THE WAR IS LOST

The Drug War, That Is, According To Unitarian Universalist Leaders, Who Say
U.S. Policies Violate Dignity And Target The Poor.

CLEARWATER -- Just say no to the war on drugs. It has failed. It has
harmed the country. It's prohibition, and prohibition doesn't work.

Treat drug abuse as a health issue, not a legal issue.

That's what Unitarian Universalists say in a Statement of Conscience
adopted in June at the 41st UUA General Assembly in Quebec City, Canada, in
June. The assembly is a 4,200-member UU group that takes stands on
spiritual, ethical and moral issues.

Local UUs -- as Unitarian Universalists call themselves -- have mixed
feelings about the statement adopted at the assembly. Some think it went
too far; others don't think it went far enough.

UUs nationally are working to spread the word to the rest of the country
and trying to influence lawmakers.

"(It) reflected the moral voice of UUs and passed overwhelmingly but not
unanimously," said the Rev. Abhi Janamanchi, pastor of Unitarian
Universalists of Clearwater, adding that two-thirds of the assembly
delegates voted for the statement saying the drug war had failed.

"We were raising this as a religious issue because we believe current
policies of the U.S. relating to the war on drugs violate our religious
principles," said Janamanchi. "They violate the inherent dignity and worth
of people. They violate equity, justice and compassion."

After a two-year study of the drug war, the Unitarian Universalist assembly
found that "there is a disproportionate amount of young people of color who
end up in prison" because of drugs, Janamanchi said, and "the whole zero
tolerance argument seemed to blur the distinction between drug abuse and
drug addiction."

He clarified that UUs "do not condone the use of drugs or the industry of
drugs. We are calling for people to be more just, more compassionate."

The statement, called "Alternatives to the War on Drugs," recommends making
all drugs legally available with a prescription by a licensed physician.

The document advocates a legal, regulated and taxed market for marijuana,
the elimination of criminal penalties for drug possession and use, and
punishment only for users who commit crimes such as assault, burglary and
driving under the influence.

That was too much for delegate Debbie Pitcairn, past president of the board
of trustees of the Spirit of Life Unitarian Universalist Church in Odessa,
who voted against the statement.

"I agree with three-quarters of the statement, but I'm just not at a point
where I can vote to legalize drugs," she said. "I'm for the legalization of
the medicinal use of marijuana, but to legalize cocaine, methamphetamine
and heroin is just too risky. It can be a fatal mistake for a teen."

The minister at Pitcairn's church, the Rev. Carole Yorke, voted for the
statement.

"This is not a license for people to go around and light up," she said.
"There are better ways to live our lives."

Yorke, who worked as a teacher in a drug treatment center in Newark, N.J.,
from 1990 to 1995, said she would "like to see treatment centers instead of
jails."

"I saw people change their lives," she said. "(Treatment centers) make
people face themselves, their circumstances and environment and the reasons
they got to this place. We need more of them."

John Chase, a member of Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater and secretary
of the Unitarian Universalists Drug Policy Reform group, said, "The drug
war is a war on the poor. People with money can fight and come out okay."

Chase is a retired Honeywell engineer who gives talks to Rotary clubs about
the evils and origins of the drug war. He said it started with President
Richard Nixon in 1971.

"Haldeman (Nixon's chief of staff) wrote in his diary that Nixon emphasized
the fact the whole problem with the social upset of the 1960s was the
blacks," Chase said. "The key was to devise a system that recognized this
without appearing to, and that meant they were going to criminalize (the
blacks') common pleasure. By criminalizing it, it forces the drug prices up."

Something of an activist, Chase has compiled a list of 29 of the drug war's
"Unintended Consequences."

Number 20: "Illegal drug use by blacks and whites is identical, but blacks
are sent to state prisons 13 times as often as whites."

"If you arrested every single drug user, the war would end quickly. It
would lose public support," Chase said.

[SIDEBAR]

Statement Of Conscience Preamble:

"For more than 30 years, American public policy has advanced an escalating
'war on drugs' that seeks to eradicate illegal drugs from our society. It
is increasingly clear that this effort has failed. Our current drug policy
has consumed tens of billions of dollars and wrecked countless lives. The
costs of this policy include the increasing breakdown of families and
neighborhoods, endangerment of children, widespread violation of civil
liberties, escalating rates of incarceration, political corruption, and the
imposition of U.S. policy abroad. For U.S. taxpayers, the price tag on the
drug offensive has soared from $66-million in 1968 to almost $20-billion in
2000, an increase of over 30,000 percent. In practice the drug war
disproportionately targets people of color and people who are poverty-
stricken. Coercive measures have not reduced drug use, but they have
clogged our criminal justice system with nonviolent offenders. It is time
to explore alternative approaches and to end this costly war."