My Drug Lessons

SEATTLE -- As a kid from Queens, N.Y., who came of age during the
Vietnam War and hippie years, drugs were an irresistible draw. An
illegal-drug user from ages 17 to 19, I eventually came to my own
zero-tolerance attitude toward drugs without serving prison time.

President Bush's nominee for drug czar, John Walters, is a staunch
defender of prison for drug users, combined with some treatment. I think
he's wrong.

I was fortunate during my two-year flirtation with marijuana and LSD. In
San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in the summer of '68, I once
sold maybe six "$5 bags" of marijuana to out-of-town college students.
Had I been arrested for drug dealing, I could have served years in
prison.

A few months later, I was arrested in Chicago. The cops were still jumpy
after the Democratic National Convention, and a car with four
long-haired young men was hard to ignore. Charged with possession of
cannabis for the few dollars' worth of hashish that I foolishly left in
my jeans coin pocket when we were stopped, I again was fortunate.

Having fled my own problems and a father with a terrible temper, I
didn't have the gumption to phone home. But after 24 hours, a family
friend bailed me out, saving me from sitting in Cook County Jail for a
month while I awaited trial. (Later I found out the jail had a
reputation for violence, rape, and brutality. And there I was, a skinny,
middle-class 18-year-old.) In the end, the case was dismissed on a
technicality: suppression of evidence due to illegal search and seizure.

Mr. Walters' contention that prison time is a necessary partner with
treatment for drug users is misguided, economically wasteful, and
guaranteed to fail. It robs families of husbands and fathers, wives and
mothers. It blames the victim for their "crime" of addiction, not to
mention alienation, depression, hopelessness, abuse, chronic
unemployment or underemployment, and other social and health problems.

Does anyone really think that if I had been imprisoned for 10 or 20
years in California or Illinois from age 18 to 28 or 38, I would be
better off for it? That it would have made me a better citizen? I did
pull myself together after a few tough years.

Today, the American prison population has exploded with people caught
using or possessing drugs. In some states one can spend more time in
prison for possession of marijuana than many convicted felons serve for
murder - and certainly for killing innocent people while driving drunk,
which usually gets a year or two behind bars.

I hope the Senate defeats the president's choice for drug czar. But if
he's confirmed, let's see him tackle the biggest gateway drug of all:
tobacco. As US surgeons general have reported, teens who smoke
cigarettes are 100 times (not 100 percent) more likely to go on to
marijuana and 30 times (not 30 percent) more likely to graduate to
cocaine.

Raising the minimum buying age for tobacco from 18 to 21 would bring it
in line with alcohol and dramatically lessen the number of new young
victims. Let's see the tobacco industry prove their claims that they
don't promote and advertise to children and teens by publicly supporting
legislation to raise the purchase age for tobacco.

Banning tobacco print advertising would also have an impact on youth
addiction. If the US government had the wherewithal to ban tobacco ads
on television, then it can surely overcome the First Amendment tobacco
lawyers who defend the tobacco industry's "right" to addict and kill
half a million Americans every year.

A far-sighted drug czar would see the link between youth smoking and
illegal drugs. And addressing the need for treatment of drug users over
prison would provide the type of common-sense leadership Americans want.
Counseling, literacy classes, and job training can make a big
difference, and guess what? They're effective, and cost far less than
imprisonment.

* Seattle artist Akiva K. Segan directs the program Holocaust Education
Through Art ( http://www.holocaust-art.org ). He is also a sponsor-level
volunteer with Jewish inmates for the Washington State Department of
Corrections.