TO LEWIS, DRUG LAWS' COSTS AND BENEFITS DON'T BALANCE

It was not the traditional farewell from a Syracuse auditor. Minch Lewis
stepped down last week after two terms as the city's top numbers guy, but
he used his goodbye to make an unexpected point: It would make good fiscal
sense to decriminalize illegal drugs.

"We need," Lewis said, "to change the priorities."

In a way, his statements aren't really a surprise. Term limits forced
Lewis, 61, to leave office. He is more than two years past a run for mayor
in which he was burdened by the most maddening of political reputations: He
was seen as a sincere guy with great ideas who didn't have a chance to win.

That leaves him without any political flank to protect, not that Lewis ever
lets such worries stop him. He is a longtime city guy whose background
includes both auditing and social work, and he's come to one conclusion
about the war on drugs:

"All we know for sure is that what we're doing is not working."

It is, he insists, an auditing issue. Of the roughly 80 arrests made every
day by the Syracuse police, Lewis said, about 20 usually involve drugs.
That is a cost in itself, he said, even before you get into the costs of
court time and jail. Factor in what happens when young men and women return
to the streets harder than they were before. . . .

It translates into more violence, more crime, more children being born to
parents who turn their backs - all of which comes at the community's expense.

The first step toward sanity, Lewis said, would be decriminalizing drugs.

He is familiar with the arguments from the other side. He knows that many
sincere and compassionate people believe legalization of narcotics would
only make the problem worse, that it would lead to a population in a
stupor, that it would accelerate the destruction of families in poverty.

Lewis disagrees. He echoes such public figures as conservative writer
William F. Buckley Jr. and federal Judge John Curtin in describing existing
drug laws as "irrational." Why is it, Lewis asks, that Americans are
allowed, if not encouraged, to use caffeine, alcohol and nicotine - all of
them powerful and addictive - while those same Americans can be sent to
jail for smoking a marijuana cigarette?

"When you talk about a drug problem, what are you really talking about?"
Lewis said. "What you're talking about are the scary-looking guys at the
corner who are killing each other in order to sell the drugs."

The best way to get rid of dealers, Lewis said, is to dry up their profits.
Legalize drugs, put them under strict government control, and the rulers of
the streets would no longer have a market. They would no longer have the
cash to buy the guns they use for killing one another, often in turf
disputes over drugs.

"All that violence would go away," Lewis said. "A lot of the gang stuff
would be gone."

Any profound change in narcotics laws would need to be made on a state or
national level. But Lewis said important steps can still be taken here. He
proposes a task force that includes the mayor, the police chief, the
schools superintendent, the board of education - officials with the power
to bring about real change.

Lewis wants the narcotics focus changed to "treatment, harm reduction and
prevention." One possibility, he said, would be weaning addicts from drugs,
in a controlled medical setting.

Equally important, Lewis said, would be the liberating effect on law
enforcement officers. He praised Syracuse police for their passion and
efficiency, but he said they're being asked to do an impossible job. For
every young dealer arrested on a corner, Lewis said, dozens of others are
waiting to fill the spot.

The focus on drugs, Lewis said, "drives a wedge between the police and our
poorest neighborhoods. It's irrational and it's tragic." One thousand young
people a year, he said, leave the Syracuse city schools before they
graduate. Too many of them fall into the drug trade, which immediately
makes the police their enemy.

Yet everything would change with the corners free of drugs. By using a true
community policing model, Lewis said, "the police could build relationships
with the kids in the neighborhoods, instead of being perceived as a hostile
agent."

Rewriting the drug laws is only part of what Lewis envisions as a solution.
He calls for a return to true neighborhood schools, from preschool through
eighth grade, which he sees as a sanctuary for city children. He advocates
a massive effort to reinforce all those places where family supports break
down, because that is where so many children are really lost. The best
start, Lewis said, is to face a difficult truth: The war on drugs,
throughout America, only makes things worse.