HIGH TIME TO CHANGE STRATEGY IN DRUG WAR

The evidence is crystal clear: The drug war is a destructive failure. Every
statistic underlines the fact that drug use over time has increased
regularly despite the ever-widening war and its ever-increasing cost.

New Jersey's prisons held only 378 drug offenders in 1980; in 1998 that
figure rose to 10,385. State prisons nationwide held 19,000 drug offenders
in 1980; that number rose to 233,000 in 2001, according to data from the
federal Bureau of Prisons. There were 1,538,813 drug arrests in 2002, of
which 697,082 were for marijuana; in 1980 there were 580,900 drug arrests
- -- 401,982 for marijuana, according to the FBI.

The Office of Applied Studies estimates that 15.9 Americans used illicit
drugs in 2001; marijuana was the drug of choice 76 percent of the time.

According to the Drug War Clock, maintained on the Internet by Drug Sense,
the federal government spent more than $19 billion and the states more than
$20 billion on the drug war in 2003 -- a total of more than $39 billion. In
1981, state and federal governments spent $15.9 billion.

The $39 billion figure does not include significant costs. According to the
Bureau of Prisons, 78,501 drug offenders were confined in federal prisons
in 2001 at a conservative cost of $20,000 per year each, a total annual
cost of $157 million to be added to the cost of the drug war. Also add in
the cost of maintaining state prisoners, which numbered 246,100 in 2001 (at
$20,000 each -- $492 million); social services, such as welfare and
unemployment grants; foreign aid to countries like Colombia to help fight
the drug war; expensive court operations; and tax losses resulting from
untaxed drug sales. Some estimates of the total cost of the war on drugs
are as high as $80 billion.

Yet our governments persist in escalating the war, unwilling to accept its
failure. They have convinced the public, through years of misleading
education, that drug use is so threatening to our society that harsh
criminal laws, tough prosecutions and stiff penalties offer the only hope
of keeping it in check. As a result, elected officials, fearful of looking
soft on drugs and losing elections, refuse to consider alternatives.

In fact, only alternatives to the drug war can resolve our drug problems.
Harsh laws, as the statistics show, make the problem worse, not better.
Those laws must be changed. Treatment should become the first and best
alternative to punishment. Penalties must be reduced to recognize marijuana
as mostly harmless unless used in large quantities. Judges need sentencing
discretion that permits them to deal with defendants constructively and
individually, instead of subjecting them to the same punishment for the
same offense, regardless of age, history and the nature and extent of drug
use. Without that discretion, sentences depend entirely on the offense
charged by prosecutors, who enjoy largely unreviewable control over
charging decisions. Foreign countries are moving to adopt such changes.
Holland, for example, has adopted law reforms that permit up to 30 grams of
marijuana to be possessed and cultivated without risking arrest or
prosecution. It has encouraged the growth of clubs, where marijuana can be
purchased openly and safely.

Our country is making some progress toward a compassionate approach to drug
problems. Drug courts, first established in 1989 in Dade County, Fla., have
been introduced into the court systems of many states, including New
Jersey. They are designed to use non-adversarial approaches to expedite
drug cases, coordinate treatment plans, and provide monitoring, evaluation
and discipline as needed. They have been well-regarded wherever they have
been established.

Marijuana has beneficial medical uses; sometimes it is the only source of
pain relief. Ten states -- New Jersey is not one of them -- have adopted
laws permitting its use for medical purposes, laws directly contradicting
federal law. The federal government opposes them, insisting that its harsh
approach is the correct approach.

Many drug addicts inject drugs with syringes. Result: The frequent use of
non-sterile syringes and the consequent transmission of disease, especially
HIV-AIDS. New Jersey legislators, afraid they may be seen as encouraging
drug use, have refused to establish programs permitting the easy exchange
of dirty needles for clean ones. The refusal accounts in part for the fact
that New Jersey now has the fifth-highest, needle-transmitted HIV rate in
the country.

Badly needed is an ongoing public discussion of the drug war and its
alternatives. Public officials have resisted such discussions. Without them
there can be little hope of convincing a badly educated public that the
drug war is wrong, harmful, expensive and incorrect in its premises. The
public needs to be redirected to that understanding. When it is, decent
laws can be adopted to end the drug war.

Martin L. Haines, Moorestown, is a retired Superior Court judge and a
former State Bar Association president.