FEMALE INMATE ILLUSTRATES FOLLY OF DRUG POLICY

"It's a prison, Linda," I whispered to my colleague after she expressed
surprise at a barred doorway in the Federal Medical Center Carswell.

My friend could be excused for forgetting at times where we were. The
spotless surroundings, hallways that resembled those on a high school
campus, tasteful prints lining the walls -- all masquerading, if only for
moments, the true purpose of the facility.

But then we would have to wait for someone with a set of keys attached to
her waist by a heavy chain belt to unlock a door. A sign would warn people
that the area beyond this point was restricted. Turn a corner, and a group
of women dressed in drab-colored, baggy pants and T-shirts would politely
(if reservedly) say, "Good afternoon."

The seven members of the Women's Policy Forum of Tarrant County who toured
the federal prison for women came away with mixed emotions -- surprised at
how cordial the inmates were toward us, impressed at the relative amount of
freedom that prisoners were afforded inside the facility, depressed at the
thought that so many of the women were there because of bad choices made
after coercion by spouses, boyfriends or men whom they thought they needed
in their lives.

But the most significant revelation came in the form of a petite
31-year-old who put a face on the utter failure of this country's "war on
drugs."

"Sherri" was selected to speak with the group because of her experience
working in the prison's youth outreach. She readily admits that she can
serve as a bad example to young women. She is living proof of how
self-destructive choices can change a life forever.

Sherri (not her real name; federal guidelines prohibit the use of
prisoners' real names without permission from their attorneys) was joined
by two other inmates who are active in the hospice program. Half of the
prison's 1,370 population is there because of medical conditions. The
inmate volunteers provide comfort and attention to the more critically ill
patients, many of whom end up dying in prison without family or friends by
their sides.

The women spoke candidly about their crimes, and each was willing to take
responsibility for her illegal actions. One was serving nine years as an
accessory to murder, committed by her boyfriend during a robbery at her
workplace -- a robbery she helped set up. The other was incarcerated on
drug charges, as is Sherri.

The women weren't users of illegal drugs. They had the misfortune of
falling in love with men who were doing the buying and selling. Their worst
choice was not leaving when the truth became clear.

When the warden asked Sherri to tell us how much time she would have to
spend at FMC before her release, tears spilled from blue eyes that moments
before had been animated as she spoke of reaching out to young people in
the Fort Worth community.

Because of federal sentencing guidelines that allowed the judge in Sherri's
case to stack on years for 'probable' drug activity that 'might' have taken
place where she lived -- drug activity alluded to by a co-defendant who cut
a deal with the prosecution in an effort to get a lighter sentence for
himself -- Sherri will be locked away until she is 56.

Ahh, the benefits of a "drug-free America" -- warehousing so many
nonviolent drug offenders that we have to build more and more prisons for
violent criminals.

In 1986, when Congress passed the majority of the drug mandatory minimums,
38 percent of the federal prison population consisted of drug offenders. By
December 1998, the number was 60 percent. Of those, 57 percent were
first-time offenders; 88 percent of them had no weapons.

As Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, wrote
in a paper delivered at a 1999 drug conference sponsored by the Cato
Institute, America isn't locking up the drug kingpins.

"We are catching the little guys, the girlfriends, the mules, and we are
sending them to prison for five years, 10 years, and often much longer,"
Stewart wrote. "And politicians largely don't give a damn."

Politicians may not give a damn, but if recent votes in a number of states
to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana are an indication, more and more
Americans are fed up with the nation's failed war on drugs.

Timothy Lynch, editor of 'Beyond Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug
Policies in the 21st Century', said: "The time has come to put an end to
this tragic revisit of Prohibition. . . . The issue is not whether drug use
is a problem. The issue to how to deal with that problem. . . . Education,
moral suasion and social pressure are the only appropriate ways to
discourage adult drug use in a free and civil society."