TRENDS IN DRUG BATTLE INIDICATE SOME SUCCESS

For a half-century, California has been a drug battleground. Almost
certainly, it will continue to be one.

Here is what our shadowy and sometimes conflicted near-future probably will
look like:

Marijuana will remain illegal because residents are sharply divided over its
dangers to young people. Heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and psychedelics
still will be illegal because of general agreement they can be addictive or
de-stabilizing to adults, as well as teens.

Law enforcement agencies will continue to root out marijuana farms and
methamphetamine labs, both primarily controlled by Mexican drug cartels.
However, the authorities will be restrained from seizing drug dealers'
property and selling it to finance drug-interdiction efforts. The money
instead will go to drug treatment programs.

At the same time, there will be growing agreement that smoking marijuana
somehow helps control nausea among cancer patients. More and more
individuals will grow their own pot, using the state's loosened laws on
medical marijuana and possession of the drug as a justification - or a
cover.

Ecstasy use, once soaring among young adults, will decline as more people
become aware that it may cause brain damage or even death. Police and
sheriffs will adopt a strategy of forcing promoters of rave parties to
closely supervise their events or risk being shut down.

Crack use - long primarily an inner-city problem - will decline; so will the
use of methamphetamines. Fewer people will be imprisoned on drug charges
because of Proposition 36, which mandates drug treatment over incarceration
for certain nonviolent offenders.

There will be broad agreement - even among law enforcement officials and
anti-drug activists - that education and treatment are key to reducing the
demand for drugs of all types.

If that future sounds much like the present, that is because most of these
trends already are under way.

California long has been a place where illegal drugs are not only produced
but exported to other states. Cutting-edge anti-drug strategies have been
honed in the Golden State, and the growing public backlash to the
government's costly war on drugs had its roots here.

All that makes California a better place than most in the United States to
get a bead on where drug use and the fight against it are headed.

A drug culture Some trends surely will undergo shifts as the next decade
unfolds. One thing not likely to change much is the rate of overall drug
use.

Drugs are firmly rooted in California culture, particularly its youth
culture, in a way that has remained stable during the past decade.

About 8 percent of all Californians 12 or older used an illegal drug
regularly in 1999. Figures for previous years aren't available, but drug use
nationally held steady throughout the 1990s.

Among the state's 11th-graders, 26 percent used an illegal drug regularly in
2000. That figure was down 6 percent from a decade earlier, but consider
another statistic: Nearly 50 percent of the 11th-graders said they had used
an illegal drug within the past six months. That percentage has remained
stubbornly constant for 10 years.

The figures suggest to some experts that it is unlikely Californians or
anyone else ever will stamp out drug use completely. After all, nearly every
cultural group on the planet has made use of consciousness-altering
substances of one sort or another, from peyote to alcohol.

"It seems likely that there will always be some portion of the population
making use of hallucinogens," said Peter Smith, a political scientist at UC
San Diego and an expert on drug policy.

But it is impossible to say exactly what the "permanent" population of drug
users might be, Smith said.

The pot debate In contemporary California, marijuana is by far the most
common drug of choice among teens and adults, and it almost certainly will
remain so. It has special status in another sense: People are more
conflicted about it than any other drug.

Even those who rail against the government's dubious drug war don't advocate
legalizing heroin, cocaine or methamphetamines. Some reformers argue that
psychedelics - including so-called club drugs such as Ecstasy - are less
dangerous, yet stop short of calling for the hallucinogens to be legalized.

The legalization of marijuana inspires passionate debate. Dale Gieringer,
California coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, insists pot should be available "for adult personal use,"
adding, "alcohol and tobacco are as good a model as any."

Gieringer and other advocates are convinced marijuana legalization is
inevitable, and cite national polls showing a growing segment of the public
- - currently 33 percent - supports it.

Initiatives permitting the medical use of marijuana have been passed by
eight states - after first winning the approval of California voters in 1996
- - making more and more people "comfortable" with the notion of marijuana
being available for legal consumption, Gieringer said.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Bush administration's official drug
policy maintains marijuana is a "gateway" drug that often leads to the use
of harder drugs. Patrol officers say they are all too familiar with the
distorted sense of time, and the diminished capacity to perform multiple
tasks that drivers under the influence of marijuana often exhibit - signs of
significant impairment.

Legalization? Howard Simon of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America just
says no.

"If someone uses marijuana once, they are more likely, statistically, to use
it again," said Simon, whose group has developed powerful anti-drug media
messages, including some for the federal government. "And very few people
try other drugs without trying marijuana first."

The contrasting attitudes help explain why, at the same time the fine for
possessing less than an ounce of marijuana in California is less than the
fine for running a red light, and the drug can be legally grown and used by
cancer patients, the eradication of marijuana fields statewide by
well-financed law enforcement agencies continues at a record pace.

It also explains why legalization of marijuana in California isn't likely
any time soon.

A primary reason for the attitude split is the baby boomer generation, whose
members experimented broadly with drugs in the 1960s and 1970s and tend to
view drug use with compassion, if not outright tolerance.

That stance helped buoy the success of California's Proposition 36, which
mandates treatment instead of incarceration for nonviolent drug crimes. It
also is creating ripples in the workplace.

Pusher state The percentage of companies requiring drug testing has declined
steadily to 67 percent in 2001, down from a high of 81 percent five years
earlier, according to an annual survey by the American Management
Association.

Meldron Young, an association consultant, said that as boomers increasingly
become CEOs and other top executives, they are bringing with them the
attitude that drug use "is almost accepted as long as it doesn't destroy
your performance."

For law enforcement agents on the front lines of the drug war, it is mostly
business as usual. Among the trends almost certain to endure for the
foreseeable future, state officials say, are these: the domination of
marijuana and methamphetamine production by Mexican cartels, and the
cartels' preference for growing and mixing more of the drugs in California.

There is evidence California has become an exporter of meth to other states
as federal agents have clamped down on smuggling across the border. The
number of illegal meth labs busted in California has declined in recent
years, yet the use of meth across the West has climbed steadily.

"I hate to say it, but we're pushing it all across the United States," said
Robert Hussey, executive director of the California Narcotic Officers'
Association.

On another front, a new tactic is gaining favor in the battle against
Ecstasy, a kind of psychedelic stimulant whose use climbed steadily in
recent years. Authorities are alarmed even though the latest statistics show
Ecstasy is the drug of choice among less than 5 percent of regular
11th-grade drug users in California.

In the future, police agencies will target the producers of the raves -
dance parties attended by hundreds - where Ecstasy use is rampant, said Lt.
Stephen Johnson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's narcotics
bureau.

Some studies show the rapid rise in Ecstasy use already is leveling off as
concern grows over its potential to cause lasting brain damage and,
occasionally, death. The mounting number of serious incidents underlines the
need for more widespread drug education and the companion strategy for
reducing demand: drug treatment. On this subject, everyone from drug-policy
reformers to staunch drug opponents agrees.

And that is one of the most promising trends pointing to the future.

"It's better for society to treat the addict than simply warehouse him and
forget about him," said Simon, of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
"And it's cheaper for you as a citizen to treat that person and get him
clean than to put him a prison."

Saying no When the state's voters passed Proposition 36 two years ago, they
did it with the expectation it would save $1.5 billion in incarceration
costs over five years.

Experts on all sides say it is too soon to assess the results of the law -
which went into effect July 1, 2001 - but the number of people in state
prisons on drug possession charges has declined by 16.8 percent since then.
The overall population of female inmates also has declined by 10 percent
during the past year, a change state prison officials attribute largely to
Proposition 36.

Saving money is only one of the goals of steering people to treatment
sessions rather than prison cells. Another goal is to salvage lives that
have spun out of control under the influence of drugs - and to prevent those
people from committing crimes or returning to prison.

"My gut feeling is that it's a good strategy," said Los Angeles Superior
Court Judge Ana Maria Luna, who chairs her county's Proposition 36
implementation task force.

The California law, and a similar one in Arizona, have sparked interest
around the country, in part because they seem to be one way to provide
residential drug treatment for about 3 million addicts who thus far have
been unable to get it.

A Proposition 36-style drug diversion initiative won the overwhelming
support of voters in the District of Columbia this month, but still needs
congressional approval to take effect. Ohio voters rejected a similar
proposal, and measures in Michigan and Florida to provide drug treatment for
certain offenders failed to make the ballot.

Whether diversion programs become an integral part of government policy,
they are clearly here to stay. Our biggest legacy in the realm of drugs
could turn out to be the telltale signs of our struggles to control how we
use them: the myriad treatment centers, educational programs and media ad
blitzes intended to persuade people to avoid or renounce mind-altering
substances.

Anti-drug programs have become ubiquitous, from the Boy Scouts to the Elks
Club. One well-known treatment program - Hazelden - employs 1,200 people at
its facilities in four states. The White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy is wrapping up a five-year, $2 billion anti-drug media
campaign.

Inevitably, the anti-drug efforts have created a backlash: a network of
nonprofit groups focused on repealing or softening drug laws and
reallocating the billions of dollars spent annually on the drug war. Some
run Web sites that target the young and curious, offering competing versions
of "straight talk" about drugs and their effects.

A few are like the Drug Policy Alliance, a highly organized group that, from
its offices in New York, San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland, Albuquerque and
Washington, D.C., lobbies for and tracks drug-policy reform legislation.

None of these organizations is liable to disappear anytime soon, given the
nation's unfinished dialogue on drugs and, perhaps above all, the federal
government's burgeoning anti-drug budget. The latter grew from $1.5 billion
in 1981 to $18.8 billion in 2002, with two-thirds of the money designated
for interdiction and law enforcement, and one-third for treatment and
education.

"Where there's a budget, there will be agencies and programs vying for the
money," said Smith, the UCSD political scientist. "And it is clear that
there are many deeply entrenched interests in the anti-drug war."

Yesterday: California pays a heavy price in the campaign against illegal
drugs. The story is available online at SignOnSanDiego, the Union-Tribune's
Web site, at www.uniontrib.com.