A CONSERVATIVE JUDGE INDICTS THE WAR ON DRUGS

WHY OUR DRUG LAWS HAVE FAILED AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs, By James P. Gray
Temple University Press, 288 pages, $19.95 paper

On April 8, 1992, Judge James P. Gray walked out of his courtroom and
into the sunny plaza behind the courthouse in Santa Ana, Calif. For a
judge, he did the most unusual, almost unimaginable thing: He held a
press conference at which he announced his conclusion that this
country's attempts through the criminal justice system to combat drug
use and abuse, and all of the crime and misery that accompany them, were
a failure.

What brought this conservative Republican judge from Orange County,
Calif., to the edge of judicial propriety? With the movie "Traffic"
winning a number of Academy Awards and featuring cameo appearances by
United States senators, the war on drugs has become a topic of
conversation in living rooms throughout the nation.

Polls now show 65 percent of the public believe that war is lost. No
wonder that government spinmasters are frantically searching for a new
name so the war can be declared over and the game continue under the
mantle of a different metaphor!

In a courtroom, an indictment must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
There is no reasonable doubt the war on drugs has been an unmitigated
fiasco, and any number of books have been written and television shows
produced vivisecting the spiraling failures of this misbegotten policy.

What, then, does "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About
It" add to the discourse? It is the first book written by a sitting
judge who has had to engage in the wrenching task of enforcing laws he
knows from the bottom of his heart are foolish and ineffective. It
brings the angst of "Waiting for Godot" into a hard-fought reality.

Before his appointment to the bench, Gray served as a federal prosecutor
in Los Angeles, as a criminal defense attorney and as a lawyer in the
Judge Advocate General Corps in the U.S. Navy. In 1998, he made an
unsuccessful run as a Republican for the U.S. Congress against Bob
Dornan. Before law school, he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica.

Gray has confronted illegal drugs from every vantage point and writes
with the authority not just of rank, but also of one hardened by combat.

The subtitle, "A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs," precisely
identifies his charge. His language is clear, dignified and
encompassing. Rather than a polemic, Gray has produced a thorough
consideration of the evidence, treated opposing views with respect and
arrived at his indictment on the basis of calm reflection.

His courage of conviction is evident as he takes on every controversy in
the drug war. For example, he states that politicians continue to
support the war on drugs, knowing full well that it is not winnable, but
because it is "fundable." His strongest message, thoroughly documented,
is that however harmful the ingestion of drugs might be to users,
attempts at their prohibition have made matters far worse - threatening,
and in some instances obliterating, our basic rights to life, liberty
and property.

Though Gray is far too dignified to use such an analogy, one could say
that the drug war has transformed his beloved jealous mistress of the
law into a hapless hooker. He details how prosecutors and federal
control of police agencies have chipped away at constitutional
protections and corrupted the very institutions created to ensure those
guarantees.

"We should not be surprised by this corruption in high places," he
writes, "which, of course, breeds disrespect for our government and
institutions along the way. Long ago, no less an intellect than Albert
Einstein, Time Magazine's "Man of the Century,' warned us that this
problem was directly linked to laws of prohibition."

Thankfully, Gray thinks with the cool deliberation of a judge, but
avoids the obtuse constructions and oblique references of a lawyer. His
restrained passion makes the book invaluable to anyone interested in
understanding our society's most important and pervasive contemporary
issue.

"Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It" is indeed an
indictment - and to that indictment our national drug policy should
plead: "Guilty as charged."