ROBERT DOWNEY'S PROBLEM--AND OURS

I hope that when Hollywood gets around to making "The Robert Downey Jr.
Story," Downey gets to play himself. He is one of the few screen actors
around who has the talent, not to mention the experience, to convince the
American people that a drug addict is a sick person and not a criminal. But
in the movie, as in life itself, Downey will be a jailbird.

At least that's the way it now looks. Having been busted on drug charges
last week, he was jailed overnight and is due back in court Dec. 27 for a
hearing. The actor was allegedly found in a conked-out state, and police
discovered cocaine and methamphetamines in his hotel room. He has been down
this road before.

It was only last August that Downey got out of Corcoran State Prison. He
had served a bit more than a year of an original three-year sentence.
Corcoran is where Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan, killers both, are held.
It is hard, hard time.

With Manson and Sirhan we can all name their victims. But who is Downey's?
It has to be himself. He has committed no violent crime, robbed no bank
nor, may I add, offered me a cell phone service that works only sporadically.

The Palm Springs bust is illustrative. The Merv Griffin Resort Hotel and
Givenchy Spa received no complaints and was blissfully unaware that in one
of its rooms, a famous actor was determinedly sabotaging his career. Not so
much as a towel was taken.

To say that Downey has a problem is to understate matters by a considerable
degree. He has lost his wife, his child and--it may turn out--his career.
He has put a fortune up his nose and, like any addict, lied to friends and
loved ones. His first allegiance, his only allegiance, is to his next fix.
I pity the man.

But I do not fear him. That is to say, I do not fear him any more than I do
an alcoholic. I would not want either driving a car while zonked. But
neither one is a criminal just on account of his addiction. If they steal
to get drugs (or if they drive drunk), then they have committed a crime.
Even then, though, what they need is treatment, not mere incarceration. Too
often what they get is jail time.

Downey's is the perfect face of the war on drugs. Just as his real victim
is himself, so we have made war on ourselves. The lust for arrests has
caused police agencies to throw the Constitution to the wind and,
frequently, stop people on the probable cause of being black or Hispanic.
On the New Jersey Turnpike, at least eight out of 10 searches made by state
troopers were of minorities. Seventy percent of the time, they came up
empty-handed, leaving a residue of bitterness and the rest of us no safer.

Until a recent Supreme Court ruling, some police departments established
roadblocks designed to catch people with drugs. Applying common sense, the
court said that a sobriety checkpoint was designed to protect the public
from drunk drivers, but possession of drugs was a different matter. That's
a law enforcement issue and, as the Constitution requires, a warrant is
necessary. Searching every other car is hardly what you would call
"probable cause."

Prisoners convicted of drug-related crimes clog the jails. As with stops on
the Jersey Turnpike, the effect is racially disproportionate. Blacks make
up about 12 percent of the population but account for 62 percent of drug
offenders in state prisons. Altogether, federal prisons hold almost 240,000
persons convicted of drug--not violent--crimes, and the states hold about
200,000 more. This is an expensive proposition.

There's some evidence that Americans are getting fed up with a hard-line
approach to drugs. Voters in nine states have approved the use of marijuana
for medical necessity--three just this year alone. In California, voters
approved a referendum to have nonviolent drug offenders sentenced to
treatment facilities rather than to jail.

Downey, who has been in and out of treatment, is sad proof that it doesn't
always work. Some problems defy neat solutions--alcoholism, for one. But
the present policy does damage to the Constitution, makes criminals out of
mere users, divides us along racial and ethnic lines and has not materially
dented our drug problem when it comes to hard-core addicts. Downey himself
ought to make the movie. His only problem would be the "pitch." It's hard
to say whether our drug policy is a tragedy or a farce.