfactory situation underlines the need to
legalise cannabis preparations for therapeutic use." Source: "Therapeutic
Uses of Cannabis," Select Committee on Science and Technology, March 14, 2001

Australian Parliament - "Over the past two decades in Australia we have
devoted increased resources to drug law enforcement, we have increased the
penalties for drug trafficking, and we have accepted increasing inroads on
our civil liberties as part of the battle to curb the drug trade. All the
evidence shows, however, not only that our law enforcement agencies have
not succeeded in preventing the supply of illicit drugs to Australian
markets, but that it is unrealistic to expect them to do so. If the present
policy of prohibition is not working, then it is time to give serious
consideration to the alternatives, however radical they may seem." Source:
Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority, 1988