DRUG WAR'S OTHER TOLL

Children And Spouses Also Suffer When Nonviolent Users Do Time

Once upon a time, Jeff Coleman earned an upper-middle income in suburban
Sacramento, Calif., as a wholesaler for a large insurance company. His
wife, Bernadette, helped care for their two children, Colton, 3, and Morgan, 6.

But now, 38-year-old Jeff Coleman struggles to visit his wife, Bernadette
Soares Coleman, at the Indiana Women's Prison on Indianapolis' Eastside.

Bernadette, a trained dental surgical technician, has been in local jails
since November 2000 after writing herself phony prescriptions for
codeine-based medicines, to which she says she is addicted.

"I'm doing everything I can to keep my head above water," said Jeff
Coleman, who lived with his family in Franklin for part of 1998 and 1999
after a temporary job transfer. "Psychologically, it's devastating for
these guys (his children) because they haven't been able to see their mom."

He says he's spent $50,000 so far on his wife's legal expenses: "I've run
out of money."

Because his insurance job requires traveling throughout the Pacific Coast
area, he hired a nanny to care for his kids, but it didn't work out.
Lately, he's tried staying home and working the phones more, but his sales
are way down, and he's worried that he'll be fired. He was able to see his
wife for the first time in a year in October.

The Colemans' story is not unusual. By some estimates, nearly 25 percent of
America's prison inmates are behind bars for drug-related offenses. There
were 1.9 million Americans incarcerated in the year 2000, according to the
U.S. Justice Department.

Many of those drug-offenders are indeed a menace to society -- gang
members, drug runners for international cartels, and career criminals.

Yet Bernadette Coleman has never been accused of a violent crime; she was
never charged with dealing drugs.

She is a user, and now she sits behind bars. She participates in parenting
and substance-abuse programs and recently was baptized. She also is on call
as a medical management aide 24 hours a day. She won't get out of jail
until 2004 at the earliest.

"My daughter is in first grade," she said during a break in her day at the
women's prison, which houses about 350 inmates. "She doesn't know why she
can't see Mommy. She doesn't know why Mommy is in Indiana. I haven't told
her I'm in jail because I don't want her saying that in school and being
taunted by the other children."

While Washington policy makers and ordinary Americans debate the wisdom and
effectiveness of the war on drugs, the casualties include more than those
behind bars -- the law enforcement officials who risk their lives and the
taxpayers who ultimately fund it.

They also include the families of those incarcerated such as Jeff Coleman
and his two young children.

Mark Greer heads DrugSense, a California-based organization that says it's
"dedicated to collecting and disseminating accurate information on drug
policy."

"I really don't think that illicit drugs and the incarceration-
interdiction model is the right way to approach drug policy," said Greer.
"It should be a medical model." Treatment, not jail time, in other words.

Greer estimates that about one-quarter of the nation's prison population
overall are behind bars for non-violent drug offenses, as in the case of
Bernadette Coleman. He says that 1 million children are without a parent
because of incarceration for such nonviolent drug offenses.

"It's impossible to think we're better off as a society with that kind of
policy," said Greer.

Started 10 Years Ago

Bernadette Coleman began writing prescriptions for herself about 10 years
ago. It was easy -- she filled out blank prescription forms and took them
to different pharmacies. The codeine relaxed her.

"I was very secretive," she said. "I only had one friend who knew what I
was doing, and she didn't try to swing me one way or another."

Bernadette was using when she met her husband-to-be and told him prior to
their marriage. Jeff Coleman says he was determined to stand by her, but
hoped the problem would somehow go away in time.

When Jeff was transferred to Indiana for a short time three years ago, his
wife brought her bad habit with her.

She was caught twice writing phony prescriptions for herself in Indiana.
The first time, she was given a largely suspended sentence, including home
detention. The second time the court was less lenient, going so far as to
extradite her from her home near Sacramento after she had returned there.

She claims she started using again after legally taking a prescription
cough medicine that contained codeine.

But what is the best way to treat people like Bernadette Coleman and other
small-time offenders?

The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse found 14 million "current
users" of illicit drugs in 2000. About 8 million of them were primarily
marijuana users, while another 1.2 million primarily indulged in cocaine,
mostly the traditional white powder variety, but also crack cocaine.

The federal government will spend $18.1 billion on anti-drug programs in
fiscal year 2001, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

One suggestion to ease the burden of the war on drugs is to legalize some
substances, or at least offer diversion programs and alternative sentencing
for low-level offenders such as Bernadette Coleman and others.

New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is the highest-ranking government official in
America to call for just that. He believes the so-called war on drugs is a
multi-billion dollar bust.

"I'm not pro-drug here. I'm against drugs," Johnson told the libertarian
Cato Institute in 1999, as quoted by CNN. "Should you go to jail for just
doing drugs? I say no. I say you shouldn't."

Johnson, a Republican, has admitted having used marijuana and cocaine when
he was younger.

While about 25 percent of the nation's inmates are behind bars for
drug-related offenses, it is difficult to know how many of those are
nonviolent offenders. But some data exists.

For example, one report suggests that more than half of California's drug
offender population was arrested for simple possession. Another study done
in New York found that 70 percent of that state's drug offenders had been
arrested for nonviolent crimes.

In Indiana, there is no shortage of nonviolent drug offenders behind bars.

Naugle Gibson is a lot like other prison inmates in Indiana and across the
country -- he's young, black and lacks a high school diploma.

And he's an admitted marijuana user.

"I got locked up when I was 16 on a marijuana case," said Gibson, 19, who
expects to be released from the Plainfield Correctional Facility in 2004.
"I couldn't do nothing, and I couldn't work."

Many teens used marijuana where he lived, around 21st Street and College
Avenue, he says, and it was only normal to grow up like the people around you.

"Marijuana gets you laid back," said Gibson. "Alcohol gets you geeked out
where you can't drive a car."

Gibson says that when he was locked up, his girlfriend was pregnant. She
hasn't visited him behind bars, and he assumes that she and their baby now
are on public assistance.

He dreams of becoming a professional musician one day. When he gets of out
jail, he'll try first to get a job with his uncle's construction business.

Scott Polster also occupies a bed at the Plainfield facility. The Perry
County native has been behind bars since June.

He was incarcerated for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Police in Cannelton found the stuff in his car during a routine traffic
stop; he was on probation at the time for a previous drug offense.

Polster, too, has a girlfriend and a baby he never sees, and few prospects
for the future. He's studying welding while in jail.

"All I do is keep my mind occupied with my studies and lifting weights,"
said Polster, 29. "Time goes by faster if you don't count the days."

Polster thinks it's a waste of taxpayer money to keep people like him
behind bars, though he does not claim that he is innocent. By state
statute, Indiana prisoners cost about $19,000 per year to house.

Polster says he knows a lot of people who use marijuana regularly, but
haven't been caught.

"I like it to a certain extent," Polster said. "But if it's going to take
away my freedom, I've got to either leave it alone or come back to a place
like this."

It may seem that people such as Coleman, Gibson and Polster are no harm to
anyone other than themselves. Yet releasing such non-violent offenders, who
might then be able to get treatment in their communities and remain with
their families, does not always work.

Nothing Stopped Her

Coleman was arrested several times throughout the 1990s near her home in
Northern California, but received little more than a slap on the wrist, as
she was typically sentenced to educational or treatment programs.

"There was no consequence," Coleman admitted. "Maybe there was probation
for six months. I can guarantee you if I had a stiff sentence the first
time, I never would have reoffended."

And drug policy hard-liners also can point to data supporting strict
enforcement. For example, drug use is highly correlated with other kinds of
criminal activity.

In 1999, the Indiana Department of Corrections, which currently has about
20,000 inmates under lock and key, reported about 80 percent of its state
prisoners had a history of significant substance abuse, according to the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, which collects data from the
various states.

In Marion County, drugs were associated with 62 percent of all reported
assaults in 1998, as well as 52 percent of child-abuse incidents, 68
percent of manslaughter charges and 49 percent of all murders.

Such damning statistics are just one of the reasons many experts are
against liberalization of drug laws. Capt. Robert Snow, commander of the
homicide unit for the Indianapolis Police Department, says about 75 percent
of the murders he investigates annually involve drug offenses.

He scoffs at policy changes that would legalize some drugs.

"It's not going to be that every heroin user is going to say, 'Now I can be
a doctor or lawyer,' " said Snow. "They'd still be a heroin or crack
addict. The only difference would be that the price would be cheaper."

Snow also doesn't like the message legalization would send to young adults,
and he believes that, while it might ease the burden on the nation's
overcrowded prisons, it also would create more users.

"About 2 or 3 percent of people who drink become an alcoholic," Snow said.
"Everyone who uses heroin or crack becomes addicted."

Yet some observers insist that the government must step in and regulate
drug use -- basically sell the drugs -- though perhaps on condition that
users sign up for education and treatment programs. This is part of the
medical model for dealing with the drug problem.

Government control of the drug trade also allegedly would cut into so-
called international terrorism, which is believed to use drug profits to
fund activities in Afghanistan, Colombia and perhaps elsewhere.

"People should be able to admit they're addicted without fear of getting
arrested, so they can get help," said Jane Marcus, an administrator at
Stanford University who has studied drug policy at the school's Hoover
Institution.

"The major change to the paradigm should be that this is a not a criminal
justice problem. This is a medical problem."

The Indiana Department of Corrections currently offers treatment programs
to inmates with a proven history of substance abuse, says department
spokeswoman Pam Pattison.

Still, even among reformers, there is no consensus on just what changes
should be made to the nation's drug policy.

Jason Hutchens is adjunct senior fellow at the Indianapolis-based Hudson
Institute and co-author of Blueprint for a Drug-Free Future, published this
year by Hudson. He's calling for accountability in all drug treatment
programs, as well as a "coercive deterrent" system that works on the demand
side of the drug problem (i.e., users), in combination with a treatment option.

He remains suspicious, though, of a purely medical model for intervention.

"With cancer, you don't have a choice," said Hutchens. "Marijuana (use) is
not a disease. You do have a choice about it."

For Bernadette Coleman, there's little she can do but hope for a
modification of her sentence on appeal. As things now stand, her earliest
release date is Aug. 26, 2004.

"I'm not arguing that a prison sentence was out of order," she said. "I was
definitely out of control.

"But when does it stop being justice, or stop being paying my debt to
society, and when does it start being a waste of taxpayer money? I'm not a
threat to the people of Indiana."