DON'T SAY 'JUST SAY NO': FACING FACTS OF FAILED DRUG WAR

A movie. A governor. A president. All three have shifted the debate
on drugs more constructively in recent weeks than years of "war"
rhetoric ever did, or could.

The movie is "Traffic," an artful message to the masses -- and
Congress, it is turning out -- that border fortifications, criminal
chases and prosecutions have negligible impact on drug addiction, and
indeed may generate more corruption than true drug reduction.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who played a
cameo role in "Traffic," told a Washington Post interviewer the movie
had been a "final tipping point" convincing him to shift more
government funds toward treatment and prevention.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary
Committee, said he'd been most impressed by the climactic quote of
the drug czar (played by Michael Douglas) -- "I don't see how you can
wage a 'war' on your own family."

Amplified by intensive press commentary, an Oscar nomination for Best
Picture and subsequent Academy Awards in four categories, along with
five consecutive follow-up evenings on ABC's "Nightline," "Traffic"
may focus popular attitudes on the drug war's futility in ways we
editorialists could never achieve.

But one of the nation's governors is also making a major impact. He's
Gary Johnson, a conservative Republican from New Mexico who openly
declares: "The war on drugs is a miserable failure. Drugs are a
medical, not a criminal problem."

Johnson's 1999 call for a totally fresh approach on drugs, including
legalization of marijuana and possibly heroin, seemed like a lonely
cry in the wilderness. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, then the White House
drug czar, flew in to condemn him. His political approval rating
plummeted. He himself says it seemed "I'd committed political
suicide."

But Johnson kept up the reform drumbeat, shifting from his first
focus on legalization to more emphasis on treatment, sentencing
reform, education, and a new phrase in the debate -- "harm reduction."

"This isn't about condoning drug use," says Johnson. He draws a
parallel to alcohol: It's legal to drink at home or in a bar, but
it's criminal if you imbibe, get in a car and hurt someone. The same
harm rule, he says, should apply to drugs.

This year Johnson pushed eight major reform bills with his
Legislature. Adopt them, he said in his State of the State address,
"and I guarantee that prison rates will drop, violent crime will
decrease, property crime will decrease, overdose deaths will
decrease, AIDS and Hepatitis C will decrease and more of those
needing treatment for drug abuse will receive treatment."

A short adjournment schedule truncated action on several Johnson
proposals, including decriminalization of marijuana and a measure
providing probation and treatment for first- and second-time drug
offenders.

But the Legislature did vote for early release and increased
transitional treatment services for women convicted of nonviolent,
drug-related crimes -- a measure destined to reunite many with their
children. The lawmakers agreed to distribute sterile syringes to
addicts through pharmacies (dirty needles are a major factor in the
spread of HIV). They voted to increase availability of naxolone,
which reverses the effects of heroin overdoses. And to restore voting
rights to felons -- many of whom were convicted of drug crimes -- on
completion of their sentences.

A scattering of states, from Vermont to Rhode Island to Oregon,
California and Hawaii, has passed individual drug liberalization
measures, notes reform leader Ethan Nadelmann of the George Soros-
backed Lindesmith Center. "But no state has taken on the
comprehensive approach like New Mexico."

Indeed, before Johnson, no other governor, in three decades of debate
on U.S. drug problems, had ever leveled with his people about the
true costs of the drug war.

On several occasions I interviewed New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller,
whose Draconian state laws setting 15-year-to-life sentences for
possessing or selling minuscule amounts of narcotics were emulated
across the nation, imprisoning literally millions of low-level
offenders.

Rockefeller was progressive on most issues. He believed in racial
tolerance -- also violated by inordinate impact of his laws on blacks
and Hispanics. I believe he'd hang his head in shame if he knew the
impact they've had over three decades.

This year, New York's Legislature is finally debating liberalization
of the Rockefeller-era drug laws.

Finally, there's a president making a critical difference on drugs.
No, it's not our president. It's Mexico's Vicente Fox, who's just
announced he favors legalization of drugs -- as long as it's done on
a multinational basis. Criminalizing drugs, says Fox, "has not
lowered consumption. To the contrary, it has grown."

And President Bush? So far he's said little and appointed no drug
czar. Appropriate enough for a man once arrested for DUI. Serious
drug reform is most likely to originate in the states anyway.

Still, think of the redemptive power of a President Bush urging the
same magnanimity for minor drug users that American voters showed him.