HOW NOT TO FIGHT THE WAR ON DRUGS

Critics of the nation's war on drugs say it is really nothing but a war on
people that has led to record incarceration rates, while substance abuse
remains the same. They say that what should be treated as a public health
problem is instead treated as a crime.

Law enforcement is a necessary component in reducing drug use, since nearly
three-quarters of people in treatment centers got there through the criminal
justice system. But the scandal of 46 people arrested and sentenced in the
tiny Texas town of Tulia has provided ammunition for the case against the
drug war.

So egregious were the methods used to collar the Tulia residents, so speedy
their trials and so harsh their sentences that a Texas judge and prosecutors
agreed the convictions were a travesty. Thus the Texas governor signed a
bill allowing them to be released pending an appeals court's review,
blocking sentences ranging from 20 to 90 years.

At the center of the 1999 sting operation that led to the arrests is the
undercover officer who ran it, an itinerant lawman named Thomas Coleman. His
18-month ``investigation'' led to 46 arrests - even though he could supply
no fingerprints, audio or video surveillance or corroborating witnesses, and
the busts turned up no drugs, weapons, paraphernalia or other evidence of
drug-dealing. Coleman later admitted to using racial slurs and scribbling
crucial notes on his leg, and he has conceded that ``there were some
mess-ups`` in some of the Tulia cases.

There is nothing wrong with sting operations to get drugs off the streets.
Drugs destroy lives and entire communities, which is why Mayor Pam Iorio
launched a campaign last month to rid east Tampa of dealers who lower the
quality of life in that community.

But there must be strong evidence for convictions. That wasn't the case in
Tulia.