CHANGING ATTITUDES ON THE DRUG WAR

A movie. A governor. A president. All three have shifted the debate on
drugs more constructively in recent weeks than years of "war" rhetoric ever
did, or could.

The movie is Traffic, an artful message to the masses - and Congress, it is
turning out - that border fortifications, criminal chases and prosecutions
have negligible impact on drug addiction, and indeed may generate more
corruption than true drug reduction.

Senate Judiciary. Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who played a
cameo role in Traffic, told a Washington Post interviewer the movie had
been a "final tipping point convincing him to shift more government funds
toward treatment and prevention.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary
Committee, said he'd been most impressed by the climactic quote of the drug
czar (played by Michael Douglas) - "I don't see how you can wage a 'war' on
your own family."

Amplified by intensive press commentary, an Oscar nomination for Best
Picture and subsequent Academy Awards in four categories, along with five
consecutive follow-up evenings on ABC's Nightline, Traffic may focus
popular attitudes on the drug war's futility in ways we editorialists could
never achieve.

But one of the nation's governors is also making a major impact. He's Gary
Johnson, a conservative Republican from New Mexico who openly declares:
"The war on drugs is a miserable failure. Drugs are a medical, not a
criminal problem."

Johnson's 1999 call for a totally fresh approach on drugs, including
legalization of marijuana and possibly heroin, seemed like a lonely cry in
the wilderness. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, then the White House drug czar, flew
in to condemn him. His political approval rating plummeted. He himself says
it seemed "I'd committed political suicide."

But Johnson kept up the reform drumbeat, shifting from his first focus on
legalization to more emphasis on treatment, sentencing reform, education,
and a new phrase in the debate - "harm reduction."

"This isn't about condoning drug use," says Johnson. He draws a parallel to
alcohol: It's legal to drink at home or in a bar, but it's criminal if you
imbibe, get in a car and hurt someone. The same harm rule, he says, should
apply to drugs.

This year Johnson pushed eight major reform bills with his Legislature.
Adopt them, he said in his State of the State address, "and I guarantee
that prison rates will drop, violent crime will decrease, property crime
will decrease, overdose deaths will decrease, AIDS and Hepatitis C will
decrease and more of those needing treatment for drug abuse will receive
treatment."

A short adjournment schedule truncated action on several Johnson
proposals, including decriminalization of marijuana and a measure providing
probation and treatment for first- and second-time drug offenders.

But the Legislature did vote for early release and increased transitional
treatment services for women convicted of nonviolent, drug-related crimes -
a measure destined to reunite many with their children. The lawmakers
agreed to distribute sterile syringes to addicts through pharmacies (dirty
needles are a major factor in the spread of HIV). They voted to increase
availability of naxolone, which reverses the effects of heroine overdoses.
And to restore voting rights to felons - many of whom were convicted of
drug crimes - on completion of their sentences.

A scattering of states, from Vermont to Rhode Island to Oregon, California
and Hawaii, has passed individual drug liberalization measures, notes
reform leader Ethan Nadelmann of the George Soros- backed Lindesmith
Center. "But no state has taken on the comprehensive approach like New Mexico."

Indeed, before Johnson, no other governor, in three decades of debate on
U.S. drug problems, had ever leveled with his people about the true costs
of the drug war.

On several occasions I interviewed New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, whose
draconian state laws setting 15-year-to-life sentences for possessing or
selling minuscule amounts of narcotics were emulated across the nation,
imprisoning literally millions of low-level offenders. Rockefeller was
progressive on most issues. He believed in racial tolerance - also violated
by the inordinate impact of his laws on blacks and Hispanics. I believe
he'd hang his head in shame if he knew the impact they've had over three
decades.

This year, New York's Legislature is finally debating liberalization of the
Rockefeller-era drug laws.

Finally, there's a president making a critical difference on drugs. No,
it's not our president. It's Mexico's Vicente Fox, who's just announced he
favors legalization of drugs - as long as it's done on a multinational
basis. Criminalizing drugs, says Fox, "has not lowered consumption. To the
contrary, it has grown."

And President Bush? So far he's said little and appointed no drug czar.
Appropriate enough for a man once arrested for DUI. Serious drug reform is
most likely to originate in the states anyway. Still, think of the
redemptive power of a President Bush urging the same magnanimity for minor
drug users that American voters showed him.

Neal B. Peirce is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers
Group. (Copyright Washington Post Writers Group)