DRUGS: IT'S TIME FOR A DIFFERENT KIND OF STOP SIGN

'Traffic' is terrific, if only because the popular movie dramatizes and
makes compelling what prose and statistics often fail to convey: It's high
time to declare a cease-fire in the war on drugs.

Like any conflict, this one has casualties. Michael Douglas' character in
the film, portrayed as our drug czar, comes to see that the war can injure
even those whom we love the most: our families.

The nonfictional president of the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers (NACDL), Houston attorney Edward Mallett, was almost as perceptive
three days before the Nov. 7 election: "Both of our presidential candidates
committed 'youthful indiscretions' in their day. Would they, or we, be
better off if they had been sent to prison, like so many blacks and Latinos
are these days?"

His question takes on added weight during Black History Month.

The NACDL's board of directors was unanimous in calling for an end to our
latest attempt at Prohibition. At the risk of causing readers' eyes to
glaze over, I summarize their rationale:

* With 5 percent of the world's population, the United States houses 25
percent of our planet's prison population.

* Nearly a quarter of America's 2 million prisoners are serving time for
drug offenses.

* Latinos, at 12 percent of the population, were defendants in 42 percent
of federal drug prosecutions.

* African-Americans, at 13 percent of the population, make up 63 percent of
drug offenders sentenced to state prison.

* There is no discernible causal connection between harsh sentencing laws
and decreases in illegal drug use.

Therefore, the NACDL called for repealing laws against drug possession, use
and delivery; for ceasing actions designed to eradicate the plants used to
make the most popular recreational drugs; and for developing a plan to tax
and regulate these controlled substances, setting aside some revenue for
drug education, research into addiction, and increasingly effective
treatment procedures.

Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at 'Reason' magazine, has cited research
showing that in 1902, when cocaine was legal, only 0.26 percent of the
population was addicted. He has written that "almost no one had trouble
abstaining from cocaine or using it in moderation."

Sullum also referred to the 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse,
which found that of the 10.6 percent of respondents who had tried cocaine
(including crack), only 3 percent had used it weekly or more often. In
fact, there are far more drinkers who report heavy alcohol use than cocaine
users who report similar dependence. And the death rate is almost 25 times
higher for alcohol than for cocaine abusers.

I enjoyed lunch last week with the executive director of a large
not-for-profit agency in Tarrant County. He told me that one of the best
workers he had ever employed was dismissed because of a negative result on
a random drug test. He joked that it prompted him "to wonder whether we
should offer cocaine to all of our . . . workers."

State laws are coming to terms with our failed approach to drugs.
California and Arizona voters have overwhelmingly passed initiatives to
require treatment, not prison, for first- and second-time drug offenders.
And nine states (plus the District of Columbia) now allow marijuana to be
made available for medical purposes.

Prohibition has failed again. Drugs are more plentiful and less expensive
than they were even two decades ago. While demand remains steady, our
borders are more porous than ever.

Illegality produces high profitability, which generates criminal
syndicates, the outright purchase of police and judges, and huge numbers of
abusers who get punished for (instead of helped with) their problems.

Check out 'Traffic.' It's an eye-opening portrait of the war that we can't win.