LET SERIOUS DRUG POLICY REFORM BEGIN

As America's drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, leaves office, we find the
use of steroids, ecstasy and other drugs is up nationally, despite a
federal drug-fighting budget in the billions.

We find Rio Arriba leads New Mexico counties in per-capita drug
overdose fatalities, with 16 deaths last year. Since the beginning of
1999, 70 have died in Rio Arriba and Santa Fe counties alone. Per
capita, New Mexico is the worst in the nation in drug overdose deaths.

People are dying, prisons are filling up and treatment facilities are
inadequate. It is time to seek "common sense" drug policy reform.

That is what Gov. Gary Johnson asked for in creating a special
committee last summer; that is what he has received in its
recommendations to him this week. What is needed next is for the
Legislature to objectively consider the drug-related bills Johnson
has promised to present, including a bill to decriminalize possession
of small amounts of marijuana.

To some, the proposals will be anathema. But it is important to note,
as the committee points out in its letter to Johnson, that much of
current drug policy -- and public perception -- "is based on
misleading and even patently false information about illegal drugs.
... Even more disturbing, (we) determined that false information
frequently comes from sources that we expect to be reliable,
including our own federal government."

Johnson has been criticized, with reason, for shooting from the hip
in advocating radical drug policy changes, without details and
underlying analysis. That criticism loses validity with the work of
this committee. Comprised of New Mexicans familiar with the state,
its 10 members have extensive and varied expertise in health,
community issues, law enforcement and the courts.

Current drug policy, the committee found, is "expensive, harmful to
families, wasting taxpayer money, filling prisons and is not letting
the Legislature prioritize its resources," in the words of chairman
W. C. "Woody" Smith, a retired state court judge. "What we've been
doing for decades is make things worse."

The committee approached its task, as Johnson requested, in terms of
"harm reduction." What could the state do with drug policy to
decrease death, disease, crime and suffering, and at the same time
exercise fiscal responsibility with taxpayer dollars?

The state Department of Health has already acted to reduce harm in
northern New Mexico: On Wednesday it delivered to Espanola Valley
doctors 100 syringes of naloxone (cost to the state: $1.50 each), a
drug which reverses the deadly effects of overdosing on heroin,
morphine or methadone. Dr. Steve Jenison, of the state Public Health
Division, and Alex Valdez, state health secretary, helped facilitate
the action; both are members of the drug policy committee.

State Police would like to train officers in administering naloxone,
but first want the Legislature to pass a law protecting them from
possible lawsuits.

The panel also recommends amending laws to allow the sale of sterile
syringes in pharmacies and to allow doctor-prescribed medical use of
marijuana. It recommends amendment of criminal statutes on drug
possession to reduce first and second offenses to misdemeanors, as is
done in Arizona and California, and require treatment rather than
jail time.

It suggests a number of ways to make effective treatment available
and to enhance drug education. It points out that particular
attention should be paid to the needs of children and teen-agers
suffering from mental illnesses who are self-medicating with alcohol
and other drugs.

It is time for a re-examination of thinking about drugs. It is time
to shift focus from imprisonment to treatment and prevention, from
fear and ignorance to education.

It is imperative that this panel continue in some form. It behooves
the Legislature to develop a comprehensive statewide drug policy. For
starters, lawmakers should conduct a meaningful impact analysis of
what current laws, incarceration and lack of treatment cost the
state, not only in actual dollars, but in terms of lost wages, broken
families, school dropout rates and lost lives.