THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE - STOP THE DRUG WAR

The "will of the people" is all the rage these days. If it were a movie,
they'd be lining up the Oscars. If it were a stock, it would be soaring. If
it were a toy, it would be this year's Furby. It's getting even better buzz
than "the rule of law." "This is a time to honor the true will of the
people," said Al Gore last week, after earlier claiming that all that
mattered was "making sure that the will of the American people is expressed
and accurately received."

I'm glad everyone is now singing the praises of the innate and infinite
wisdom of the American voter. But while the people's choice for president
may come down to a smudged postmark on a rejected absentee ballot, there's
at least one issue on which the American people provided a crystal clear
indication of what their will is: the war on drugs. They want a cease-fire.

Two weeks ago, voters in five states overwhelmingly passed drug policy
reform initiatives, including Prop. 36 in California, which will shift the
criminal justice system's focus from incarceration to treatment. The measure
garnered more than 60 percent of the popular vote, 7 percent more than Al
Gore received in the state, and 18 percent more than George W. Bush. Now
that, ladies and gentlemen, is a mandate.

In fact, since 1996, 17 of the 19 drug policy reform initiatives have
passed. But despite this rather unambiguous expression of the popular will,
politicians have repeatedly failed to honor it. When the people of
California, for example, voted in 1996 to allow the medical use of
marijuana, then-Gov. Pete Wilson called it "a mistake" that "effectively
legalizes the sale of marijuana," while the federal government went to court
to overturn the wishes of the electorate.

But perhaps this year, with the margins of victory growing enviably higher,
politicians are beginning to see the writing -- smudges, dimpled, hanging
and otherwise -- on the voting booth wall. When Prop. 36 passed despite
being solidly opposed by the California political establishment, the
response of Gov. Gray Davis, who had campaigned against it, was: "The people
have spoken."

And thank God, because it's in Davis' state that their voices will have the
greatest impact since a third of California's inmates are behind bars on
drug charges. Under Prop. 36, up to 36,000 nonviolent drug offenders and
parole violators are expected to be put into treatment programs instead. The
initiative earmarks $120 million annually to fund these programs, as well as
family counseling and job and literacy training.

With its shift from high-cost imprisonment to low-cost, high-common-sense
treatment, Prop. 36 is estimated to save taxpayers more than $200 million a
year -- and an additional half a billion dollars by eliminating the need for
new prisons. As UC Berkeley professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore pointed out,
"California has spent more than $5 billion building and expanding more than
23 prisons in the past 20 years, while only one new university has been
built from the ground up."

At the same time, voters in Utah and Oregon passed by enormous margins -- 69
and 66 percent, respectively -- initiatives designed to make it harder for
police to seize the property of suspected drug offenders. Just as
significantly, all proceeds from forfeited assets will now be used to fund
drug treatment or public education programs instead of to fill the coffers
of law enforcement agencies. Both measures were backed by people from across
the ideological spectrum concerned with property rights, civil rights and
racial justice.

And in Nevada and Colorado, voters passed initiatives making marijuana legal
for medical use -- joining Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maine,
Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile, post-election editorials in papers across the country reflected
the public's radical rethinking of the drug war. Newsweek even devoted its
election week cover story to "America's Prison Generation," about the 14
million mostly black or Latino Americans who will spend part of their lives
behind bars -- the huge increase being largely the result of drug war
policies.

"The future of drug policy reform," said Ethan Nadelmann, who heads The
Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, "will be at the state and local
levels, where people are searching for pragmatic solutions to local drug
problems. The White House and the new Congress should stay tuned."

In a further indication of a shift in the political wind, a prominent member
of Congress, Benjamin A. Gilman, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House
International Relations Committee, last week suddenly withdrew his support
of our $1.3 billion drug war aid package to Colombia, citing military abuses
there as evidence that the U.S. is embarking on a "major mistake."

As for our two presidents-in-waiting, they have said remarkably little about
the drug war -- other than that they plan to get tougher on it. But if
either candidate enjoyed the support that drug reform did, he'd be packing
boxes now. The resounding success of drug policy reform initiatives makes it
clear that whoever ends up occupying the Oval Office had better change his
tune if he intends to do more than pay lip service to honoring the will of
the people.