ANOTHER PROHIBITION, ANOTHER FAILURE

SANTA FE, N.M. -- While many Americans followed the coverage of President
Clinton's symbolic gesture granting clemency to two federal drug offenders
last week, an important development in national drug policy received less
attention: Mr. Clinton became the first sitting president to question the
impact of our nation's war on drugs.

In a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Clinton said he supported
decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana and an end to the disparity
in sentencing for offenses involving crack and powder cocaine. He also
questioned the use of mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and
called for serious reconsideration of the federal imprisonment policies
that result in hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders winding
up behind bars for years.

I hope that governors, members of Congress and other elected officials will
take note of Mr. Clinton's comments. Americans want policies that save
lives, keep drugs out of the hands of children and humanely treat those
suffering from drug addiction. The drug war accomplishes none of
that. Too many Americans have lost faith in our approach to the war on
drugs, as shown on Election Day when voters in five states approved various
ballot initiatives that moderate harsh drug policies, including some
measures that allow drug treatment instead of prison for nonviolent
offenders or approve the medical use of marijuana when it is recommended by
a doctor.

As governor of New Mexico, I have called repeatedly for a serious
reevaluation of our current drug strategies. I'm neither soft on crime nor
pro-drugs in any sense. Yet when I ask whether our costly, protracted war
on drugs has made the world safer for our children, I must answer no.

The federal anti-drug budget in 1980 was roughly $1 billion. By 2000, that
number had climbed to nearly $20 billion, with the states spending at least
that much. Yet according to the federal government's own research, drugs
are cheaper, purer and more readily available than ever before.

As a nation we now have nearly half a million people behind bars on drug
charges, more than the total prison population in all of Western
Europe. And the burden of this explosion in incarceration falls
disproportionately on black and Latino communities.

When we consider the social and public health costs, the illogic of our
distinction between legal and illegal drugs is staggering. Nearly 70
million Americans have smoked marijuana, which remains the third-most
popular recreational drug in the country after tobacco and alcohol.

Deaths attributable to marijuana are very rare. In fact, deaths from all
illegal drugs combined, including cocaine and heroin, are fewer than 20,000
annually. By contrast, more than 450,000 Americans die each year from
tobacco or alcohol use ( not counting drunk-driving fatalities ). Should
we outlaw liquor and cigarettes? Ask anyone who remembers our nation's
disastrous experiment with alcohol prohibition.

Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the drug war, in fact, is the crime
and violence that drug prohibition generates. Without achieving anything
like the goal of a drug-free America, our policies have empowered a lethal
black market, complete with international armies of latter-day Al
Capones. Their warfare against each other and against law enforcement will
not be stopped until the public takes the regulation and control of their
commodity away from them.

We might look to Holland as a model. The Dutch, who decriminalized
marijuana in 1976 and treat drug addiction medically rather than
criminally, enjoy far lower rates of crime and drug use than we do.

It is not outlandish to suggest that an alternative approach might lead to
less drug-related harm, less imprisonment and less crime in America as
well. Let me be very clear: We must never tolerate the violence resulting
from the use of drugs. But neither should we, nor do we have to, tolerate
the needless casualties of drug prohibition.

Here in New Mexico, I am looking for new ways to deal with drug- related
problems at the state level. We are working to redirect our resources into
drug education programs; into harm reduction programs like needle exchange
for injection drug users, which has been proven by numerous government
studies to reduce the spread of diseases like AIDS and hepatitis without
increasing drug use; and into treatment programs like methadone
maintenance, the treatment proven most effective for heroin addiction.

President Clinton's recent words on drug-policy reforms were a welcome
first step. His comments should be the start of a new national debate, and
not simply the last word of a departing administration.