WAR ON DRUGS' TWIN CASUALTIES ARE 2 TOO MANY

The nation's harsh, ill-conceived War on Drugs has claimed many victims,
but few have been so unjustly targeted as the Garrison twins, Lamont and
Lawrence. Despite precious little evidence, the two young men, now 29, were
found guilty of drug trafficking a month after their college graduations
and are now serving long sentences in federal prisons.

The Garrisons, who grew up in Washington, have been described by teachers
and family members as bright, hardworking and ambitious. They were arrested
in April 1998, just a month shy of finishing college; while out on bond
awaiting trial, they both received degrees from Howard University.

But in June 1998, a federal jury found them guilty of drug trafficking,
largely on the unsubstantiated testimony of a confessed drug dealer, Tito
Abea. Implicated in a major cocaine ring, Abea placated federal prosecutors
by fingering others, in the process winning himself a lesser sentence.

The feds found no cocaine or drug paraphernalia in the Garrisons' home. Nor
did they find any evidence of drug profits. Indeed, the young men, who
lived with their mother, were deeply in debt with college loans. They did
not have prior criminal records. Lamont was sentenced to 19 years and
Lawrence, 15; they will serve far longer than Abea, who was given only
three years.

The heightened tragedy in the Garrison case lies not only in their probable
innocence but also in the wasted promise. As students, both young men had
worked for the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice. They
planned to become lawyers.

A generation after the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,
African-Americans, especially African-American men, still struggle to enter
the mainstream. The rates of incarceration, drug abuse, unemployment and
fratricidal violence among black men remain higher than for other ethnic
groups.

The Garrison twins, who are black, were beating those odds --- hewing to
the core American values of hard work and honest effort. But because of the
overzealous War on Drugs, they were targeted by a federal prosecutor eager
to get a few more notches in his gun belt.

This same drug war has landed countless other young black men behind bars
young men perhaps not as bright and promising as the Garrisons, but who
nevertheless had the potential to become productive, taxpaying citizens.

In 1995, according to a nonprofit research group called the Sentencing
Project, nearly one-third of black men between the ages of 20 and 29 were
under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system --- incarcerated, on
parole or on probation.

That devastating statistic cannot be explained by a greater predilection
for drugs among black Americans. While blacks constitute about 13 percent
of all drug users, we account for 35 percent of arrests for drug possession
and an astounding 74 percent of all prison sentences for drug possession.
African-Americans frequently can't afford the high-priced lawyers who get
clients' sentences reduced to probation or the expensive drug treatment
centers to which the affluent (such as Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's troubled
daughter, Noelle) have access.

This mean-spirited and yet futile drug war has devastated black America,
sending nonviolent young men to prison during the years when they might
instead become responsible, wage-earning parents. It's no wonder that so
many black children lack fathers in their lives.

It's about time the nation faced up to an obvious truth: The War on Drugs
is little more than a punitive assault on low-level drug users. With more
dangerous criminals to round up --- such as Islamist terrorists --- law
enforcement officials ought to quietly walk away from this losing drug
battle. They can start by freeing the Garrisons.