SUPPORT GROWS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICIES

There's a dangerous outbreak of common sense occurring, and it is being
fueled by such incendiary organizations as the Cato Institute and the
Lindesmith Center.

The target is this nation's lunatic, self-destructive war on drugs, which
has trampled the Fourth and Sixth amendments to the Constitution and
imprisoned hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders. Those
fortunate enough not to be shot during searches by paramilitary police
units often have had their property confiscated, even when police and
prosecutors have no proof that they were involved in illegal drug transactions.

The assault on civil liberties by the anti-drug warriors is finally
galvanizing serious thinkers and a few enlightened politicians into action.
Courageous public officials such as Gary E. Johnson, the Republican
governor of New Mexico, are saying loudly and clearly that the war on drugs
has failed and that states must take a completely different approach to
minimizing drug use.

Last May, Johnson appointed a drug policy advisory group, which included
judges, New Mexico's secretaries of health and of public safety, the mayor
of Albuquerque and medical experts, to evaluate his state's drug policies.
The panel released its recommendations last week, and they are the most
comprehensive and far-reaching reforms proposed by any official agency.
Citing the "devastating effects" of drugs and alcohol on the people of New
Mexico, and the expensive failure of current policies, the panel's
chairman, retired state District Court Judge Woody Smith, called for
confronting drug abuse primarily as a public health, medical and social
problem, not a criminal offense.

The panel recommended making treatment for drug addiction available to
anyone who requests it, as well as sweeping reforms such as the open sale
of sterile syringes in pharmacies. The panel was particularly troubled by
the "patently false information about illegal drugs" it came across in its
research.

The panel sharply rebuked the federal government for spreading falsehoods
about drug use. It urged amending criminal statutes to reduce first and
second drug offenses to misdemeanors and to require automatic probation and
treatment rather than jail for offenders. It also recommended removing all
criminal penalties for possession of marijuana for personal use and
abolishing mandatory-minimum sentences for drug offenses, restoring
discretion to judges.

Johnson is backing all of the recommendations and has called upon the
legislature to pass eight reform bills this session.

Meanwhile, in New York, where the 1973 Rockefeller drug laws are among the
most punitive in the nation, Republican Gov. George E. Pataki has called
for changing some of these laws. "Today," he said in his State of the State
address, "we can conclude that however well intentioned, key aspects of
those laws are out of step with both the times and the complexities of drug
addiction." Tens of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders in New York have
done hard time as a result of the Rockefeller drug laws, which served as
the model for some of the harshest federal drug laws.

The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, which is funded by financier
George Soros, is among the leading advocates of abandoning the war on drugs
in favor of a comprehensive approach based on public health and harm
reduction. It estimates that the cost of state and federal enforcement of
current drug policies is well over $40 billion a year.

The Cato Institute, which developed the idea of privatizing part of Social
Security, has been working closely with the Lindesmith Center to build
public support for drug reform. Its most recent effort is a collection of
essays edited by Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's project on criminal justice.

The name of the book is "After Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug
Policies in the 21st Century." The foreword is by Republican economist
Milton Friedman, and the essays are among the most damning indictments of
the war on drugs ever assembled in one volume.

These heartening developments are changing the debate more rapidly than
even the most optimistic drug reformers would have believed possible a year
ago. When governors as diverse as Johnson, Pataki and Minnesota's Jesse
Ventura call for drug law reform, others can step forward without the fear
of being labeled soft on crime.

Until now, we have had hysteria instead of sensible debate about the best
way to deal with the wreckage brought on families, society and the
Constitution by illegal drugs and the failed war against them. One of the
most grievous casualties has been the First Amendment: Few have dared
question the war on drugs, and even fewer have been willing to raise hell
about searches and forfeitures of property that would have sent the framers
of the Constitution into a frenzy.

A fact of American life is that if you get cross-ways with someone and that
person calls the law and says you are a drug dealer, police can do a
midnight raid on your house, trash it, confiscate it – and you have no
recourse whatsoever. As David P. Kopel points out in his essay in "After
Prohibition," "not even King George III had the temerity to order such
raids on people's homes."

Bringing common sense to our drug policies will not be easy. The prison and
law enforcement industries have become powerful lobbies. Thousands of jobs
are at stake. Drug policy reformers can expect to be vilified as soft on
crime. But despite the risk of political calumny, drug reform is gaining
momentum in state after state. Someday we will look back upon this siege of
drug enforcement hysteria and be appalled. That day may come sooner than we
think.