DRUG WAR NEEDS A NEW DIRECTION

Has the drug war made the nation's substance-abuse problem better than
five years ago? Asked by a visiting drug-policy reformer to raise
hands if they thought so, a local crowd didn't move a muscle.

That's the response wherever he speaks, said California Superior Court
Judge James Gray, a self-labeled conservative Republican doing battle
with the drug war's most obvious follies. He finds a clear message in
the silence.

For 30 years, the nation has ineptly warred against substance abuse,
only to watch the problem explode. Drugs have never been cheaper,
stronger or more readily available. Gray says the average teen-ager
can buy a pharmacopia of illegal drugs more easily than a six-pack of
beer. Missionaries have become "collateral damage" in battles fought
over Peru. Colombia and Mexico writhe in the throes of what Gray calls
their "drug money problem." And just when you think it can't get
worse, it gets worse.

As Gray spoke in Austin to the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, the Bush
administration was searching for a drug czar to replace Gen. Barry
McCaffrey. The rumored choice is John Walters, a drug warrior from the
previous Bush presidency.

Walters is an old-school hard-liner. He unabashedly favors military
solutions over therapeutic ones, opposes aid for infection-containment
measures such as needle exchanges and thinks the costly drug war has
suffered from "indifference and neglect." He contends that the battle
he once knew has transmogrified into "a war on punishment and prisons."

Reformers like Gray, and others who advocate digging at root causes of
drug use, draw sneers from Walters. "The therapy-only lobby is alive
and well and more dogmatic than ever," wrote Walters, a former deputy
director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He now heads
the Philanthropic Foundation, a group devoted to private-sector
stimulation of voluntary action against social problems.

Gray's solutions, based largely on research done in Europe and by the
Rand research group, are likely to sound sensible to many and find
little favor with Walters. The approach he outlined at the Hyatt
Regency late last month focused on three points:

* Forget "zero tolerance" and recognize that for a tiny percentage of
the population, drug use will persist. Offer drug treatment to users
who want it. Stress prevention. And don't use prisons (where drug use
is a nagging problem) to punish addiction. The "prison-industrial
complex" will oppose this view, said Gray, a former prosecutor.

* Forget the "tough-on-crime sound bites" and use the power of the
purse. The federal government could withhold funds from states that
fail to address drug problems. The process would resemble the
"decertification" of countries that abet drug importation. Taxation,
too, could be used to reduce the power of drug cartels.

* Don't wage war on children. Make sure that from early on, children
grasp the dangers of drug use, but teach them that if they're in
trouble, they can count on adults to help. Don't set up a system that
encourages adults to use children as couriers and sales agents or that
makes drug selling the most lucrative work available for young people.

Judge James P. Gray is the author of "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
and What We Can Do About It," from Temple University Press. Additional
information on drug policy reform is available from the Drug Policy
Forum of Texas in Houston (www.dpft.org) and the Stepping Stones
Coalition of Austin, (512) 303-3348