NEW APPROACHES CAN TURN TIDE IN FIGHT AGAINST DRUG TRAFFICKING

I must object to Robert Sharpe's characterization of the struggle against
illegal drugs as a "gravy train" (Times Union, Feb. 20).

While I appreciate the work the Lindesmith Center has been doing to promote
reform of drug policy, I believe he misses the big picture and dishonors
the memory and sacrifice of many who have been part of that struggle. The
drug epidemic is without precedent in human history.

If we have made mistakes in responding to it, we are not without the wisdom
and resolve to learn from them. Today, across America, state governments
are beginning to fine tune their policies toward drug abuse.

Law enforcement agencies are better trained and equipped and work more
effectively together to target the people who sell drugs. In New York,
where the harsh sentencing laws enacted in 1973 saw prison population grow
from 17,000 then to 72,000 today, there is serious talk from the most
responsible quarters, not least of which is Gov. George E. Pataki, about
changing the laws to force drug abusers into treatment rather than prison.
Under the can-do leadership of Judge Joseph Traficanti of the Office of
Court Administration, a whole set of special drug courts will be in place
statewide within two years.

The leadership of New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau gave
us a powerful new money laundering law that will make us far more effective
in battling drug trafficking organizations by targeting all the financial
middlemen who make the drug economy go.

New York's own Tom Constantine went to Mexico in 1996 and began the process
of making that country confront the level of corruption that drug
trafficking had engendered. Now, the Mexican people have thrown out the
party that had ruled for more than 70 years and permitted that corruption
and drug trafficking to take deep root and flourish.

Five DEA special agents lost in a plane crash in Peru's Huallaga in 1994
did not die in vain -- coca production is down 60 percent in that nation.
In Columbia, the wealthy and powerful Cali Cartel was decapitated during
Professor Constantine's time as chief of the DEA and newly invigorated
attention is being paid to the stalled peace process and the armed
insurgencies and death squads that have funded themselves through opium,
coca cultivation and drug trafficking. Trade agreements between the United
States and Latin America will in the long term lead to rising standards of
living in all of those nations.

Many of them have a weak tradition of representative government and poorly
organized, trained and paid police. These conditions breed authoritarianism
and corruption and permit organized crime to flourish.

We have strong representative government and professional law enforcement
agencies and we can and must help our neighbors acquire the same. At the
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, Professor Adbo Baaklini
has created the Center for Legislative Development that consults with
legislatures in many nations to help them modernize and strengthen their
ability to represent their people.

At the same college, Professor Constantine is organizing the Leadership
Institute for Law Enforcement Executives. We should offer it as a model to
our neighbors.

TERRY O'NEILL
Albany